How can Reasoning Skills be Improved?-An experimental study of the effects of Reasoning Skills

Curriculum on reasoning skills development for students in postsecondary technical education programs

By

Mingchang WuAssociate professor and Chair

Department of vocational and technical educationNational Yunlin University of Science and Technology

No. 123, University Road 3rd sectionTouliu, Yunlin County, 640

Taiwan, R.O.C.E-mail Address: wumc@pine.yuntech.edu.tw

Kuo-hung TsengProfessor and Vice President

Meiho Institute of Technology23 PingKuang Road, Neipu Hsiang

Pintung, Taiwan, R.O.C.E-Mail Address:ken@email.meiho.edu.tw

James P. GreenanProfessor and Chair

Career and Technical EducationDepartment of Curriculum and Instruction1442 Liberal Arts & Education Building

Purdue University West Lafayette, IN 47907-1442 USA

Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University of Hamburg, 17-20 September 2003

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AbstractThe improvement of reasoning skills has been highly valued as a major

educational goal. These skills are also increasingly needed in this society filled with information resources and multifarious senses of value. However, reasoning education seems not to succeed as expected due to the lack of effective instructional strategies and systematic curricula. Related research has mostly addressed the fundamental theories; but reasoning skills curricula and practical assessment have been severely limited. Therefore, this study was conducted to continue reasoning skills development research and to identify the effects of this innovative curriculum on the improvement of competencies for students in postsecondary technical education programs.

The sample participating in this study consisted of 23 students and was selected in a technical university located in central Taiwan, R.O.C.. During the one-semester experimental period, nineteen reasoning sub-skills were taught as the major content using contemporary social issues in order for participants to integrate reasoning skills with daily life affairs. A group discussion model was the main teaching strategy combined with lecturing. Qualitative research methods and portfolios were employed to continuously collect data and analyze the development of students’ reasoning skills during the period.

This study indicated that the instruction successfully assisted students to improve their reasoning skills from the stage of dual thinking style to responsible knowing. Some suggestions concerning effective teaching strategies and reasoning skills assessment were also provided on the basis of the findings and conclusions.

Keywords: Reasoning Skills, Postsecondary Technical Education, Reasoning Assessment

Introduction

Postsecondary technical education programs have established their goals to

mainly prepare students with professional skills training in order to satisfy the needs

of the workplace. Technical Education indeed plays an important role in economic

enhancement and life quality improvement for many countries in human

developmental history. However, the explosive knowledge, various accesses to

information, and renovating technologies has become the new challenge to

professional careers and school education in this current society. Future professionals

are no longer to satisfied with their own expertise only, but they need to constantly

study, learn, review, analyze, and classify the thinking ability to fit the needs of

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society in the future world. Therefore, it is urgently needed to improve the reasoning

skills for students in postsecondary technical education.

Reasoning is recognized as the core element of human nature, whether it is in

the teachings of Socrates, Confucius, or Buddhism (Chen, 2000). Education is to

prepare citizens with reasoning skills and to create more rational society or culture.

The nature of reasoning skills and the reasoning skills improvement approaches have

brought increasing concerns of educators, psychologists, and philosophers for decades

(Kemler, 1998). Reasoning skills are recognized as the key abilities for human being

to create, learn, and exploit knowledge. These skills are also an important factor in

the process of human civilization. Therefore, the importance of reasoning skills has

been of great concern in educational settings and the world of work. The era of

information explosion is filled with ever changing and confusing information

fragments, and multiple values (Bauman, 1999; Beck, 1992; Rorty, 1989). It

becomes increasingly important to improve reasoning skills through lifelong learning

in response to such challenges and lead a meaningful life, and construct a rational

better world (Shu, 2000). Therefore, current educational systems across the world

have recognized the need to enhance students’ reasoning skills (European

Commission, 1995; Greenan, 1994; Moshman, 1990; Wu, 2001). While endeavoring

to improve reasoning skills, several questions need to be clarified: “How do students

learn reasoning skills? “ and “How should reasoning skills be taught and assessed in

various technical education programs (Stasz & Grubb, 1991)?

Related research has also proved the construct of reasoning skills, which

included four stages and nineteen concrete and practical sub-skills (Wu, 2001). These

concrete and substantive reasoning sub-skills were extracted from abstractive

cognitive theories for more effective teaching and learning. The reasoning skills

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curriculum was, therefore, developed for reasoning skills improvement of students in

postsecondary technical education programs.

