theories of critical thinking in education

• Table of Contents
• Random Entry
• Chronological
• Editorial Information
• About the SEP
• Editorial Board
• How to Cite the SEP
• Special Characters
• Advanced Tools
• Support the SEP
• PDFs for SEP Friends
• Make a Donation
• SEPIA for Libraries
• Back to Entry
• Entry Contents
• Entry Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Friends PDF Preview
• Author and Citation Info
• Back to Top

Supplement to Critical Thinking

Educational methods.

Experiments have shown that educational interventions can improve critical thinking abilities and dispositions, as measured by standardized tests. Glaser (1941) developed teaching materials suitable for senior primary school, high school and college students. To test their effectiveness, he developed with his sponsor Goodwin Watson the Watson-Glaser Tests of Critical Thinking, whose descendants are in widespread global use under the name “Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal” (Watson & Glaser 1980a, 1980b, 1994). He found that senior secondary school students receiving 10 weeks of instruction using these materials improved their scores on these tests more than other such students receiving the standard English curriculum during the 10 weeks, to a degree that was statistically significant (i.e., probably not due to chance). More recently, Abrami et al. (2015) summarized in a meta-analysis the best available evidence on the effectiveness of various strategies for teaching students to think critically. The meta-analysis used as a measure of effectiveness a modified version of a statistical measure known as “Cohen’s d”: the ratio of a difference in mean score to the statistical deviation (SD) of the scores in a reference group. A difference of 0.2 SD is a small effect, a difference of 0.5 SD is a moderate effect, and a difference of 0.8 is a large effect (Cohen 1988: 25–27). Abrami et al. (2015) found a weighted mean effect size of 0.30 among 341 effect sizes, with effect sizes ranging from −1 to +2. This methodologically careful meta-analysis provides strong statistical evidence that explicit instruction for critical thinking can improve critical thinking abilities and dispositions, as measured by standardized tests.

Although contemporary meta-analysis provides a more justified verdict on claims of causal effectiveness than other methods of investigation, it does not give the reader an intuitive grasp of what difference a particular intervention makes to the lives of those who receive it. To get an appreciation of this difference, it helps to read the testimony of the teachers and students in the Laboratory School of Chicago where Dewey’s ideas obtained concreteness. The history of the school, written by two of its former teachers in collaboration with Dewey, makes the following claim for the effects of its approach:

As a result of this guarding and direction of their freedom, the children retained the power of initiative naturally present in young children through their inquisitive interests. This spirit of inquiry was given plenty of opportunity and developed with most of the children into the habit of trying a thing out for themselves. Thus, they gradually became familiar with, and to varying degrees skilled in, the use of the experimental method to solve problems in all areas of their experience. (Mayhew & Edwards 1936: 402–403)

A science teacher in the school wrote:

I think the children did get the scientific attitude of mind. They found out things for themselves. They worked out the simplest problems that may have involved a most commonplace and everyday fact in the manner that a really scientific investigator goes to work. (Mayhew & Edwards 1936: 403)

An alumna of the school summed up the character of its former students as follows:

It is difficult for me to be restrained about the character building results of the Dewey School. As the years have passed and as I have watched the lives of many Dewey School children, I have always been astonished at the ease which fits them into all sorts and conditions of emergencies. They do not vacillate and flounder under unstable emotions; they go ahead and work out the problem in hand, guided by their positively formed working habits. Discouragement to them is non-existent, almost ad absurdum. For that very fact, accomplishment in daily living is inevitable. Whoever has been given the working pattern of tackling problems has a courage born of self-confidence and achieves. (Mayhew & Edwards 1936: 406–407)

In the absence of control groups, of standardized tests, and of statistical methods of controlling for confounding variables, such testimonies are weak evidence of the effectiveness of educational interventions in developing the abilities and dispositions of a critical thinker—in Dewey’s conception, a scientific attitude. But they give a vivid impression of what might be accomplished in an educational system that takes the development of critical thinking as a goal.

Dewey established the Laboratory School explicitly as an experiment to test his theory of knowledge, which

emphasized the part in the development of thought of problems which originated in active situations and also the necessity of testing thought by action if thought was to pass over into knowledge. (Dewey 1936: 464)

Hence the curriculum of the school started from situations familiar to children from their home life (such as preparing food and making clothing) and posed problems that the children were to solve by doing things and noting the consequences. This curriculum was adjusted in the light of its observed results in the classroom.

The school’s continued experimentation with the subject matter of the elementary curriculum proved that classroom results were best when activities were in accord with the child’s changing interests, his growing consciousness of the relation of means and ends, and his increasing willingness to perfect means and to postpone satisfactions in order to arrive at better ends…. The important question for those guiding this process of growth, and of promoting the alignment and cooperation of interest and effort, is this. What specific subject-matter or mode of skill has such a vital connection with the child’s interest, existing powers, and capabilities as will extend the one [the interest–DH] and stimulate, exercise, and carry forward the others [the powers and capabilities–DH] in a progressive course of action? (Mayhew & Edwards 1936: 420–421)

In an appendix to the history of the Laboratory School, Dewey (1936: 468–469) acknowledges that the school did not solve the problem of finding things in the child’s present experience out of which would grow more elaborate, technical and organized knowledge. Passmore (1980: 91) notes one difficulty of starting from children’s out-of-school experiences: they differ a lot from one child to another. More fundamentally, the everyday out-of-school experiences of a child provide few links to the systematic knowledge of nature and of human history that humanity has developed and that schools should pass on to the next generation. If children are to acquire such knowledge through investigation of problems, teachers must first provide information as a basis for formulating problems that interest them (Passmore 1980: 93–94).

More than a century has passed since Dewey’s experiment. In the interim, researchers have refined the methodology of experimenting with human subjects, in educational research and elsewhere. They have also developed the methodology of meta-analysis for combining the results of various experiments to form a comprehensive picture of what has been discovered. Abrami et al. (2015) report the results of such a meta-analysis of all the experimental and quasi-experimental studies published or archived before 2010 that used as outcome variables standardized measures of critical thinking abilities or dispositions of the sort enumerated in Facione 1990a and described in sections 8 and 9 of the main entry. By an experimental study, they mean one in which participants are divided randomly into two groups, one of which receives the educational intervention designed to improve critical thinking and the other of which serves as a control; they found few such experiments, because of the difficulty of achieving randomization in the classrooms where the studies were conducted. By a quasi-experiment, they mean a study with an intervention group that receives an educational intervention designed to improve critical thinking and a control group, but without random allocation to the two groups. Initially, they included also what they called “pre-experiments”, with single-group pretest-posttest designs, but decided at the analysis stage not to include these studies. By a standardized measure, they mean a test with norms derived from previous administration of the test, as set out in the test’s manual, such as the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (Watson & Glaser 1980a, 1980b, 1994), the Cornell Critical Thinking Tests (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985; 2005), the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (Facione 1990b, 1992) and the California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory (Facione & Facione 1992; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001). They included all such studies in which the educational intervention lasted at least three hours and the participants were at least six years old.

In these studies they found 341 effect sizes. They rated each educational intervention according to the degree to which it involved dialogue, anchored instruction, and mentoring. They found that each of these factors increased the effectiveness of the educational intervention, and that they were most effective when combined. They explained the three factors as follows.

Dialogue : In critical dialogue, which historically goes back to Socrates, individuals discuss a problem together. The dialogue can be oral or written, and cooperative or adversarial. It can take the form of asking questions, discussion, or debate. Some curricula designed to promote critical thinking establish “communities of inquiry” among the students. Such communities were a prominent feature of Dewey’s Laboratory School, incorporated as a means of promoting the primary moral objective of fostering a spirit of social cooperation among the children.

An important aspect of this conditioning process by means of the school’s daily practices was to aid each child in forming a habit of thinking before doing in all of his various enterprises. The daily classroom procedure began with a face-to-face discussion of the work of the day and its relation to that of the previous period. The new problem was then faced, analyzed, and possible plans and resources for its solution suggested by members of the group. The children soon grew to like this method. It gave both individual and group a sense of power to be intelligent, to know what they wanted to do before they did it, and to realize the reasons why one plan was preferred to another. It also enlisted their best effort to prove the validity of their judgment by testing the plan in action. Each member of the group thus acquired a habit of observing, criticizing, and integrating values in thought, in order that they should guide the action that would integrate them in fact. The value of thus previsioning consequences of action before they became fixed as fact was emphasized in the school’s philosophy. The social implication is evident. The conscious direction of his actions toward considered social ends became an unfailing index of the child’s progress toward maturity. (Mayhew & Edwards 1936: 423–424)

Communities of inquiry are also a feature of the Montessori method described by Thayer-Bacon (2000) and of the Philosophy for Children program developed by Matthew Lipman (Splitter 1987). Lipman (2003) examines theoretically what is involved in creating communities of inquiry. Hitchcock (2021) argues that the most obvious way for schools to develop critical thinking is to foster development of communities of inquiry.

Anchored instruction : In anchored instruction, whose advocacy goes back to Rousseau (1762) and Dewey (1910), there is an effort to present students with problems that make sense to them, engage them, and stimulate them to inquire. Simulations, role-playing and presentation of ethical or medical dilemmas are methods of anchoring.

Mentoring : Mentoring is a one-on-one relationship in which someone with more relevant expertise (the mentor) interacts with someone with less (the mentee). The mentor acts as a model and as a critic correcting errors by the mentee. Examples of mentoring are an advisor talking to a student, a physician modeling a procedure for a medical student, and an employee correcting an intern. Abrami et al. (2015) identified three kinds of mentoring in the studies that they analyzed: one-on-one teacher-student interaction, peer-led dyads, and internships.

Abrami et al. (2015) also compared educational interventions with respect to whether they were part of subject-matter instruction. For this purpose, they used a distinction among four types of intervention articulated by Ennis (1989). A general approach tries to teach critical thinking separately from subject-matter instruction. An infusion approach combines deep subject-matter instruction in which students are encouraged to think critically with explicit reference to critical thinking principles. An immersion approach provides deep subject-matter instruction with encouragement to think critically, but without explicit reference to critical thinking principles. A mixed approach combines the general approach with either the infusion or the immersion approach; students combine a separate thread or course aimed at teaching general critical thinking principles with deep subject-matter instruction in which they are encouraged to think critically about the subject-matter. Although the average effect size in the studies using a mixed intervention (+0.38) was greater than the average effect sizes in the studies using general (+0.26), infusion (+0.29) and immersion (+0.23) interventions, the difference was not statistically significant; in other words, it might have been due to chance.

Cleghorn (2021), Makaiau (2021), and Hiner (2021) make specific suggestions for fostering critical thinking respectively in elementary, secondary and post-secondary education. Vincent-Lancrin et al. (2019) report the results of a project of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to develop with teachers and schools in 11 countries resources for fostering creativity and critical thinking in elementary and secondary schools.

Ennis (2013, 2018) has made a detailed proposal for a mixed approach to teaching critical thinking across the curriculum of undergraduate education. Attempts at implementing such an approach have faced difficulties. Weinstein (2013: 209–213) describes the attempt at Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey, from 1987 through the 1990s. He reports that the university’s requirement to include critical thinking in all general education courses led to the use of the concept in identifying topics and tasks in course syllabi, but without a unifying theoretical basis. The committee that approved courses as satisfying a general education requirement ignored the relation of curricular outcomes to critical thinking, and focused instead on work requirements with a prima facie relation to reflective thought: term papers, projects, group work, and dialogue. Sheffield (2018) reports similar difficulties encountered in his position from 2012 to 2015 as the inaugural Eugene H. Fram Chair in Applied Critical Thinking at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Rochester, New York. A cross-disciplinary faculty advisory group was not ready to accept RIT’s approved definition of critical thinking, but never reached a consensus on an alternative. Payette and Ross (2016), on the other hand, report widespread acceptance of the Paul-Elder framework, which involves elements of thought, intellectual standards, and intellectual virtues (Paul & Elder 2006). Sheffield (2018) reports that many colleges and universities in the United States have received funding for so-called “Quality Enhancement Plans” (QEPs) devoted to critical thinking, many of them written by Paul and Elder or developed in consultation with them. He faults the plans for having a typical time frame of five years, which he argues is probably too short for meaningful results, since lasting institutional change is often extremely slow.

Copyright © 2022 by David Hitchcock < hitchckd @ mcmaster . ca >

• Accessibility

Support SEP

Mirror sites.

View this site from another server:

• Info about mirror sites

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is copyright © 2024 by The Metaphysics Research Lab , Department of Philosophy, Stanford University

Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054

• History & Society
• Science & Tech
• Biographies
• Animals & Nature
• Geography & Travel
• Arts & Culture
• Games & Quizzes
• On This Day
• One Good Fact
• New Articles
• Lifestyles & Social Issues
• Philosophy & Religion
• Politics, Law & Government
• World History
• Health & Medicine
• Browse Biographies
• Birds, Reptiles & Other Vertebrates
• Bugs, Mollusks & Other Invertebrates
• Environment
• Fossils & Geologic Time
• Entertainment & Pop Culture
• Sports & Recreation
• Visual Arts
• Demystified
• Image Galleries
• Infographics
• Top Questions
• Britannica Kids
• Saving Earth
• Space Next 50
• Student Center
• Introduction
• Principal historical figures
• The aims of education
• Clarification of educational concepts
• Rights, power, and authority

Critical thinking

Indoctrination, the individual and society, moral education.

• Teaching, learning, and curriculum
• Educational research
• Feminist, multiculturalist, and postmodern criticisms

• Why is Jean-Jacques Rousseau famous?
• What are John Locke’s most famous works?
• What contributions did John Locke make to epistemology?
• What contributions did John Locke make to political theory?
• How did John Locke influence the design of U.S. government?

