|xmlui.metadata.dc.contributor.author||Aegler, Carl A.||
|Date of Issue||1990-12||
|Description||iv, 59 leaves. Advisor: William Poston.||en
|Description||The problem: The purpose of this study was to
address the direct teaching of critical thinking and
problem solving skills, and to determine if the process
benefited fourth grade students by increasing scores on
a reading end-of-book test.
Procedures: Two similar, but not randomly
selected fourth grade classes, were chosen to take part
in this study. Both groups were given identical
criterion referenced end-of-book reading pretests. The
experimental group was then treated with the CoRT
program (Cognitive Research Trust). The CoRT program
emphasized the direct teaching of critical thinking
skills. The control group received regular reading
instruction during this period. After 12 weeks of
instruction in the CoRT Program, both groups were given
the post test to determine the gain which had occurred.
An ANCOVA was run on the data to make statistical
adjustments on the dependent variable or testing
device. Comparisons were made on the adjusted means.
Findings: A comparison of adjusted means
indicated that there were no statistically significance
differences between the experimental group and the
control group at the .05 level. The null hypothesis
was not rejected as a result of the findings. A delta
test was calculated to determine if there were
practical significance to the findings. The delta test
indicated that a practical significance did exist.
Conclusion: No statistically significant differences were found to exist between the
experimental and control groups. Consensus by leading
researchers support the findings of the statistical and
practical significance although only practical significance was supported by this study.
Recommendations: Testing and accurately measuring
the gain in critical thinking and problem solving skills is extremely hard to accomplish. The writer
suggests more research is needed to determine the
extent to which critical thinking skills can be taught.
Past research, coupled with encouraging results in this
study, indicated that the implementation of CoRT
critical thinking skills into the curriculum may
produce favorable results.||en
|xmlui.metadata.dc.relation.ispartofseries||Drake University Theses, School of Education;1990||
|Subject||Problem solving in children.||en
|Subject||Reading--Examinations, questions, etc.||en
|Title||The Direct Teaching of Thinking Skills for Improvement of Reading Test Results||en