In addition, the assessment strategy for reasoning skills is also a crucial

component for reasoning skills improvement. Traditional assessment relies too much

on quantitative measurement through teacher ratings assessment, student self-ratings

assessment, and even standardized performance tests. However, these quantitative

assessment strategies might not appropriately and accurately measure students’

reasoning skills achievement. Reasoning is dynamic cognitive processes involving

cultural backgrounds and issue contexts. Reasoning skills assessment should not be

globally standardized, but localized and diverse due to personal characteristics and

cultural differences. However, traditional standardized performance tests seem to be

standardized and heavily focus on reasoning results. All examinees’ differences of

essential reasoning qualities are divided but condensed into an unique dimension to

which some scores are assigned. During the assessment processes of reasoning

achievement, individual differences with respect to cultural backgrounds and issue

contexts might be ignored. This fact causes teachers difficult to approach to the

detailed descriptions, analysis, or explanation on students’ reasoning skills

achievement. It may, even, lead to misunderstanding of students’ reasoning

achievement and all its consequences. Therefore, qualitative research methods for

reasoning skills assessment are suggested to further understand the development and

achievement of students' reasoning skills.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study was to identify the effects of Reasoning Skills

curriculum on the achievement of reasoning skills for students in postsecondary

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technical education programs. The qualitative improvement of reasoning skills and

attitudes for students receiving the innovative instruction was the major concerns in

this study.

Literature Review

Reasoning skills have received broad attention and were discussed in three major

topics: (1) Definitions and content of reasoning skills, (2) Instructional strategies for

reasoning improvement, and (3) Assessment approaches of reasoning skills.

1. Definitions and the content of reasoning skills

Reasoning is characterized as a goal-oriented cognitive process, which aims at

problem solving, decision-making, as well as retrospective self-rectification (Wu,

2001). It also emphasizes on insightful background interpretation, argument

depiction, evidence presentation, criteria selection, value construction, and theory

application (Facione, 1990). Reasoning skills are constructed through step-by-step

reasoning mechanism. First, reasoning is motivated with the induction by stimuli.

Second, reasoning is a goal-oriented process (Bruner, 1973). Third, reasoning

functions based on information, knowledge, and experience (Allen & Rott, 1969;

Beyer, 1988). Fourth, reasoning operates mainly using language. Fifth, reasoning is

driven by intelligence or reasoning skills (DeBono, 1992). Sixth, reasoning is also

associated with personal thinking dispositions, habits, personal positions, motives,

and other social/cultural factors (Brookfield, 1987). Finally, the meta-cognition of

reasoning mainly functions to self-monitor individuals’ thinking process and results

(see Figure 1).

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Figure 1 Reasoning Mechanism and Coping Strategies (Wu, 2001)

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Thought-inducing Stimuli:1. People, things or events;2. Psychological conditions.

Information Processing: Goal:1. Rational self and life: individual life, career,

relationship, value system of life…2. Rational society： civil affairs, ethics, moral,

culture, politic economics…

Perception:Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting…

Thinking:Reasoning, interpretation, analysis, judgment, evaluation, conclusion

Influences and Preventive Strategies:

Reasoning Mechanism: Reaction and Coping Strategies:

Experience:Social learning, demonstration, conditioning

Personality:Superego (ideal), ego (reality), id (desire, need), defense mechanism

Motive: Mean-End

Biased Believes or Radical Thinking Styles：

Self-centered, extremism, absolutism, conformism, inflexible, over-generalization, arbitrary, picky, impulsive

Strategies: Identification and Working-through with Experience

Strategies: Modification of Biased Believes; Adjustment of Radical Thinking Styles

Emotion:Anger, fear, anxiety, rejoice, excitement, frustration, confused, embarrassed…

Behavior:Withdraw, avoidance, stubborn, aggressive, evasive, ambiguous…

Coping with Emotion

Coping with Behavior

4 Processing Phrases:

19 Reasoning Skills:

10 Reasoning Dispositions:

14 Assessment Criteria:

Feedback:Reaction Expectance/Reaction Strength

For further understanding the nature and implementation of reasoning skills,

abstractive cognitive concepts of reasoning skills should be clarified to be subjective,

measurable, and feasible skills. A four-phrase thinking procedure was identified to

better understand and improve reasoning skills. In sum, reasoning skills were

identified as 19 basic and concrete reasoning sub-skills, 10 dispositions, and 14

assessment criteria (Wu, 2001). Reasoning processes were also proposed to follow

the four-phrase approach, including (1) issue identification- to identify the major

issues or problem natures, (2) viewpoint clarification- to construct the personal

viewpoints of the issues, (3) discussion and defense- to logically present the

viewpoints and discuss them, and (4) synthesis and conclusion- to synthesize various

viewpoints and finalize the conclusions (see Figure 2).

Figure 2 The Four-phased Approach of Reasoning

2. Instructional strategies for reasoning skills

Reasoning skills and dispositions have been identified as crucial components for

career success in the current era filled with diversified information resources (Chang,

1995; Greenan, 1994). However, several factors associated with conventional

instructional strategies and school education were found as the barricade to the

development and improvement of reasoning skills (Amundsen, Gryspeerdt, &

Moxness, 1993; Chang, 1996). These factors include:

(1) School education usually relies too much on textbooks. Students, even teachers,

become accustomed to receiving crystallized knowledge from textbooks and

easily ignore or even misperceive the nature and purpose of education.