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

• StateUniversity.com - Education Encyclopedia - Philosophy of Education
• Kansas State University Libraries - Center for the Advancement of Digital Scholarship - Foundational Philosophies of Education
• Social Science LibreTexts - What are philosophies of education?
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Philosophy of Education
• Wrexham Glyndwr University - What is the philosophy of education?
• The Basics of Philosophy - Philosophy of Education
• Table Of Contents

Many educators and educational scholars have championed the educational aim of critical thinking. It is not obvious what critical thinking is, and philosophers of education accordingly have developed accounts of critical thinking that attempt to state what it is and why it is valuable—i.e., why educational systems should aim to cultivate it in students. These accounts generally (though not universally) agree that critical thinkers share at least the following two characteristics: (1) they are able to reason well—i.e., to construct and evaluate various reasons that have been or can be offered for or against candidate beliefs, judgments, and actions; and (2) they are disposed or inclined to be guided by reasons so evaluated—i.e., actually to believe, judge, and act in accordance with the results of such reasoned evaluations. Beyond this level of agreement lie a range of contentious issues.

One cluster of issues is epistemological in nature. What is it to reason well? What makes a reason, in this sense, good or bad? More generally, what epistemological assumptions underlie (or should underlie) the notion of critical thinking? Does critical thinking presuppose conceptions of truth , knowledge, or justification that are objective and “absolute,” or is it compatible with more “relativistic” accounts emphasizing culture , race, class , gender, or conceptual scheme?

These questions have given rise to other, more specific and hotly contested issues. Is critical thinking relevantly “neutral” with respect to the groups who use it, or is it in fact politically biased , unduly favouring a type of thinking once valued by white European males—the philosophers of the Enlightenment and later eras—while undervaluing or demeaning types of thinking sometimes associated with other groups, such as women, nonwhites, and non-Westerners—i.e., thinking that is collaborative rather than individual, cooperative rather than confrontational, intuitive or emotional rather than linear and impersonal? Do standard accounts of critical thinking in these ways favour and help to perpetuate the beliefs, values, and practices of dominant groups in society and devalue those of marginalized or oppressed groups? Is reason itself, as some feminist and postmodern philosophers have claimed, a form of hegemony ?

Other issues concern whether the skills, abilities, and dispositions that are constitutive of critical thinking are general or subject-specific. In addition, the dispositions of the critical thinker noted above suggest that the ideal of critical thinking can be extended beyond the bounds of the epistemic to the area of moral character, leading to questions regarding the nature of such character and the best means of instilling it.

A much-debated question is whether and how education differs from indoctrination. Many theorists have assumed that the two are distinct and that indoctrination is undesirable, but others have argued that there is no difference in principle and that indoctrination is not intrinsically bad. Theories of indoctrination generally define it in terms of aim, method, or doctrine. Thus, indoctrination is either: (1) any form of teaching aimed at getting students to adopt beliefs independent of the evidential support those beliefs may have (or lack); (2) any form of teaching based on methods that instill beliefs in students in such a way that they are unwilling or unable to question or evaluate those beliefs independently; or (3) any form of teaching that causes students to embrace a specific set of beliefs—e.g., a certain political ideology or a religious doctrine—without regard for its evidential status. These ways of characterizing indoctrination emphasize its alleged contrast with critical thinking: the critical thinker (according to standard accounts) strives to base his beliefs, judgments, and actions on the competent assessment of relevant reasons and evidence, which is something the victim of indoctrination tends not to do. But this apparent contrast depends upon the alleged avoidability of indoctrination, which itself is a philosophically contested issue.

A number of interrelated problems and issues fall under this heading. What is the place of schools in a just or democratic society? Should they serve the needs of society by preparing students to fill specific social needs or roles, or should they rather strive to maximize the potential—or serve the interests—of each student? When these goals conflict, as they appear inevitably to do, which set of interests—those of society or those of individuals—should take precedence ? Should educational institutions strive to treat all students equally? If so, should they seek equality of opportunity or equality of outcome? Should individual autonomy be valued more highly than the character of society? More generally, should educational practice favour a more-liberal view of the relation between the individual and society, according to which the independence of the individual is of fundamental importance, or a more-communitarian view that emphasizes the individual’s far-reaching dependence on the society in which she lives? These questions are basically moral and political in nature, though they have epistemological analogues , as noted above with respect to critical thinking.

Another set of problems and issues has to do with the proper educational approach to morality . Should education strive to instill particular moral beliefs and values in students? Or should it aim rather to enhance students’ ability to think through moral issues for themselves? If the latter, how should educators distinguish between good and bad ways to think about moral issues? Should moral education focus on students’ character—rather than on either the inculcation of particular beliefs and values or the development of the ability to think well about moral matters—and endeavour to produce particular traits, such as honesty and sensitivity? Or are all these approaches problematic in that they inevitably involve indoctrination (of an undesirable kind)? A related objection to the approaches mentioned is that moral beliefs and values are in some sense relative to culture or community; therefore, attempts to teach morality at least presuppose an indefensible moral absolutism and may even constitute a kind of moral “imperialism.” These large and complex questions are intimately connected with metaethics and moral epistemology—i.e., the part of moral philosophy concerned with the epistemic status of moral claims and judgments. Moral psychology and developmental psychology are also highly relevant to the resolution of these questions.

Translate this page from English...

*Machine translated pages not guaranteed for accuracy. Click Here for our professional translations.

A Brief History of the Idea of Critical Thinking

Facilitating Complex Thinking

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking  requires skill at analyzing the reliability and validity of information, as well as the attitude or disposition to do so. The skill and attitude may be displayed with regard to a particular subject matter or topic, but in principle, it can occur in any realm of knowledge (Halpern, 2003; Williams, Oliver, & Stockade, 2004). A critical thinker does not necessarily have a negative attitude in the everyday sense of constantly criticizing someone or something. Instead, he or she can be thought of as  astute : the critical thinker asks key questions, evaluates the evidence for ideas, reasons for problems both logically and objectively, and expresses ideas and conclusions clearly and precisely. Last (but not least), the critical thinker can apply these habits of mind in more than one realm of life or knowledge.

Figure 5.2.1.  Model of critical thinking.

With such a broad definition, it is not surprising that educators have suggested a variety of specific cognitive skills as contributing to critical thinking. In one study, for example, the researcher found how critical thinking can be reflected in regard to a published article that was stimulated by  annotation —writing questions and comments in the margins of the article (Liu, 2006). In this study, students were initially instructed in ways of annotating reading materials. Later, when the students completed additional readings for assignments, it was found that some students in fact used their annotation skills much more than others—some simply underlined passages, for example, with a highlighting pen. When essays written about the readings were later analyzed, the ones written by the annotators were found to be better reasoned—more critically astute—than the essays written by the other students.

In another study, on the other hand, a researcher found that critical thinking can also involve oral discussion of personal issues or dilemmas (Hawkins, 2006). In this study, students were asked to verbally describe a recent, personal incident that disturbed them. Classmates then discussed the incident together in order to identify the precise reasons why the incident was disturbing, as well as the assumptions that the student made in describing the incident. The original student—the one who had first told the story—then used the results of the group discussion to frame a topic for a research essay. In one story of a troubling incident, a student told of a time when a store clerk has snubbed or rejected the student during a recent shopping errand. Through discussion, classmates decided that an assumption underlying the student’s disturbance was her suspicion that she had been a victim of racial profiling based on her skin color. The student then used this idea as the basis for a research essay on the topic of “racial profiling in retail stores.” The oral discussion thus stimulated critical thinking in the student and the classmates, but it also  relied  on their prior critical thinking skills at the same time.

Notice that in both of these research studies, as in others like them, what made the thinking “critical” was students’ use of  metacognition —strategies for thinking  about  thinking and for monitoring the success and quality of one’s own thinking. This concept was discussed in the chapter, “The learning process,” as a feature of constructivist views about learning. There we pointed out that when students acquire experience in building their own knowledge, they also become skilled both at knowing  how  they learn, and at knowing  whether  they have learned something well. These are two defining qualities of metacognition, but they are part of critical thinking as well. In fostering critical thinking, a teacher is really fostering a student’s ability to construct or control his or her own thinking and to avoid being controlled by ideas unreflectively.

How best to teach critical thinking remains a matter of debate. One issue is whether to infuse critical skills into existing courses or to teach them through separate, free-standing units or courses. The first approach has the potential advantage of integrating critical thinking into students’ entire educations. But it risks diluting students’ understanding and use of critical thinking simply because critical thinking takes on a different form in each learning context. Its details and appearance vary among courses and teachers. The free-standing approach has the opposite qualities: it stands a better chance of being understood clearly and coherently but at the cost of obscuring how it is related to other courses, tasks, and activities. This dilemma is the issue—again—of  transfer.  Unfortunately, research to compare the different strategies for teaching critical thinking does not settle the matter. The research suggests simply that either infusion or free-standing approaches can work as long as it is implemented thoroughly and teachers are committed to the value of critical thinking (Halpern, 2003).

A related issue about teaching critical thinking is about deciding who needs to learn critical thinking skills the most. Should it be all students or only some of them? Teaching all students seems the more democratic alternative and thus appropriate for educators. Surveys have found, however, that teachers sometimes favor the teaching of critical thinking only to high-advantage students—the ones who already achieve well, who come from relatively high-income families, or (for high school students) who take courses intended for university entrance (Warburton & Torff, 2005). Presumably, the rationale for this bias is that high-advantage students can benefit and/or understand and use critical thinking better than other students. Yet, there is little research evidence to support this idea, even if it were not ethically questionable. The study by Hawkins (2006) described above, for example, is that critical thinking was fostered even with students considered low-advantage.

Video 5.2.1. Challenging Students  to Think Critically  suggests was to encourage critical thinking.

Teaching Critical Thinking

For suggestions on teaching and fostering critical thinking skills at all academic levels, visit the library at   The Foundation for Critical Thinking.

Candela Citations

• Authored by : Nicole Arduini-Van Hoose. Provided by : Hudson Valley Community College. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Educational Psychology. Authored by : Kelvin Seifert and Rosemary Sutton. Provided by : The Saylor Foundation. Retrieved from : https://courses.lumenlearning.com/educationalpsychology. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Teach Like a Champion - Challenging Students to Think Critically. Provided by : Kaizan Teaching. Retrieved from : https://youtu.be/Cd_zyrRyPyc?t=24. License : All Rights Reserved

Educational Psychology Copyright © 2020 by Nicole Arduini-Van Hoose is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

John Dewey on Education: Impact & Theory

Charlotte Nickerson

Research Assistant at Harvard University

Undergraduate at Harvard University

Charlotte Nickerson is a student at Harvard University obsessed with the intersection of mental health, productivity, and design.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

On This Page:

Key Takeaways

• John Dewey (1859—1952) was a psychologist, philosopher, and educator who made contributions to numerous topics in philosophy and psychology. His work continues to inform modern philosophy and educational practice today.
• Dewey was an influential pragmatist, a movement that rejected most philosophy at the time in favor of the belief that things that work in a practical situation are true, while those that do not are false. This view would go on to influence his educational philosophy.
• Dewey was also a functionalist. Inspired by the ideas of Charles Darwin, he believed that humans develop behaviors as an adaptation to their environment.
• Dewey’s influential education is marked by an emphasis on the belief that people learn and grow as a result of their experiences and interactions with the world. He aimed to shape educational environments so that they would promote active inquiry but did not do away with traditional instruction altogether.
• Outside of education and philosophy, Dewey also devised a theory of emotions in response to Darwin’s ideas. In this theory, he argued that the behaviors that arise from emotions were, at some point, beneficial to the survival of organisms.

John Dewey was an American psychologist, philosopher, educator, social critic, and political activist. He made contributions to numerous fields and topics in philosophy and psychology.

Besides being a primary originator of both functionalism and behaviorism psychology , Dewey was a major inspiration for several movements that shaped 20th-century thought, including empiricism, humanism, naturalism, contextualism, and process philosophy (Simpson, 2006).

Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont, in 1859 and began his career at the University of Michigan before becoming the chairman of the department of philosophy, psychology, and pedagogy at the University of Chicago.

In 1899, Dewey was elected president of the American Psychological Association and became president of the American Philosophical Association five years later.

Dewey traveled as a philosopher, social and political theorist, and educational consultant and remained outspoken on education, domestic and international politics, and numerous social movements.

Dewey’s views and writings on educational theory and practice were widely read and accepted. He held that philosophy, pedagogy, and psychology were closely interrelated.

Dewey also believed in an “instrumentalist” theory of knowledge, in which ideas are seen to exist mainly as instruments for creating solutions to problems encountered in the environment (Simpson, 2006).

Contributions to Philosophy and Psychology

Dewey is one of the central figures and founders of pragmatism in America despite not identifying himself as a pragmatist.

Pragmatism teaches that things that are useful — meaning that they work in a practical situation — are true, and what does not work is false (Hildebrand, 2018).

This rejected the threads of epistemology and metaphysics that ran through modern philosophy in favor of a naturalistic approach that viewed knowledge as an active adaptation of humans to their environment (Hildebrand, 2018).

Dewey held that value was not a function of purely social construction but a quality inherent to events. Dewey also believed that experimentation was a reliable enough way to determine the truth of a concept.

Functionalism

Dewey is considered a founder of the Chicago School of Functional Psychology, inspired by Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, as well as the ideas of William James and Dewey’s own instrumental philosophy.

As chair of philosophy, psychology, and education at the University of Chicago from 1894-1904, Dewey was highly influential in establishing the functional orientation amongst psychology faculty like Angell and Addison Moore.

Scholars widely consider Dewey’s 1896 paper, The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology , to be the first major work in the functionalist school.

In this work, Dewey attacked the methods of psychologists such as Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener, who used stimulus-response analysis as the basis of psychological theories.

Psychologists such as Wund and Titchener believed that all human behaviors could be broken down into a series of fundamental laws and that all human behavior originates as a learned adaptation to the presence of certain stimuli in one’s environment (Backe, 2001).

Dewey considered Wundt and Titchener’s approach to be flawed because it ignored both the continuity of human behavior and the role that adaptation plays in creating it.

In contrast, Dewey’s functionalism sought to consider organisms in total as they functioned in their environment. Rather than being passive receivers of stimuli, Dewey perceived organisms as active perceivers (Backe, 2001).

Chicago School

The Chicago school refers to the functionalist approach to psychology that emerged at the University of Chicago in the late 19th century. Key tenets of functional psychology included:

• Studying the adaptive functions of consciousness and how mental processes help organisms adjust to their environment
• Explaining psychological phenomena in terms of their biological utility
• Focusing on the practical operations of the mind rather than contents of consciousness

Educational Philosophy

John Dewey was a notable educational reformer and established the path for decades of subsequent research in the field of educational psychology.

Influenced by his philosophical and psychological theories, Dewey’s concept of instrumentalism in education stressed learning by doing, which was opposed to authoritarian teaching methods and rote learning.

These ideas have remained central to educational philosophy in the United States. At the University of Chicago, Dewey founded an experimental school to develop and study new educational methods.

He experimented with educational curricula and methods and advocated for parental participation in the educational process (Dewey, 1974).

Dewey’s educational philosophy highlights “pragmatism,” and he saw the purpose of education as the cultivation of thoughtful, critically reflective, and socially engaged individuals rather than passive recipients of established knowledge.

Dewey rejected the rote-learning approach driven by a predetermined curriculum, the standard teaching method at the time (Dewey, 1974).

Dewey also rejected so-called child-centered approaches to education that followed children’s interests and impulses uncritically. Dewey did not propose an entirely hands-off approach to learning.

Dewey believed that traditional subjects were important but should be integrated with the strengths and interests of the learner.

In response, Dewey developed a concept of inquiry, which was prompted by a sense of need and was followed by intellectual work such as defining problems, testing hypotheses, and finding satisfactory solutions.

Dewey believed that learning was an organic cycle of doubt, inquiry, reflection, and the reestablishment of one’s sense of understanding.

In contrast, the reflexive arc model of learning popular in his time thought of learning as a mechanical process that could be measured by standardized tests without reference to the role of emotion or experience in learning.

Rejecting the assumption that all of the big questions and ideas in education are already answered, Dewey believed that all concepts and meanings could be open to reinvention and improvement and that all disciplines could be expanded with new knowledge, concepts, and understandings (Dewey, 1974).

Philosophy of Education

Dewey believed that people learn and grow as a result of their experiences and interactions with the world. These compel people to continually develop new concepts, ideas, practices, and understandings.

These, in turn, are refined through and continue to mediate the learner’s life experiences and social interactions. Dewey believed that (Hargraves, 2021):

Empirical Validity and Criticism

Despite its wide application in modern theories of education, many scholars have noted the lack of empirical evidence in favor of Dewey’s theories of education directly.

Nonetheless, Dewey’s theory of how students learn aligns with empirical studies that examine the positive impact of interactions with peers and adults on learning (Göncü & Rogoff, 1998).

Researchers have also found a link between heightened engagement and learning outcomes.

This has resulted in the development of educational strategies such as making meaningful connections to students” home lives and encouraging student ownership of their learning (Turner, 2014).

Theory of Emotions

Dewey vs. darwin.

Another influential piece of philosophy that Dewey created was his theory of emotion (Cunningham, 1995).

Dewey reconstructed Darwin’s theory of emotions, which he believed was flawed for assuming that the expression of emotion is separate from and subsequent to the emotion itself.

Darwin also argued that behavior that expresses emotion serves the individual in some way when the individual is in a particular state of mind. These can also cause behaviors that are not useful.

Dewey, however, claimed that the function of emotional behaviors is not to express emotion but to be acts that value someone’s survival. Dewey believed that emotion is separate from other behaviors because it involves an attitude toward an object. The intention of the emotion informs the behaviors that result (Cunningham, 1995).

Dewey also rejected Darwin’s principle that some expressions of emotions can be explained as cases where one emotion can be expressed by actions that are the exact opposite of another.

Dewey again believed that even these opposite behaviors have purposes in themselves (Cunningham, 1995).

Dewey vs. James

Dewey argued against James’s serial theory of emotions, seeing emotion and stimuli as one simultaneous coordinated act.

William James proposed a serial theory of emotion , in which an emotional experience progresses through several sequential stages:

• An object or idea functions as a stimulus
• This stimulus leads to a behavioral response
• The response is then followed by an emotional excitation or affect

An example would be seeing a bear (stimulus), running away (response), and then feeling afraid (emotion).

Dewey, however, argued that emotion and stimulus form a unified, simultaneous act that cannot be separated in this way.

He uses the example of a frightened reaction to a bear to illustrate his point:

• The “bear” itself is constituted by the coordinated sensory excitations of the eyes, touch, etc.
• The feeling of “terror” is constituted by disturbances across glandular, muscular systems.
• Rather than stimulus → response → emotion, these are partial activities within the one act of perceiving the frightening bear and running away in fear.
• The bear object and the fear emotion are two aspects of the total coordinated activity, happening at once.

So, where James treated stimulus, response, and emotion as sequential stages in an emotional episode, Dewey saw them as “minor acts” coming together in a unified conscious experience.

He maintained James was artificially separating elements that occur as part of one ongoing activity of coordination.

The key difference is that Dewey did not believe it was possible to isolate stimulus, response, and affect as self-sufficient events. They exist meaningfully only within the total act – hence why he emphasizes their simultaneity.

Backe, A. (2001). John Dewey and early Chicago functionalism. History of Psychology, 4 (4), 323.

Cunningham, S. (1995). Dewey on emotions: recent experimental evidence. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 31(4), 865-874.

Dewey, J. (1974). John Dewey on education: Selected writings .

Göncü, A., & Rogoff, B. (1998). Children’s categorization with varying adult support. American Educational Research Journal, 35 (2), 333-349.

Hargraves, V. (2021). Dewey’s educational philosophy .

Hildebrand, D. (2018). John Dewey.

Simpson, D. J. (2006). John Dewey (Vol. 10). Peter Lang.

Turner, J. C. (2014). Theory-based interventions with middle-school teachers to support student motivation and engagement. In Motivational interventions . Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Click through the PLOS taxonomy to find articles in your field.

For more information about PLOS Subject Areas, click here .

Loading metrics

Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Teaching methods for critical thinking in health education of children up to high school: A scoping review

Contributed equally to this work with: Anna Prokop-Dorner, Aleksandra Piłat-Kobla

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Department of Medical Sociology, Chair of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Kraków, Poland

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Funding acquisition, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Institute of Sociology, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Funding acquisition, Project administration, Resources, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Institute of Intercultural Studies, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

Roles Data curation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation LIGHT Project, Institute of Sociology, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

Affiliation Medical Faculty Student’s Research Group for Systematic Reviews, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Kraków, Poland

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, Chair of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Kraków, Poland

Affiliation Department of Hygiene and Dietetics, Chair of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Kraków, Poland

•  [ ... ],

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Chair of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Kraków, Poland

• [ view all ]
• [ view less ]
• Anna Prokop-Dorner, 
• Aleksandra Piłat-Kobla, 
• Magdalena Ślusarczyk, 
• Maria Świątkiewicz-Mośny, 
• Natalia Ożegalska-Łukasik, 
• Aleksandra Potysz-Rzyman, 
• Marianna Zarychta, 
• Albert Juszczyk, 
• Dominika Kondyjowska, 

• Published: July 18, 2024
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307094
• Peer Review
• Reader Comments

According to the World Health Organization, the improvement of people’s health literacy is one of the fundamental public health challenges in the 21st century. The key issue in teaching health literacy is to develop critical thinking skills. As health literacy and critical thinking should be developed at school age, we reviewed teaching methods or educational interventions used in empirical studies focused on the development of critical thinking regarding health and implemented by teachers in preschools, primary schools, or secondary schools. We searched seven databases (Medline, Embase, Web of Science, ERIC, ProqQuest, PsycArticles, and CINAHL) from inception to 20 September 2023 for any type of empirical studies. Due to the heterogeneity in interventions and inadequate reporting of results, a descriptive synthesis of studies was performed in addition to quantitative analysis. Of the 15919 initial records, 115 studies were included in the review. Most of the educational interventions focused on lifestyle-related health issues such as substance use, sexual and reproductive health, and nutrition. The popularity of health issues changed over time and depended on the geographical context. Six dimensions that differentiated the teaching methods were identified: central teaching component, central educator, pupils’ activity level, teaching context, educational materials, and significance of critical thinking. Many educational interventions did not address the development of critical thinking skills in a comprehensive manner, and the significance of critical thinking varied greatly. Interventions in which critical thinking had high and very high significance applied mainly problem-solving methods and involved pupils’ activity. The evidence on the effectiveness of the teaching methods that develop critical thinking is limited because most articles failed to provide detailed information on the teaching methods or did not examine their effects. We recommend that a checklist is developed to facilitate a detailed description of health educational interventions and thus promoting their replicability.

Study registration: The protocol of the review was registered in the OSF Registries on 13 January 2022 (doi: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/46TEZ ).

Citation: Prokop-Dorner A, Piłat-Kobla A, Ślusarczyk M, Świątkiewicz-Mośny M, Ożegalska-Łukasik N, Potysz-Rzyman A, et al. (2024) Teaching methods for critical thinking in health education of children up to high school: A scoping review. PLoS ONE 19(7): e0307094. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307094

Editor: Bogdan Nadolu, West University of Timisoara: Universitatea de Vest din Timisoara, ROMANIA

Received: February 7, 2024; Accepted: June 28, 2024; Published: July 18, 2024

Copyright: © 2024 Prokop-Dorner et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.

Funding: This work is the result of research project Diagnosis and developing health capital - Health Literacy of primary school students (Project no. UMO-2020/39/B/HS6/00977) funded by the National Science Centre. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The protocol of the review was registered in the OSF Registries on 13 January 2022 (doi: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/46TEZ ).

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

One of the major public health challenges in the 21st century is to improve people’s health literacy [ 1 ]. Health literacy refers to an individual’s ability to seek, understand, and use health information. Health literacy skills are essential for claim evaluation, data interpretation, and risk assessment. The key issue in learning health literacy is to develop knowledge, skills, motivation, and self-awareness that translate into individuals’ autonomy, independence, and empowerment. These qualities enable individuals to deal with health and its determinants.

In its definition of health literacy, the World Health Organization stresses the importance of social competences, such as communication and critical thinking, which are necessary for making adequate health decisions both on daily basis [ 2 ] and in extraordinary circumstances, such as the pandemic [ 3 ]. The fundamental goal of acquiring health literacy is to develop critical thinking skills. Critical thinking means that people are able to analyze and evaluate their thought processes in order to improve them [ 4 ]. According to a widely used definition, critical thinking is “a reasoned, reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do” [ 5 ]. Today, we live in a world of information, and critical thinking skills can help us think logically and clearly. The competence of critical thinking is essential because it allows people to think independently.

Considering the abundance of easily available, but not verified, information as well as global health threats such as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, critical thinking skills become especially important in such life domains as health [ 3 ]. People need these skills to critically assess and use information relevant to their health, and it is the key to make evidence-based health choices. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic can be viewed not only as a public health threat but also as an infodemic [ 6 ], because there was overabundance of fake news, misinformation, and conspiracy theories that have undermined the trust in health institutions and treatment procedures [ 7 – 32 ]. Machete et al [ 33 ] conducted a systematic review including 22 articles that were synthesized and used as evidence to determine the role of critical thinking in identifying fake news. The study confirmed that critical thinking skills are essential to recognize fake news.

In this context, it seems crucial to teach critical thinking to pupils (i.e., children up to high-school level). Fostering critical thinking is widely recognized as an integral part of developing health literacy. There are several strategies that are recommended for teaching critical thinking, including classroom discussions [ 34 ], problem-based learning [ 35 ], and questioning techniques [ 36 , 37 ]. There is also evidence that peer-to-peer interaction is one of the teaching behaviors related to student gains in critical thinking [ 38 ]. However, most of these recommendations are based on theoretical works or do not relate to health-related topics. Moreover, these works refer to higher-education students, including students in a specific field (such as nursing or economics).

In this scoping review, we focused on the concept of health literacy and critical thinking as one of its main dimensions. We aimed to identify and review the teaching methods or pedagogical interventions used in empirical studies on the development of critical thinking regarding health and implemented by teachers in preschools as well as primary or secondary schools (level of education 0, 1, 2, and 3 according to the International Standard Classification of Education [ISCED]). The article presents the methods used in this process, quantitative and qualitative results, discussions of the findings, and conclusions.

Materials and methods

We conducted the scoping review in accordance with the Joanna Briggs Institute [ 39 ] methodology for scoping reviews and in our reporting we adhered to the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) reporting statement with extension for scoping reviews [ 40 ]. We provided the filled-out checklist in S1 Table . In the development of our review we followed the methods outlined in the protocol registered in the OSF Registries on 13 January 2022 [ 41 ].

Criteria for study inclusion

For this scoping review, we considered any type of qualitative and quantitative empirical studies focusing on the development of critical thinking within the framework of health education at school by teaching subjects with content related to health (biology, chemistry, science, physical education, wellness, sexual education, health education, digital education, math, and critical thinking as a subject). Moreover, we included studies that provided information about teaching methods, training activities, or pedagogical interventions implemented by teachers or other school educators. Finally, we considered empirical studies referring to pupils in preschool, primary (elementary) or secondary (high) schools (ISCED 0, 1, 2, 3) and to teachers from those schools.

Search strategy

We searched the following databases: Medline, Embase, Science Citation Index with Abstracts, ERIC, ProqQuest, PsycArticles, and CINAHL.

We employed the text words contained in the titles and abstracts of relevant articles, and the index terms used to describe the articles, to develop a full search strategy for each database (see S2 Table ). We used the following terms in the key search strategy: “health knowledge”, “health education”, “health literacy”, “critical thinking”, “schools”, “education”, “informed choice”, “choice behaviour”, “decision making”, “curriculum”, and “teaching methods”. We adapted the search strategy, including the relevant keywords and index terms, for each included database and/or information source. We screened the reference list of all included sources of evidence for additional studies. We searched databases from inception to 20 September 2023. Due to limited resources, we only included studies in English.

Study selection and data collection

Following the search, we collated all identified citations, uploaded them into Endnote X8 (Clarivate Analytics, PA, USA), and screened using the Covidence online tool ( covidence.org ). We removed any duplicates using Covidence.

We performed the three rounds of calibration exercises, using 50 abstracts each downloaded into an MS Excel spreadsheet (which ensured a common understanding of the inclusion and exclusion criteria). Next, 14 authors (MMB, MŚM, MŚ, APK, APD, NO, DS, APR, MZ, PW, WŻ, MM, SW, DK) working independently and in pairs screened the studies with respect to meeting eligibility criteria based the titles and abstracts. Thus, we obtained the full texts of potentially eligible articles. After four rounds of calibration exercises using five full texts each, 10 authors (MMB, DS, PW, SW, DK, MM, WŻ, APK, MWG, APD) working independently and in pairs screened the studies with respect to meeting eligibility criteria using their full texts. Third reviewer (MMB) resolved disagreements arising at any stage of the study selection. The core team developed and piloted the extraction form in Excel (MMB, MSM, MŚ, APD, APK, APR, MZ), and following four rounds of calibration exercises, eight reviewers (MM, SW, PW, DK, WŻ, AJ, MWG, AM) worked in pairs to extract data from the included studies into the prepiloted form. The pairs of reviewers independently extracted the data. Due to heterogeneity in interventions and inadequate reporting of results, we performed a descriptive synthesis of studies. The extracted data included specific details about the study methods, context (e.g., type of school, school location, study population), interventions, description of teaching methods focusing on critical thinking, and key findings relevant to the objectives of this review. Three authors (MMB, APD, APK) additionally checked all extractions.

Qualitative data synthesis

To further analyze the teaching methods, we conducted a qualitative synthesis [ 42 ]. Based on the primary analysis of the extracted data, two authors (APD and APK) developed and tested a coding book in MAXQDA 2024 based on 5% of the included articles. We resolved any discrepancies in coding at this stage by discussion. We used the final coding book to code detailed information on the teaching methods and the practical strategies of their implementation provided in the articles and in external sources such as further publications or websites of the interventions. The process of summarizing and comparing the coded data as well as using graphical tools to identify patterns allowed us to precisely categorize the teaching methods into analytical themes (six dimensions of teaching methods). These themes were developed from free codes and descriptive themes.

A total of 15919 records of 15909 studies were initially identified. After removing duplicates, 15150 studies were screened on the basis of the title and abstract. This yielded 1056 potentially relevant studies, which were screened based on full texts. Of the 1056 studies, 243 (25.5%) were excluded because they did not concern the development of critical thinking. Other studies were excluded because they were only theoretical (n = 174), did not concern the population of interest (n = 171), did not address health literacy (n = 132), did not provide information about the teaching methods used (n = 99), or for other reasons (n = 116). The list of the excluded studies, along with reasons for exclusion, is available on the project website in the OSF Registries [ 17 ]. We identified 118 eligible studies, of which 3 were still ongoing [ 43 – 45 ]. Finally, we included 115 completed studies ( Fig 1 ).

• PPT PowerPoint slide
• PNG larger image
• TIFF original image

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307094.g001

The included studies met the eligibility criteria and described the teaching methods used, but most of them (80%) did not examine the effectiveness of these teaching methods but interventions used in the study. Below we present the findings first referring to the quantitative and then to qualitative analysis.

Description of the included studies

A total of 115 studies were included in this scoping review, including 65 studies reporting quantitative methods [ 46 – 113 ], 25 studies reporting mixed methods [ 114 – 140 ], and 25 studies reporting qualitative methods [ 7 – 32 ] (See S3 Table ). Some educational interventions were described in more than one article. In such cases, the records were merged and assessed as one study [ 16 , 17 , 56 , 70 – 72 , 119 ]. The most common study design was cluster randomized (25 articles, 22%) and quasi-experimental (20 articles, 17%). The dates of article publication covered nearly 40 years. More than a half of the eligible articles were published after 2010 (74 articles, 64%) and only 12 studies were published before 2000 (10%). The included studies were conducted in various cultural contexts, but mostly in the Western societies of North America (52 articles, 45%) and Europe (34 articles, 30%). Only 14 studies were conducted in Asia (12%); 8, in Africa (7%); 5, in Australia (4%); and 2, in South America (2%). In one article, there was no information on the country [ 137 ].

Educational interventions conducted in North America covered a broad range of topics and addressed psychoactive substance use [ 21 , 26 , 50 , 52 , 53 , 58 , 61 , 65 , 67 , 75 , 80 , 83 , 85 , 92 , 95 , 117 , 140 ], lifestyle (including nutrition, physical activity) [ 57 , 60 , 63 , 77 , 87 , 89 , 96 , 100 , 135 ], sexual and reproductive health (SRH) [ 19 , 49 , 82 , 94 , 98 , 108 , 120 , 127 , 128 ] (including AIDS and HIV prevention [ 21 , 59 , 73 , 86 , 93 ]), public health [ 18 , 31 , 66 , 69 , 78 , 79 , 87 , 90 , 111 ], and somatic health [ 25 , 87 , 123 , 131 , 140 ]. The topic of mental health has only emerged in publications from the last three years [ 100 , 104 , 138 ].

Most studies conducted in Europe concerned lifestyle, including both nutrition and/or physical activity interventions [ 7 , 9 , 11 , 22 , 24 , 46 , 91 , 97 , 103 , 106 , 109 , 126 , 134 ], public health [ 8 , 12 , 13 , 29 , 47 , 88 , 101 , 105 , 139 ], and psychoactive substance use [ 7 , 15 , 48 , 51 , 84 , 114 , 122 ]. Four papers concerned somatic health [ 22 , 30 , 97 , 125 ] and five–mental health [ 68 , 97 , 99 , 109 , 113 ]. Only two educational intervention addressed sexual health [ 28 , 115 ].

Most studies conducted in Asia addressed sexual health [ 14 , 56 , 119 , 132 , 136 , 141 ], including AIDS and HIV prevention [ 56 , 116 , 119 , 133 , 136 ]. Mental health was addressed by three studies [ 64 , 112 , 141 ], psychoactive substance use by two [ 74 , 84 ]; and somatic health by one study [ 121 ]. In the last three years, studies have emerged whose educational interventions focused on lifestyle [ 27 , 110 ]. Among African studies reporting on educational interventions, there were six articles that focused on SRH [ 10 , 55 , 62 , 118 , 124 , 132 ], and one intervention that was dedicated to health claims [ 130 ].

Finally, research conducted in Australia concerned such health topics as psychoactive substance use [ 70 – 72 , 81 ], lifestyle [ 16 , 17 ], as well as public [ 23 , 102 ] and mental health [ 23 ], while an educational intervention conducted in South America covered the topic of SRH [ 20 ].

Health issues in education interventions

Interventions reported in the included articles addressed a broad range of health issues, and the thematic focus of the interventions had changed over time ( Table 1 ). Until 2000, the prevailing topics in health education were substance use and SRH, in the following decades also nutrition, issues connected with public health, physical activity, as well as somatic and mental health gained interested of teachers and stakeholders in the field.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307094.t001

Almost one in three studies published over the last 40 years tested substance use interventions (27%). Half of them discussed nicotine [ 50 , 51 , 53 , 58 , 61 , 67 , 70 , 74 , 75 , 80 , 83 , 85 , 95 , 114 ] and drugs [ 21 , 26 , 52 , 53 , 65 , 70 – 72 , 74 , 76 , 81 , 84 , 85 , 87 , 140 ] and four in ten concerned alcohol [ 15 , 48 , 53 , 71 , 72 , 83 , 85 , 92 , 117 , 122 , 137 ].

The same number of interventions (31; 27,5%) covered SRH, and specifically sexual health [ 10 , 28 , 55 , 78 , 112 , 115 , 132 ], reproductive health [ 20 , 49 , 62 , 82 , 94 , 115 , 120 , 127 , 136 ], sexual abstinence [ 20 , 49 , 55 , 73 , 82 , 124 , 127 , 128 , 136 ], contraceptive methods [ 62 , 94 , 120 , 124 ], menstruation [ 14 ], gender roles [ 32 , 108 , 119 , 132 ], healthy relationships [ 32 , 55 , 119 ], sexually transmitted disease [ 82 , 86 , 118 , 119 ], and AIDS and HIV prevention [ 21 , 55 , 56 , 59 , 73 , 82 , 86 , 116 , 118 , 119 , 124 , 133 , 136 ].

Slightly less studies (27; 23,5%) tested an intervention on nutrition (23,5%) [ 8 , 11 , 16 , 17 , 22 , 23 , 46 , 57 , 60 , 77 , 87 , 89 , 91 , 96 , 97 , 103 , 109 , 110 , 112 , 123 , 125 , 126 , 135 , 140 – 142 ]. Public health problems, such as health care [ 21 ], violence [ 13 , 18 , 78 ], global health [ 8 ], organ donation [ 88 ], anti-microbial resistance [ 107 ], zoonosis [ 101 ], use of medicine [ 12 ], and bioethical dilemmas linked to health [ 47 ], social inequalities [ 31 ] were taught in 25% of reported interventions. Various forms of physical activity were promoted in every tenth intervention (11%) [ 7 , 9 , 16 , 17 , 63 , 77 , 87 , 89 , 97 , 135 , 142 ].

Specific somatic health issues such as cancer, cardiovascular system, diabetes, eye or oral health were discussed in 11% of the articles [ 22 , 25 , 30 , 64 , 87 , 97 , 112 , 121 , 125 , 131 ]. Even fewer articles reported interventions on mental health issues, such as emotional regulation [ 64 , 89 , 97 ], resilience [ 23 ] and healthy relationships [ 23 , 111 , 119 ]. Nearly every third tested intervention covered more than one health issue [ 7 , 16 , 17 , 21 – 23 , 50 , 55 , 64 , 77 , 78 , 82 , 86 , 87 , 89 , 97 , 109 , 111 , 112 , 119 , 124 – 127 , 135 , 136 , 140 , 141 ]. Topics such as epidemic or pandemic were discussed only in a few articles, mainly with regards to HIV and AIDS [ 73 , 116 , 133 ] or social inequality during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 31 ]. Vaccinations were discussed in interventions generally linked to infectious disease [ 66 ] or aimed at increasing the uptake of specific vaccination, i.e. HPV [ 102 ].

Interventions reported in 94 articles (82%) were initiated by external bodies, such as universities, and were tested in several schools in a selected region ( Table 2 ). Nearly half (51) of the studies tested regionally based interventions. In 31 studies, the interventions were tested locally, typically in one or in several schools. The remaining interventions were evaluated in bigger samples, either on a national (16 articles) or international level (5 articles). Nine of the interventions were pilot interventions. Moreover, the studied interventions varied in terms of the level of education. Most of them were tested in high schools/secondary schools (60, 52%); 30, in primary/elementary schools (26%); 24, in middle schools (21%); and only 1 intervention was tested in preschools. Interventions were conducted by schoolteachers, peer educators, or both. Half of the studied interventions were preceded by teachers’ training (57 articles, 50%) and/or peer leaders training (13 articles, 11%). Only every third intervention provided pupils with additional materials, such as booklets [ 22 , 32 , 74 , 77 , 102 , 124 ], handouts [ 49 , 78 , 117 ], audiovisual materials [ 20 , 74 , 90 , 99 , 107 , 115 ], textbooks [ 84 , 85 , 130 ], recipes [ 57 ] newsletters [ 28 , 46 ], exercise book [ 129 ], and student guide [ 111 ].

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307094.t002

Interventions tested in the included articles were typically taught in class (50%), most often in an interdisciplinary form as part of multiple school subjects, such as health education or sexual health education, math, family life education, social sciences, media literacy, language, philosophy, home economy, science, and, less typically, during a single subject such as health education (23 articles), biology (3 articles), science (3 articles), sexual health education (3 articles), language (2 articles), critical thinking (1 article), social sciences (1 article), math (1 article), home economics (1 article), and physical education (1 article). Almost all of the 115 interventions were described as having “positive results”. However, in all those cases, the evaluation concerned the entire intervention rather than single teaching methods.

Dimensions of teaching methods used in health education

We noted a vast diversity of approaches to teaching critical thinking in health education that were tested in the included studies. To comprehensively describe this variety, we identified six dimensions that differentiated the methods based on their important characteristics listed in Fig 2 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307094.g002

Central teaching component.

When we looked at the teaching methods from the perspective of the central component that organized the teaching process, we distinguished four components: practice, problem solving, exposition to stimuli, and factual content. The application of the didactical approaches in health education over five decades is presented in Table 3 . While hands-on and expositional approaches prevailed in the 1980s, 1990s, and the first two decades of the 21st century, the importance of problem-solving methods has become more visible since 2011.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307094.t003

The teaching methods with practice as the central component provided pupils with instructions on where to gain knowledge, how to practice new skills, and how to develop new habits through experience. Pupils participated in or conducted practical activities that reflected the discussed issues. Typically, the practice-oriented methods were dedicated to developing either cognitive skills and emotional regulation or manual abilities and physical fitness. The former was used when fostering the skills of goal setting [ 77 , 85 , 87 , 100 , 137 ], decision-making [ 12 , 25 , 27 , 29 , 46 , 61 , 70 – 72 , 74 , 76 , 77 , 80 , 84 , 85 , 89 , 97 , 102 , 111 , 120 , 123 , 126 , 134 – 136 , 138 ], stress management [ 85 , 99 ], peer pressure resistance [ 21 , 61 , 80 , 85 , 95 ], emotions regulation [ 85 , 89 ], peaceful conflict resolution techniques [ 29 , 111 , 139 ], differentiating healthy from unhealthy practice [ 11 , 92 , 123 , 134 , 135 ], assertiveness [ 87 , 111 ], as well as values clarification and/or self-monitoring [ 46 , 77 , 84 , 89 , 120 ]. On the other hand, the subcategory of manual abilities and physical fitness included first aid [ 72 ], creative tasks [ 21 , 73 , 121 ], sports [ 9 , 27 , 60 , 63 , 80 , 87 , 106 , 109 ], testing samples [ 140 ], daily menu composition and/or food preparation [ 24 , 46 , 96 , 103 , 123 , 126 , 134 , 137 , 142 ], project work [ 16 , 57 , 69 ], or making a video [ 14 , 31 , 67 ].

When problem-solving is the central component of a teaching approach, pupils typically detect new knowledge and apply it in a particular situation. Pupils use “triggers” from a case study or scenario to define their own learning objectives. These methods include case study analysis [ 11 , 13 , 66 , 69 – 72 , 88 , 115 , 116 , 130 , 133 ], problem-based learning [ 89 , 110 , 122 , 123 , 125 ], collaborative scenario-based discussions [ 11 , 123 ], storytelling [ 84 , 110 ], debate [ 52 , 91 , 136 ], Socratic questions [ 52 , 95 ], brainstorming [ 7 , 13 , 14 , 64 , 84 , 133 ], and educational games [ 16 , 17 , 52 , 74 , 84 , 85 , 91 , 95 , 116 , 118 , 126 , 134 , 137 ].

Teaching methods centered on exposition offer external or internal stimuli to intensify the learning process. These methods provide pupils with an opportunity to observe particular environments and collect impressions from the external stimuli to foster the understanding of a given issue (e.g., a field trip to a sexually transmitted disease clinic [ 86 ] to university hospital to talk with medical professionals and patients [ 21 , 140 ]). Alternatively, they presented posters [ 27 , 102 ], video games [ 103 , 111 ], videos dedicated to the health topic [ 98 , 107 , 108 , 110 ] or allow pupils to recreate situations, reflect values, or express themselves with drama [ 10 ], role-playing [ 13 , 26 , 54 , 74 , 90 , 95 ], music, and dance composition [ 136 ].

Finally, in a traditional method focusing on factual content, knowledge is delivered to pupils by means of lectures, formal presentations, or textbook work. In this approach, the teacher is the primary source of information, and pupils are recipients of information. In our analysis, factual content methods were applied in 38 (34.7%) interventions [ 15 , 17 , 19 , 21 , 22 , 27 , 46 , 54 , 57 , 67 – 69 , 72 , 74 , 80 , 88 , 90 , 92 , 94 , 96 , 97 , 101 , 102 , 107 , 112 , 116 , 120 , 123 , 124 , 130 , 132 , 135 – 137 ].

In 73 interventions (63.5%), more than one component was used to reach the educational objectives. Most frequently, the authors of the intervention used all methods simultaneously [ 17 , 69 – 72 , 74 , 94 , 120 , 130 , 137 ]. They also mixed the problem-solving and practice methods [ 24 , 30 , 73 , 85 , 89 , 91 , 122 , 126 , 141 ], less often problem solving, practice methods and exposition [ 32 , 84 , 113 , 140 ] or problem-solving and exposition [ 98 , 106 , 110 , 111 ] and the exposition and practice methods [ 12 , 27 , 102 , 103 , 121 ]. The patterns of applying various central teaching components in the intervention addressing various health issues were grouped into seven thematic categories and presented in Table 4 . While practice was central to organizing the teaching process for most health issues (more than 50% of interventions related to all health topics but SRH applied practical teaching methods), it was especially prevalent in interventions teaching about nutrition and physical activity. Problem-solving and exposition were frequently, or relatively frequently, used in interventions regarding substance use and SRH. More than 60% of the interventions on somatic health, nutrition, and physical activity were built around more than one teaching component.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307094.t004

The level of pupils’ activity and central educator.

The tested teaching methods differed in terms of the level of pupils’ activity. Most methods were based on the active participation of pupils and included a number of individual activities (e.g., reflection on values, goal setting, self-monitoring [ 87 , 137 ]) or group activities (e.g., scenario writing [ 133 ], analyzing case and proposing a solution [ 29 , 115 ]). On the other hand, in relatively few interventions, pupils were to remain passive (e.g., listening to a lecture, watching a video [ 25 , 57 , 74 ]). Some interventions were based on both of these forms of involvement [ 21 , 28 , 30 , 46 , 66 , 69 , 90 , 98 , 101 , 103 , 107 , 111 , 112 , 120 , 135 , 136 , 139 , 142 ].

Peers play a crucial role in shaping the health behaviors of children and teenagers: they offer mutual support and serve as a role model and a trusted source of information [ 127 ]. This social dynamic was used in educational interventions across countries for over 40 years. A peer-to-peer approach was applied in 54 tested interventions [ 8 , 10 , 14 – 17 , 21 – 23 , 26 , 28 , 29 , 31 , 32 , 46 , 48 , 55 , 57 , 58 , 61 , 62 , 80 , 81 , 85 , 86 , 90 , 92 , 93 , 95 , 98 , 99 , 102 , 106 , 110 , 112 – 114 , 117 , 119 , 127 , 128 , 131 , 133 , 136 , 137 , 139 , 140 ], either as a main or complementary teaching strategy. With peer-to-peer method as the main strategy, selected pupils typically participated in training for peer leaders and offered workshops, prepared presentations, or moderated discussions with other pupils [ 15 – 17 , 31 , 55 , 57 , 58 , 62 , 80 , 81 , 93 , 95 , 114 , 117 , 127 , 136 ]. As a complementary strategy, the peer-to-peer approach was typically used at the end of the intervention. After going through the educational process, pupils created educational materials and presented them to their younger colleagues [ 10 , 14 , 21 – 23 , 26 , 46 , 56 , 61 , 85 , 90 , 92 , 119 , 133 , 137 ]. In 43 interventions, the teacher’s role was central to the teaching process. Teachers structured the lessons, introduced content, proposed tasks, and distributed homework assignments, often according to detailed instructions [ 12 , 13 , 18 – 20 , 22 – 24 , 28 , 29 , 46 , 49 , 51 – 53 , 60 , 65 , 67 , 68 , 77 , 78 , 80 , 82 , 85 , 88 , 90 , 92 , 97 , 98 , 101 , 102 , 104 , 106 , 112 , 117 , 120 , 124 , 125 , 128 , 130 – 134 ]. In every fourth intervention, teacher-centered and peer-to-peer methods were combined [ 12 , 13 , 19 , 20 , 22 – 24 , 46 , 53 , 65 , 67 , 80 , 85 , 90 , 92 , 96 , 117 , 120 , 125 , 128 , 131 , 133 ]. Data on the central educator were missing in almost 37 articles.

Educational materials.

To facilitate the learning process, every fourth of the interventions provided educational materials [ 7 – 9 , 21 , 22 , 25 , 27 , 30 , 32 , 46 , 49 , 62 , 69 , 74 , 76 , 77 , 81 , 83 , 84 , 91 , 93 , 97 , 104 , 105 , 107 , 111 , 115 , 122 , 132 , 135 , 140 , 141 ], such as student activity books, brochures, fact sheets, activity sheets, handouts. In a number of interventions, audiovisual materials created specifically to support the teaching objectives were provided [ 20 , 74 , 90 , 115 ].

In 30% of the interventions, the learning process resulted in pupils creating some artefacts. Some of those creative works served as a souvenir and were supposed to remind pupils of the health issue they were taught about [ 125 , 137 ]. Other works had additional educational purposes, such as a poster exhibition [ 23 , 28 , 29 , 31 , 32 , 47 , 73 , 77 , 83 , 86 , 107 ], creating a cartoon about the rational use of medicines [ 12 ], shooting a video about the process of making reusable sanitary cloth pads [ 14 ], developing an educational website on cancer prevention for children that was posted on the website of the Yale Cancer Center [ 131 ]. In some interventions, children prepared and consumed foods with certain nutritional values (e.g., low-fat, high-fiber products [ 77 , 87 ]) or foods from different cultural contexts [ 8 ].

In one in three interventions, computer, internet, or other technological tools were used to support the educational process. The application of teaching methods was typically supported by internet search [ 11 , 13 , 22 , 50 , 60 , 66 , 73 , 75 , 97 , 100 , 102 , 103 , 105 , 108 , 115 , 122 , 131 , 132 ], creating presentations [ 20 , 22 , 29 , 30 , 46 , 47 , 54 , 74 , 111 , 140 ], communicating or analyzing social media [ 7 , 8 , 11 , 13 , 17 , 20 , 30 , 31 , 108 , 122 ], using applications, both those generally available, i.e. interactive web-based quiz and those developed for the intervention [ 12 , 88 , 91 , 99 , 102 , 106 , 110 , 115 , 118 ], or computer games [ 84 , 103 , 107 , 111 , 118 , 134 ].

Teaching context.

Within the model of health promoting schools, introduced by the World Health Organization after the release of the Ottawa Charter during the first International Conference on Health Promotion in Ottawa, Canada, in 1986, the socio-ecological perspective on health education was applied in schools [ 23 ]. As a result, a number of educational interventions on health involved activities engaging the whole school community [ 10 , 15 , 16 , 21 , 24 , 26 , 27 , 32 , 46 , 57 , 78 , 81 , 86 , 87 , 96 , 99 , 100 , 103 , 109 , 113 , 119 , 124 , 137 , 141 , 142 ] or even a broader local community [ 45 , 63 , 66 , 69 , 89 , 93 , 102 , 103 , 112 , 116 , 131 , 133 , 141 , 143 , 145 ], and not just standard classroom teaching. In some studies, not only was the pupil-teacher relationship explored, but also contacts with other social actors were arranged. Twenty-three interventions engaged pupils’ parents and caregivers [ 23 , 27 , 28 , 30 , 32 , 46 , 48 , 52 , 59 , 72 , 77 , 78 , 87 , 93 , 94 , 97 , 102 , 111 , 113 , 115 , 119 , 126 , 128 ]; 12, external experts and scientists [ 12 , 16 , 17 , 19 , 73 , 77 , 86 , 90 , 103 , 115 , 118 , 124 , 132 , 135 ]; and 8, other social actors [ 8 , 21 , 23 , 31 , 99 , 117 , 120 , 138 ] such as school administrators, local leaders, or school nurses. The involvement of parents in some interventions ranged from providing information materials [ 78 ] to providing technical support (e.g., parents who were farmers provided soil for planters [ 126 ]). Parents were also involved through shared activities [ 97 ], or they were offered to participate in classes on communicating personal and family’s values about sexuality to teenagers [ 52 , 94 , 115 , 128 ], or they received newsletters or magazines with health information, heart-healthy recipes, and hands-on activities to do at home [ 46 , 87 , 93 ].

Significance of critical thinking.

The stage of eligibility criteria assessment showed that critical thinking was included only in a small proportion of health education interventions for children and adolescents. However, the interventions described in the included publications varied with regards to: 1) the methods applied to develop critical thinking skills; and 2) the extent to which they provided details on the teaching process. Based on the information and additional materials provided in the articles, we used those two parameters to evaluate the significance of critical thinking in the tested interventions on a four-point scale (low, moderate, high, and very high significance) ( Table 5 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307094.t005

Most interventions (42 articles, 36%) described only one method addressing critical thinking and failed to provide details of the activities. In these interventions, critical thinking was classified as having a low level of significance. The most common approaches reported by the authors were group discussions or debates [ 7 , 9 , 15 , 20 , 26 , 47 , 53 , 59 , 62 , 63 , 69 , 76 , 93 , 109 , 117 ], Socratic discussions [ 52 , 95 ], question boxes [ 94 , 124 ], unspecified decision-making exercises [ 23 – 25 , 49 , 55 , 65 , 68 , 74 , 77 , 85 , 97 , 112 , 127 , 134 ], or reflection activities [ 118 ]. The low significance of critical thinking teaching methods was noted in interventions from all decades. Critical thinking educational methods were most commonly applied in interventions regarding substance use and SRH ( Table 6 ). Half of the intervention addressing physical activity and more than 40% addressing psychoactive substance use and SRH demonstrated a low significance of critical thinking.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307094.t006

In 21 interventions, more than one method stimulating critical thinking was listed. Critical thinking in these interventions was classified as having moderate significance. However, activities for developing critical thinking skills constituted a small part of a broader educational program or the articles did not provide details suggesting otherwise [ 12 , 17 , 21 , 29 , 48 , 50 , 54 , 57 , 60 , 75 , 82 – 84 , 86 , 92 , 99 , 100 , 108 , 110 , 114 , 119 , 121 , 128 , 132 , 139 , 143 , 144 ]. Apart from discussion or decision-making exercises, these interventions typically involved other methods facilitating critical thinking, such as situational role playing, problem-solving, participation in developing educational activities on health, designing wall magazines, assessing individual or community health resources, analyzing media information, and solving case studies For about 30% of the interventions addressing psychoactive substance use and SRH teaching critical thinking was of a moderate importance.

The interventions classified as showing a high or very high significance of critical thinking included multiple teaching methods stimulating critical thinking skills and provided a detailed description of the whole educational process, a relationship between the teaching objectives and applied teaching methods, and how they were translated into specific learning activities, materials, and outcomes.

Twenty-seven interventions characterized by high significance of critical thinking [ 11 , 13 , 14 , 22 , 28 , 30 , 32 , 64 , 67 , 70 – 73 , 80 , 89 , 98 , 102 , 105 , 106 , 111 , 113 , 120 , 122 , 123 , 126 , 131 , 140 – 142 ] discussed a broader scope of health literacy skills, with critical thinking being only one of those skills. On the other hand, interventions with a very high level of significance [ 8 , 10 , 18 , 31 , 61 , 88 , 96 , 115 , 125 , 130 , 133 , 135 , 137 , 138 ] were dedicated to critical thinking and comprehensively addressed a set of skills involved. Reporting on educational interventions that approached critical thinking in a more complex manner became more common after 2000. Critical thinking gained more significant coverage in more than half of the interventions focused on nutrition (52%). We observed high or very high significance of critical thinking in interventions teaching about somatic health (46%), physical activity (46%) and public health (45%) ( Table 6 ).

High and very high significance was demonstrated especially for interventions that incorporated problem-solving as opposed to those with practice as the central component. The latter interventions were characterized mainly by low significance of methods addressing critical thinking ( Table 7 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307094.t007

Examples of the most interesting interventions in which critical thinking had high or very high significance are described in Table 8 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307094.t008

Summary of the main results

Our scoping review demonstrated a large variety of educational interventions regarding health issues over time and across continents. The interventions reported in the included articles focused mainly on lifestyle-related health issues, which reflect the dynamic changes in the discourse on the health of children and adolescents as well as in the priorities of health prevention programs [ 145 – 147 ]. Healthy lifestyle interventions implemented before 2011 typically aimed at developing knowledge, skills, and/or attitudes related to substance use, SRH, and broader problems of public health. Subsequent interventions seem to reflect the more recent conceptualization of healthy lifestyle in relation to an increase in obesity in children [ 148 ], as they additionally cover habits linked to nutrition and physical activity. More specific aspects of individual health, such as particular somatic or mental health disorders, seem to be receiving more attention in health education interventions in 21st century. The regional dynamics of the coverage of health topics, as observed in our review, can be explained by various regional health challenges and local socio-cultural determinants of health.

A similar diversity was noted in the teaching methods applied in the interventions studied over the period of 40 years. While older interventions (before 2001) primarily focused on exposing students to external or internal stimuli, delivering factual content or practical activities to promote health behaviors, the more recent interventions design the educational process around problem-solving tasks. The teaching methods used in the interventions addressing nutrition and physical activity were mostly oriented towards developing practical skills, while those applied in the interventions addressing sexual health or substance use emphasized problem-solving skills. Mixing those various components was a strategy applied in interventions addressing all thematic areas.

In some interventions, the teaching process was accompanied by various types of educational materials, and sometimes pupils created educational artefacts themselves. Most teaching methods used in the studied interventions encouraged pupils to actively participate in the learning process, express their opinions in writing, or develop various types of educational materials. Such approaches facilitate the integration of knowledge, skills, and essential components of attitudes. Some articles tested interventions that engaged peer educators in promoting healthy choices, presenting useful skills, and explaining health information. While most of the available evidence suggests the effectiveness of peer-to-peer teaching in higher education [ 149 , 150 ], a recent scoping review of studies on peer education in health interventions for adolescents revealed that involving peer-to-peer education may be a promising strategy for health improvement also on lower educational levels [ 151 ]. The way of shaping health behaviors in the included interventions focused not only on expanding the knowledge of individual pupils as well as training their health-related skills, but also encompassed the broader social context of pupils: their families, local communities, or intercultural contacts. Moreover, in some interventions, pupils met medical professionals, patients and their caregivers, or external experts and scientists, sometimes in their work setting.

In summary, there is evidence to suggest that peer-to peer interaction is one of the teaching strategies related to student gains in critical thinking. Therefore, leaving the role of the central educator to pupils and designing interventions that engage pupils in individual and group activities (such as problem solving, developing educational materials or artefacts) are possibly those dimensions of the teaching methods that offer greatest benefits in terms of learning critical thinking skills.

Importance of critical thinking in health education of children up to high school

The extent to which the included interventions covered critical thinking skills varied widely. This heterogeneity is associated with the year of the publication and the dynamics of pedagogical discourse. The growing demands of the contemporary information society [ 22 ] and changing public health challenges in the past four decades has resulted in a growing appreciation of teaching critical thinking. The increase in the complexity of integrating critical thinking into educational interventions is particularly evident in the publications released from 2021.

Strengths and limitations

To our best knowledge, this is the first study to comprehensively review the existing literature on the teaching methods for critical thinking in the health education of children up to high school. The review was conducted by an interdisciplinary team and was based on an extensive literature search including all types of research from all continents.

Our review also has some limitations. As our search was performed in 20 September 2023, there is a considerable disproportion in the number of articles between decades, with fewer articles categorized as those published from 2021 as compared with the earlier decades. Moreover, the studies and interventions included in the review were highly heterogenous, and the description of some teaching methods was not satisfactory, limiting possibility to replicate them. Some of the included studies only listed the teaching methods without any additional information. Developing reporting checklist for health education interventions in school context- such as to TIDieR checklist [ 152 ] available for interventions in general or GREET [ 153 ] for evidence-based practice educational interventions, may improve future reporting and replicability of such interventions. Moreover, as we were interested in the educational programs stably functioning in the school setting and engaging school-based actors, we excluded interventions that were implemented only by external educators, external leaders, medical school students, or medical professionals. Future studies should map the methods applied in extracurricular interventions. Finally, we included only articles in English; thus, we potentially missed out on studies published in other languages.

Conclusions

Our review showed that health education interventions in children and adolescents usually did not address the development of critical thinking skills in a comprehensive manner. Interventions in which critical thinking had high and very high significance applied mainly problem-solving methods and involved pupils’ activity. The evidence on the effectiveness of the teaching methods that develop critical thinking skills is limited because most articles failed to provide detailed information on the teaching methods or did not examine their effects. Therefore, to facilitate further research in this field, we recommend that the teaching strategies used in the interventions are described in greater detail and that the effectiveness of individual teaching methods is assessed and reported. The development of a reporting checklist to describe health education interventions is warranted.

Supporting information

S1 table. preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses extension for scoping reviews (prisma-scr) checklist..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307094.s001

S2 Table. Search strategies.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307094.s002

S3 Table. Characteristics of the included studies.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307094.s003

Acknowledgments

We thank dr Magdalena Koperny for creating the search strategy.

• 1. WHO. Health literacy. The solid facts. Copenhagen, Denmark: World Health Organization 2013.
• View Article
• PubMed/NCBI
• Google Scholar
• 4. Richard P, Elder L. Critical Thinking. London: Rowman & Littlefield; 2020.
• 33. Machete P, Turpin M. The Use of Critical Thinking to Identify Fake News: A Systematic Literature Review. In: Hattingh M, Matthee M., Smuts H., Pappas I., Dwivedi Y.K., Mäntymäki M., editor. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 12067: Springer Cham; 2020. p. 235–46.
• 34. Hansen W. Lee SMK. Improving Classroom Discussion in Economics Courses. The International Handbook on Teaching and Learning Economics: Edward Elgar Publishing; 2011.
• 39. Aromataris E, Munn Z. JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis: JBI; 2020. Available from: https://synthesismanual.jbi.globa .
• 41. Światkiewicz-Mośny M, Ślusarczyk M, Prokop-Dorner A, Piłat-Kobla A, Potysz-Rzyman A, Ozegalska-Lukasik N, et al. Teaching methods for critical thinking in health education in children up to high school. OSF. 2022. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/46TEZ
• 102. Davies C, Marshall HS, Brotherton JML, McCaffery K, Kang M, Macartney K, et al. Complex intervention to promote human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine uptake in school settings: A cluster-randomized trial. Preventive Medicine. 2023;172((Davies C., [email protected] ; Macartney K.; Skinner S.R.) Specialty of Child and Adolescent Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia(Davies C., [email protected] ) Sydney Infectious Diseases In). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2023.107542 pmid:37172767
• 104. Klim-Conforti P, Zaheer R, Levitt AJ, Cheung AH, Schaffer A, Fefergrad M, et al. The impact of a children’s literature-based cognitive behavioural therapy skills curriculum on middle-school youth who self-report clinically relevant and non-clinical mental health symptomatology. Journal of Affective Disorders Reports. 2023;12((Klim-Conforti P., [email protected] ) Member of the College of Psychologists of Ontario, Toronto, ON, Canada(Klim-Conforti P., [email protected] ) Institute of Medical Science, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, ON, Canada(Zahe). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadr.2023.100471
• 134. Kostanjevec S, Erjavšek M, Jedrinović S, Bevčič M, Luštek A, Kozina FL. Development of an Educational Computer Game for Nutrition Education. Reading: Academic Conferences International Limited; 2017. p. 343–51.
• 145. WHO. Guideline: implementing effective actions for improving adolescent nutrition. World Health Organization., 2018.
• 148. Wijnhoven Trudy vRJ, Breda João. WHO European Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative: implementation of round 1 (‎2007/2008)‎ and round 2 (‎2009/2010)‎. WHO. Regional Office for Europe, 2014.

Critical Thinking Is All About “Connecting the Dots”

Why memory is the missing piece in teaching critical thinking..

Updated July 23, 2024 | Reviewed by Monica Vilhauer

• Critical thinking requires us to simultaneously analyze and interpret different pieces of information.
• To effectively interpret information, one must first be able to remember it.
• With technology reducing our memory skills, we must work on strengthening them.

I have a couple of questions for my regular (or semi-regular) readers, touching on a topic I’ve discussed many times on this blog. When it comes to power, persuasion , and influence, why is critical thinking so crucial? Alternatively, what are some common traps and pitfalls for those who prioritize critical thinking? It's not necessary that you go in to great detail—just any vague or general information that comes to mind will do.

Great! Regardless of whether you recalled anything specific, the key is you made the effort to remember something. Like many questions I pose here, the real purpose is to illustrate a point. If you aim to be influential and persuasive—i.e., successful—in both work and life, you must be proficient in critical thinking. To achieve this proficiency, you need to cultivate and exercise your memory , a skill that is increasingly at risk in a technology-saturated age.

Remembering Is the Foundation of Knowing

Learning and remembering something are often discussed as if they are two separate processes, but they are inextricably linked . Consider this: Everything you know now is something you once had to learn, from basic facts to complex knowledge and skills. Retaining this information as actual knowledge, rather than fleeting stimuli, depends entirely on memory. Without memory, there is no knowledge. Consequently, there can be no critical thinking, as it relies on prior knowledge, which in turn relies on memory.

Students sometimes tell me that they want to learn how to be good critical thinkers but complain about having to “memorize stuff.” On these occasions I will often say, in a playfully teasing manner, “What I hear you saying is that you're bothered by having to remember stuff.” This usually helps them see how silly and unreasonable it is to complain about memorizing information, as there isn’t a single course in existence that doesn’t require remembering something . The ability to remember is at the core of critical thinking, and I often use the simple visual demonstration that follows to illustrate this point.

Collecting Dots and Connecting the Dots

Benjamin Bloom, an educational psychologist, developed a model known as the “Taxonomy of Learning.” Originally intended for educational psychology, this model also highlights why memory is the foundation of critical thinking—or any kind of thinking at all.

Humans are creatures of interpretation, constantly processing the information we perceive. This ability has made us the scientists, inventors, and artists that we are today. To interpret information, however, we must first remember it—not all information, obviously, as that’s impossible. Thanks to technology (which we’ll get to momentarily) we have vast amounts of information potentially at our fingertips. But how do you know what information to look up in a given situation? To know where to start and avoid endlessly searching irrelevant data, you need to remember enough of the right kind of information.

Think of a crime movie where an investigator, while reviewing evidence, suddenly has an epiphany and rushes off to confirm their hunch. These scenes illustrate that while the investigator needs more information, they remember enough to know what to search for.

Here’s a visual demonstration I use in class to help my students understand. Imagine you have pieces of information represented as five dots:

Now let’s say that any coherent shape or picture you can draw using these dots is an interpretation of the information. When examined together, what might these five dots mean? Here’s one way to connect the dots.

What does this shape represent? Many people will quickly say it’s a house, a common and reasonable interpretation. But not everyone sees it as a house. Some might say it’s the home plate used in baseball. Even when people connect the dots (i.e., interpret a cluster of information) the same way using the same lines, they don’t necessarily interpret the picture the same way. The situation becomes more complex when people connect the dots differently, creating a completely different shape or picture.

Now, having connected the dots differently, instead of a house, we have a star. Or at least some would consider it a star; others might say it’s an occult or magic symbol—these are all very different interpretations. This shows that with the same pieces of information, people can “connect the dots” differently, and even when they connect them the same way, they see different things.

Now what happens when additional information is added or an alleged “missing dot” is perceived by others?

With just one additional dot, what could have previously been interpreted as a 5-pointed star can now be reasonably interpreted as the Star of David.

Finally, sometimes the additional information can lead to a completely different shape or image, resulting in a “eureka” moment of insight. What previously appeared as different types of stars now looks like a circle.

I use this classroom demonstration to illustrate how people can interpret the same objective information in highly subjective ways, creating different narratives for themselves and others. This is a crucial point to remember when aiming to influence or persuade others—i.e., the need to see things from their perspective. Additionally, this activity powerfully underscores the importance of “collecting dots”—that is, the importance of remembering crucial bits of information. Without enough such dots, you lack the basic information needed to form meaningful ideas. Without meaningful ideas, you can’t think critically, influence, or persuade. It’s as straightforward as that.

Memory in the Age of Omnipresent Technology

Why is it so crucial to recognize that memory is foundational to critical thinking, power, influence, and persuasion? Partly because this fact isn’t widely acknowledged—and it needs to be. Additionally, we live in an era where memory is under unprecedented assault. While technology allows us to achieve remarkable feats unimaginable to previous generations, it comes at a cost. One such cost is “digital-induced amnesia,” where our memory capabilities atrophy due to information overload and technology taking over many of the cognitive tasks we used to perform ourselves.

Memory doesn’t exist in isolation. It’s closely tied to traits like the ability to focus and pay attention . If you’re not paying attention, you can’t absorb the information that you want or need to remember. Unfortunately, technology also impacts our ability to focus , and this doesn’t even touch on the dramatic ways AI ’s explosive development might undermine our thinking skills .

This article won’t delve into specifics on improving focus and memory in an age of tech ubiquity. Fortunately, resources from Psychology Today can help with that. My goal here is to convince you why memory is so vital for anyone who wishes to be a critical thinker and a persuasive, influential person. Now you know. Whether you’ll remember or not...only time will tell.

Craig Barkacs, MBA, JD, is a professor of business law at the University of San Diego School of Business and a trial lawyer with three decades of experience as an attorney in high-profile cases.

• Find a Therapist
• Find a Treatment Center
• Find a Psychiatrist
• Find a Support Group
• Find Online Therapy
• International
• New Zealand
• South Africa
• Switzerland
• Asperger's
• Bipolar Disorder
• Chronic Pain
• Eating Disorders
• Passive Aggression
• Personality
• Goal Setting
• Positive Psychology
• Stopping Smoking
• Low Sexual Desire
• Relationships
• Child Development
• Self Tests NEW
• Therapy Center
• Diagnosis Dictionary
• Types of Therapy

Sticking up for yourself is no easy task. But there are concrete skills you can use to hone your assertiveness and advocate for yourself.

• Emotional Intelligence
• Gaslighting
• Affective Forecasting
• Neuroscience

Experience Cairn

• Contact Admissions
• Request More Information
• Virtual Tour
• Maps & Directions

Undergraduate Admissions

• Application Requirements
• Tuition & Aid
• Accepted Students
• Student Welcome & Orientation

Graduate Admissions

• Cairn Online
• Degree Completion

Additional Information

• International Students
• Information for Parents
• College Credit for HS Students

Financial Aid

• Getting Started with Financial Aid
• Undergraduate Scholarships
• Graduate Scholarships
• Online Program Scholarships
• Degree Completion Scholarships
• Financial Aid Eligibility
• Important Dates & Forms
• Make a Payment

View All Programs

• Undergraduate Programs
• Graduate Programs
• Dual Enrollment

Schools & Departments

• Liberal Arts & Sciences

Academic Opportunities

• Study Abroad
• Honors Program
• Gap Year Programs
• Course Catalogs
• 5-Year Academic Calendar
• Faculty Profiles
• Academic Resource Center
• Career Development
• Masland Library
• Accreditation & Disclosures
• News & Media
• Events Calendar
• Campus Directory
• Reports & Disclosures
• Foundational Statements
• Philadelphia & Bucks County
• Local Attractions & Services
• Student Life
• Student Organizations
• Student Handbook

Student Services

• Safety & Security
• University Health Center
• University Ministry Center
• Pathway Center
• Counseling Center
• Student Accounts
• The Highlands
• Fitness Center
• Campus Store

• July 24, 2024

Critical Theory’s Aesthetic Implosion

In my role at Cairn, I enjoy teaching courses whose content invites consideration, to varying degrees, of questions addressing the nature and purpose of art, as well as best practices for interpreting artistic productions. In class discussions, students have at times appreciated and at others cringed at art that seems to have a solely activist purpose. While we can acknowledge that art can bring awareness to important issues or injustices, when discussing such questions as “What is the purpose of art?” the trendy answers “to change society” or “to make the world a better place” seem disappointingly short-sighted in light of both the extensive effects of the fall as well as the simple fact of eternity.

But this short-sightedness is part and parcel of how the humanities approach art in contemporary academic practice. Art is rarely considered valuable beyond its capacity to reveal, challenge, or rectify reigning social injustices. In my opinion, these reigning interpretive practices spawn from ideas that are inherently dubious, ideas propagated by critical theory. What I hope to show here is this: Critical theory’s foundational assumptions about the nature of reality and truth, combined with its stated goal of enacting social justice, renders it a self-refuting aesthetic theory.

Critical theory originates with the Frankfurt School’s attempt to resist harmful ideology by enacting Marxist socio-political change for ultimately emancipatory purposes. Expectedly so, the aesthetics of critical theory must also serve this singular utilitarian objective. We can see these aesthetics operating in Frankfurt School theorist Louis Althusser’s critique of the melodrama El Nost Milan . Althusser argues that art that represents and challenges the reigning ideology can inspire Marx’s elusive “class consciousness” by creating a self-reflection in the spectator that ultimately leads to an accurate perception of the problems with the ideology. Only then can spectators take proper political action to bring about social justice. While it is my belief that Christians should generally reject utilitarianism as a grounding for any philosophical endeavor (including aesthetics), the utilitarian aesthetics of critical theory are actually the least of my worries.

The far more sobering problem with critical theory’s aesthetics is that they fail to take seriously the axiomatic materialist metaphysics on which they are built. Crucial to my argument is the fact that at the heart of critical theory is the assumption that cultural production (art, religion, politics) is a result of dominant economic structures seeking to maintain their material dominance, an assumption drawn from Marx’s foundational concept of the base and superstructure. This is an analogy Marx uses to explain how capitalist society functions. The base refers to economic conditions and material relationships, which in Marx’s case are capitalist but could apply to any aspect of society critical theorists find oppressive. The superstructure consists of what is perceived to be in the realm of transcendental ideas: productions such as art, religion, and politics. Marx categorizes such productions as in the realm of “ideology” i.e. expressions of the dominant class that seem coherent on the face but ultimately exist just to uphold the status quo of capitalism. Crucially, for Marx, the base generates the superstructure, and not the other way around: Cultural production (art, religion, politics) is just a result of the dominant economic structure (material reality) seeking to maintain its dominance. Ideas such as God, truth, and goodness do not exist on their own but are generated by specific material conditions and continually propagated to pump blood into the heart of capitalism. Marx’s dedication to the primacy of the base is logical if assuming a materialist premise.

Frankfurt School theorists sensed a problem with reducing all ideology to material circumstances. In fact, a hallmark of the Frankfurt School thought is a revision of Marx’s base and superstructure to account for how the superstructure can reciprocally influence and shape the base. For example, Althusser suggests that one major player in the reciprocal relationship between the base and superstructure are Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs), which are societal institutions that function to “assure” . . . subjection to the ruling ideology.” 1 For Althusser, such ISAs include but are not limited to the education system, the church/religion, and the family, which function solely to maintain the conditions necessary to uphold the dominant ideology of capitalism. Importantly, Althusser includes on his list the “The cultural ISA (literature, the arts, sports, etc.).” 2 In Althusser’s view, art produced under capitalism best ensures “subjection to the ruling ideology” in two major ways: First, such art renders capitalistic ideology as “common sense;” ubiquitous and unable to be questioned. Second, such art also upholds capitalism by merely “anesthetiz[ing] the people to their own suffering,” 3 both of which ultimately prevent the development of class consciousness. ISAs are powerful and influence the base economic conditions to flourish by convincing individuals that society’s order and their place in it are natural.

Thoughtful readers will notice Althusser’s explanation of the base and superstructure seems to depart from his views of the utility of art expressed in his analysis of the play. How is it that art can be both a construct of ideology emerging from the material-economic base that “ensures subjection to the ruling ideology” while simultaneously “cultivat[ing] a critical consciousness?” 4 In other words, how can art both reify and challenge capitalism at the same time? Well, Althusser would say that most art reproduces ideology, but authentic art is that which can effectively rattle the spectator from their ideological hypnosis to see the wide gap between how things are (i.e. not good) and how ideology claims they are (i.e. good, natural, acceptable). The problem is that Althusser’s attempt to reconcile this contradiction ultimately requires a reliance on an assumed notion of “goodness,” which is in contradiction with materialism. If material is primary as it is in the base and superstructure, economic or societal conditions are not good or bad, they just are. It’s ideology, philosophy, religion, etc., that tell us if our conditions are good or bad, and these are superstructure, not base. If art and cultural production arises from capitalism’s attempt to uphold itself, that would have to include all artifacts, even if they seem to convey a message contrary to the reigning ideology. In other words, materialism is a totalizing philosophy: It can’t be true that material-economic conditions are primary and also that there is a form of society out there we can envision idealistically so as to strive for it. Even Marxists who embrace the base and superstructure as inherently reciprocal see the economic conditions as overall stronger than the superstructure a la Friedrich Engles: “the economic movement is far and away the strongest, most primary and decisive.” 5 But in this view, the base and superstructure create a feedback loop within what is still, ultimately, a materialist system. In other words, even if the base is not the sole source of the superstructure and, at times, the superstructure influences the base, there is still no source of either phenomenon except material conditions anyway. Without any form of idealism in which principles or formal ideas exist independently of humans embedded in an economic context—and critical theory rejects such idealism—there is no explanation for the nature and purpose of art except the material one provided by the base and superstructure. This would suggest that any theory of art or aesthetics produced by humans is contingent on the material circumstances in which the theory arose. 6 There is no “outside” the system in a materialist view.

But even if we allow Althusser the inconsistency between his materialism and his assumed notion of the good (if ideology is so powerful), how can any person truly ascertain what is wrong with the world? For instance, Althusser suggests that “authentic” art can shake a spectator from the stupor of ideology, but this assumes the spectator is capable of standing outside of capitalism and its ideology enough to realize what is wrong with the picture painted by the aesthetic artifact, which seems to contradict that Althusser elsewhere suggests that, according to Lewis, “societies and subjects are seen as patterns of activity that behave in predictable ways,” 7 which is more logical given his materialist commitments. And what if spectators are in ideology merely thinking they’re outside it, in accordance with Althusser when he says that “those who are in ideology believe themselves by definition outside ideology?” 8 If the spectator is subject to history and ideology and material conditions as much as the artifact is, how can she accurately explain the ways in which the artifact’s rendering of the state of society or ideology could challenge the dominant system? Moreover, given that, for Althusser, philosophy itself is in fact not born of the immaterial realm of ideas but of material existence, how do we know that even Althusser’s conception of ideology and his critical analysis of this play are not sourced in the material conditions of his capitalist existence and therefore function to uphold capitalism? Such questions reveal that aesthetics is a philosophical discipline that requires engagement with epistemological questions regarding the nature of knowledge acquisition. These questions also reveal that critical theory—lacking an axiomatic belief in ultimate, objective, or knowable truth—cannot logically sustain its own aesthetic theory that the nature and purpose of art is to reveal to receptive spectators the truth about society.

I am saying here that the materialist aesthetics of critical theory fail to provide a valid, coherent, and reliable method for interpreting humanistic cultural artifacts. While critical theory claims that art has utilitarian value in challenging the dominant societal assumptions, it simultaneously claims that all art by nature exists to uphold the dominant societal structures and assumptions. Due to its materialist assumptions, critical theory can offer no other explanation for the nature, purpose, and proper interpretation of art except a materialist explanation such as the theory of base and superstructure. But if critical theory is right about how the base and superstructure work to uphold capitalism, then it must reject art and aesthetics entirely as by-products or pollutants of capitalism’s processes; no art can be valuable for its own sake, nor can it serve a utilitarian purpose. And if critical theory is right about art’s utility in raising class consciousness and initiating socio-economic transformation on the basis of an assumed “good,” it must reject its materialist assumption about how the base and superstructure work, which would inevitably collapse the logic of critical theory as a whole due to the theory’s commitment to a view of society in which all ideals, including art and beauty, are mere cultural constructs of dominant classes created to maintain their material power differential. And even if art in some coherent fashion could escape the hold of ideology, critical theory fails to provide a coherent explanation of how any individual could also escape ideology enough to accurately critique art. Ultimately, the utilitarianism of critical theory comes back to bite itself: The very metaphysical commitment to transcendent ideas necessary for aesthetics are abandoned for the sake of the emancipatory project, given that self-identified critical theorists share a belief “that the universal concepts of idealism all too slickly and willingly conceal the concrete suffering that stems from degrading conditions of life.” 9 Thus, critical theory as a whole implodes in its sad attempt to produce a coherent or even useful aesthetic, which should also make us question all implications of the theory in broader society.

Perhaps critical theorists will reject my logic here regarding the base, superstructure, and aesthetics. If I am missing some major point in my reasoning here, Christians should still be cautious to embrace the purely materialist and utilitarian nature of the aesthetics of critical theory. Christians serve a God who grants purpose and meaning to his creation, but the aesthetics of critical theory rely on a materialist metaphysics in which purpose and meaning are chance outcomes of material processes. While Christians serve a God who is goodness in and of himself and therefore arbitrates human ethics according to his character, the aesthetics of critical theory relies on a utilitarian ethic in which the (political) ends justify the (aesthetic) means. One does not have to be a Christian to desire a deeper purpose for art and beauty than mere societal impact; however, for the Christian it is an imperative: The human capacity to create and the resultant creative production are too good, too beautiful to have any purpose that is purely material, purely temporal.

While it is beyond the scope of this piece to provide a Christian aesthetics, as Christians we can and should pursue aesthetic theories axiomatically dependent on a transcendent reality that exists independently of humanity yet functions to order the world God created, the world that provides us the material fodder for human artistic creation. Creating or interpreting art with the sole purpose of temporal political transformation is simply not good enough to serve an eternal God who is concerned not only with features of human culture such as politics but calls us to contemplate by myriad artistic means “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, [whatever is] excellen[t], [whatever is] worthy of praise” (Philippians 4:8).

Dr. Victoria Bradley Aquilone is an associate professor of humanities in the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Cairn University. An alumna of the University, she studied social studies education and Bible at Cairn and then went on to earn two graduate degrees: a master’s degree in liberal studies from Villanova University and a PhD in English from the University of Delaware. Dr. Aquilone teaches English Composition, Literature/Arts in Historical Context, and literature courses such as Literary Criticism.

• Louis Althusser, “Ideology and ideological state apparatuses (Notes towards an investigation),” in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays , translated by Ben Brewster (New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1971), 82. ↩︎
• Ibid, 80. ↩︎
• Chris Rasmussen, “Ugly and Monstrous: Marxist Aesthetics,” James A. Rawley Graduate Conference in the Humanities (Apr. 2006), 2. ↩︎
• Banu Bargu, “In the Theater of Politics: Althusser’s Aleatory Materialism and Aesthetics,” Diacritics , vol. 40, no. 3, (2012), pp. 86–111. ↩︎
• Carlos Garrido, “Critique of the Misunderstanding Concerning Marx’s Base-Superstructure Spatial Metaphor,” Hamptonthink.org . ↩︎
• Max Horkheimer, “Traditional and Critical Theory,” in Critical Theory: Selected Essays: Max Horkheimer, translated by Matthew J. O’Connell and others (Continuum Publishing, 1972), 240. ↩︎
• William Lewis, “Louis Althusser,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , edited by Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman, (Fall 2022). ↩︎
• Althusser, 86. ↩︎
• JC Berendzen, “Postmetaphysical Thinking or Refusal of Thought? Max Horkheimer’s Materialism as Philosophical Stance,” in International Journal of Philosophical Studies , vol. 16, no. 5 (Dec. 2008), 695. ↩︎

More Issues

Republics Need the Liberal Arts

The world is throwing an enormously complex barrage of questions at Americans.  First are questions about the justice of wars, from Russia’s war of attrition in Ukraine and the Israel-Gaza

Principled, Not Partisan: Toward a Deeper Understanding of Conservatism

Words matter. They have since the beginning. The biblical narrative in Genesis tells us that God spoke all that is into existence. His intentions in creating humankind are expressed in

The Role of the Parent in the Education Process

In November 2022, a short sentence sparked an ideological debate. The National Educators Association tweeted, “Educators love their students and know better than anyone what they need to learn and

Clearing Up Confusion About Religious Belief and Objective Truth

Since 2014, Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research have conducted a biannual survey called “The State of Theology” to track what Americans in general and American evangelicals in particular believe about

We encourage you to take the time to share your thoughts, responses, or questions on the publication concept as well as this and future article content by emailing  [email protected] . Your responses to article-specific content will always make their way back to the author, and we look forward to using your feedback to shape the future direction of this publication.

200 Manor Avenue Langhorne, PA 19047 1.800.366.0049 [email protected] Contact Us  |  Maps & Directions

• Request Information
• Support Cairn
• Faculty & Staff
• Current Students
• Student Counseling
• Event Calendar
• Cairn Magazine
• Alumni Relations

What Is Called Thinking in Education?

• First Online: 30 July 2020

Cite this chapter

• Claudia Schumann 13  

Part of the book series: Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education ((COPT,volume 16))

655 Accesses

The chapter takes the problem space outlined by Martin Heidegger in his famously controversial lecture series What is called thinking? as a starting point to discuss which forms of thinking, which methods and bodies of knowledges in the academic discipline of education are promoted, and which are marginalized and devalued by narrow concepts of objectivity and rationality. I will focus on two questions in particular: Which forms of thinking do we intend to encourage and foster through education? And secondly, which forms of thinking and knowledge production are called for when we consider education and upbringing in the educational sciences, and what is the role of educational philosophy in this context? Building on Alice Crary’s work in Beyond Moral Judgment (2007), I argue that the critique of narrow conceptions of rationality and objectivity should not lead to a dismissal of these notions but rather to their broadening so that the cultivation of our affective and emotional sensitivities is understood as part and parcel of developing a rational and objective understanding of the world. Starting from such a revised conception of rationality, I further argue that it is one of the main tasks of philosophy of education, to keep alive the sense that it is possible and worthwhile to address the moral dimension of education in serious and rational argument without falling prey to a narrow focus on moral judgment nor to certain problematic forms of moralistic arrogance.

An earlier version of this chapter is published as Schumann, C. (2017). Was Heisst Denken in der Pädagogik? In M. Spiker & Stojanov, K. (eds.). Bildungsphilosophie. Disziplin – Gegenstandsbereich – Politische Bedeutung (pp. 243–256). Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save.

• Get 10 units per month
• Download Article/Chapter or eBook
• 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
• Cancel anytime
• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Compact, lightweight edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info
• Durable hardcover edition

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Wonder, Guarding Against Thoughtlessness in Education

Critical Thinking and/or Argumentation in Higher Education

The Essential Uncertainty of Thinking: Subject and Education in John Dewey

Some postmodern approaches could be placed here and, depending on interpretation, quite possibly also Richard Rorty’s idea of philosophy as a voice in the ongoing dialogue of mankind.

Here we could place approaches within educational theory which emphasize the importance of dialogue in education, following authors like Jürgen Habermas and other theorists.

A very instructive example of the blind spots and difficulties that a narrow focus on moral judgments and the most exact possible formulation of moral principles can lead to can be found in Kwame Anthony Appiah’s critical examination of Peter Singer’s theses (cf. Singer 1972 ) in Der Kosmopolit (Appiah 2007 , pp. 192–194). Appiah stresses, countering Singer, that “our moral intuition is often more secure than the principles to which we refer to explain it” (Appiah 2007 , p. 193) and that very different principles can be derived from Singer’s example. The moral rigor of Singer becomes particularly apparent when Appiah plays through other variants of the consequences that we can draw from the thought experiment of the drowning child from what he calls the Singer Principle. Through different contextualizations of the principle, especially in the detailed and informed discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of different strategies to combat world poverty, Appiah not only makes clear what it would mean to adequately do justice in practice to the complexity of the moral questions judged by Singer according to general principles, but he also clearly shows the paradoxical consequences that can result from a rigid moralism of Singer’s manner and opposes this with a context-sensitive pragmatism.

Appiah, K. A. (2007). Der Kosmopolit . München: Beck.

Google Scholar  

Brandom, R. (1994). Making it explicit. Reasoning, representing, and discursive commitment . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Cavell, S. (1999). The claim of reason. Wittgenstein, Skepticism, morality, and tragedy (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

Crary, A. (2009). Beyond moral judgment . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Book   Google Scholar  

Feldman, R. (2009). Thinking, reasoning, and education. In H. Siegel (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy of education (pp. 67–82). New York: Oxford University Press.

Heidegger, M. (2002). Was heißt Denken? (Gesamtausgabe, Bd. 8) . Frankfurt/M: Vittorio Klostermann.

Lovibond, S. (2003). Ethical formation . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Mackie, J. L. (1977). Ethics. Inventing right and wrong . New York: Penguin.

McDowell, J. (1998). Mind, value, reality . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Singer, P. (1972). Famine, affluence, and morality. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 3 , 229–243.

Stekeler-Weithofer, P. (2004). Was heißt Denken? Von Heidegger über Hölderlin zu Derrida . Bonn: Bonn University Press.

Wiggins, D. (1998). Needs, values, truth. In Essays in the philosophy of Value . New York: Oxford University Press.

Williams, B. (1985). Ethics and the limits of philosophy . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Education, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

Claudia Schumann

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Claudia Schumann .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

Department of Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

Torill Strand

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Schumann, C. (2020). What Is Called Thinking in Education?. In: Strand, T. (eds) Rethinking Ethical-Political Education. Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education, vol 16. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_11

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49524-4_11

Published : 30 July 2020

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-030-49523-7

Online ISBN : 978-3-030-49524-4

eBook Packages : Education Education (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

Dissertation Watch: Merging Theories for Social Justice Advocacy in Higher Education

• Posted by by Antioch University
• July 26, 2024

Camaron Miyamoto, a 2024 graduate of the EdD in Educational and Professional Practice, published his dissertation titled Daring to Lead with Humility: Merging Connective Leadership Theory and Critical Race Theory for Social Justice Advocacy in Higher Education .  

Through research using both Likert Scale surveys as well as follow-up interviews, Miyamoto’s study is grounded in leadership development, and addresses university leadership and the need to affirm diversity, equity, and inclusion in order to institute organizational change for social justice. Using the key research question, “What are effective ways for leaders to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion with the goal of achieving social justice?” Miyamoto found the majority of the research to center around racial equity, Critical Race Theory, and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies, but the connection to leadership development models is new terrain. 

Miyamoto’s study will add a Connective Leadership Theory framework to the lens of Critical Race Theory to analyze the potential of university leaders to enhance organizational change for diversity, equity, and inclusion metrics. The implication of this research is to create a template for university administrators and employees on how to use diversity, equity, and inclusion measures to work toward organizational change and social justice.

Miyamoto is a tenured faculty in the Office of the Vice Provost for Student Success, where he is the Director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Queer+ (LGBTQ+) Center at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Miyamoto continues to learn from his students and is fueled by the belief that we will create a better future through compassion, education, and a steadfast commitment to social justice. A founding board member of the Hawai‘i LGBT Legacy Foundation, Miyamoto, helped establish the LGBT Center Waikiki and plan the Honolulu Pride Parade and Festival for several years. He served as a board member of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), Honolulu Chapter, and advocated for marriage equality in Hawai‘i. Miyamoto has been published by the Princeton Review, Peter Lang Publishing, and the University of Hawaiʻi Press and has materials reprinted by Duke University Press relating to queer people of color. 

Post navigation

Jewish Mourning in the Present Catastrophe

Related posts.

Teaching Community Engagement and Encouraging Unapologetic Self-Care

• June 20, 2019
• 2 minute read

Three years after Yolande “Falami” Devoe earned her master’s in educational leadership from Antioch University Midwest, she suffered two mini-strokes. “I started on a self-care trek as a result of…

Reggio Conference held at AUM

• March 28, 2019
• 1 minute read

The Ohio Voices for Learning: A Reggio Inspired Forum (OVL) held its spring statewide conference at AUM on Saturday, March 16, 2019. OVL is a network of study groups from…

• Counseling, Psychology, & Therapy

Antioch University Midwest and Antioch University Online Celebrate Commencement

• May 17, 2019

Antioch University Midwest and Antioch University Online congratulate the graduating class of 2019! This year we had the honor of watching 68 students from five-degree programs walk across the stage…

Coding camp helps middle schoolers in Montgomery Co. recover from pandemic setbacks

by Kellye Lynn

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. (7News) — Navika Duvey is a rising seventh grader who is expanding her understanding of coding at summer camp.

"Problem-solving, those skills you learn in math is also in coding," she told 7News.

It's an important connection as Montgomery County Public Schools students and those around the country make slow progress in recovering from pandemic-related academic losses.

READ| Delta struggles with baggage, delays after global IT outage leaves travelers stranded

The national decline in math scores has created what education experts call a data literacy crisis.

"A lot of our students are coming in at different levels, and basically the levels that they’re coming in at they might not have the skills to show their level of performance," explained educator and camp on-site coordinator Yvette Edwards.

For three weeks this summer, more than 800 Montgomery County Public Schools students are strengthening essential critical thinking and problem-solving skills through the Montgomery Can Code camp.

"To have an introduction to Apple Swift coding and learning app design," said Kimberly Bloch-Rincan, Director of ignITe Hub which runs Montgomery Can Code.

The free camp offered at three Montgomery College campuses is also inspiring these middle school students to pursue tech careers.

READ| Target stops taking checks; business expert thinks fighting fraud is the reason

11-year-old Veer Amin hopes to someday work as a robotics engineer.

"I love coding and I think coding’s really important to what you can do ahead in life," he said.

"A lot of computer and AI things are going to be very important in the future so I just want to get ahead of the game," student Wilson Dilone told 7News.