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Issue Identification

Viewpoint Clarification

Discussion and Defense

Synthesis and Conclusion

(2) Logical thinking training hardly exists in contemporary school education.

Students usually focus on shallow learning (e.g. memorizing, comprehension,

imitation) and are hardly capable of performing the high level thinking (e.g.

reasoning, analysis, synthesis, creation, and judgment). They are not

accustomed to thinking autonomously and rationally.

(3) Students are not prepared with analyzing skills and attitudes or habits to

communicate logically and coherently. As a result, most students are lost in

fragmented subject knowledge or unverified information due to their apathetic

thinking attitudes and poor communication skills.

(4) Many teachers might not possess the abilities and dispositions to conduct

reasoning thinking. They tend to use one-way lecture model and focus on

students’ learning by memorization. This fact depresses students’ inclination of

reasoning thinking and demoralizes reasoning skills and dispositions.

(5) In our society, the over-specification on subjects confuses school teachers about

educational goals and mainly teach about the subject matter in the textbooks

rather than the subject matter itself. Students can not appreciate multiple values

due to this over-categorization of knowledge and over-emphasis on single

professional sphere instead of knowledge integration.

Based on the phenomena aforementioned, reasoning skills instruction is so

crucial to assist learners to better understand the skills and processes of inquiry,

analysis, and judgment in all professional fields (Abell, 1999; Greenan, 1994).

Reasoning skills instruction needs to emphasize the analytical learning of subject

matter itself with thorough understanding. This intervention needs to assist learners

to actively construct knowledge rather than passively receive crystallized knowledge

only, and to build a critical understanding of subject matters and reasoning skills,

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through analysis, evaluation, inquiry, and problem solving (Mariorana, 1992).

In order to prepare learners with reasoning skills, this instruction should

encourage learners to integrate diversified knowledge, critically analyze and judge

multiple values, logically present their conclusions. It has been strongly suggested to

develop a coordinated program of reasoning skills “across the curriculum”,

emphasizing reasoning in a variety of content courses and/or using various subject

matters in the reasoning course (Beane, 1998; Davis, 1995; Kemler, 1998; Paul 1993;

Potts, 1994). Under such integrative conception, teachers may reconsider the major

purposes of their class activities and encourage their students to become active

analysts of subject matters (Ruggiero, 1988).

3. Reasoning skills assessments

Assessment in education areas is important to identify the behavioral and

psychological status or development, or to explain whether instructional objectives

are met. The reasoning skills assessment purports to measure students’ reasoning

skills in analysis, inference, organization, as well as problem-solution. Studies have

identified 14 concrete reasoning skills assessment criteria, including clearness,

accuracy, preciseness, logicality of inference, consistency of reasoning, coherency of

expression, depth and breadth of reasoning, logicality of reasoning, integrality of

reasoning, neutrality of reasoning, constructiveness of reasoning, productiveness of

reasoning, and independence of reasoning. Reasoning assessment approaches

basically include using criterion-oriented performance test, students’ self-rating, and

teachers’ rating (Greenan, 1994).

(1) Criteria-oriented performance assessment

Criteria-oriented assessment refers to the use and examination of validity and

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reliability, and identifies the status of targeted behavior or achievement comparing

with standardized criteria. However, such assessment might over-emphasize skills in

memorization and, therefore, often fails to induce constructive and innovative

thinking.

(2) Student self-ratings on reasoning skills

This approach intends to analyze students’ reasoning disposition for a sound

reasoning system development. As it can be subjective, self-ratings strategies were

widely used for a feasible and efficient educational assessment. The reliabilities and

validities are the major concern while using self-ratings in educational settings.

(3) Teacher ratings on student reasoning performance

Teacher’s rating is namely an assessment approach given by the instructors to

measure students’ performance of certain aspects. The assessment is usually

conducted according to instructional objectives and measurement criteria through

students’ perspectives.

Such three quantitative assessment strategies provide assessment information

regarding a student's reasoning skills. Performance Assessment is an objective

(criterion-oriented) assessment strategy for a better understanding of a student's

reasoning skills. Student self-rating assessment assists students to be self-directed in

their learning and decision-making. Student self-rating could be less time consuming,

less expensive, more easily administered and interpreted (Greenan, 1994). Therefore,

it can be useful as an informal assessment to assist teachers to provide feedbacks to

students.

These three traditional assessment strategies basically focus more on the level

of quantitative assessment and analysis. However, under the consideration of

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numerical standard, all the existing differences of essential human characteristics

could be divided to be quantitative fragments and condensed into one-dimensional

number of difference. This fact might result in two challenges: (a) In the theoretical

aspect, people usually have abundant and various reasoning approaches, but their

differences in reasoning may be ignored and hidden; (b) In the pragmatic aspect,

quantitative assessment simplifies and condenses the multifarious reasoning processes

into one-dimensional number. The meaning and implication of reasoning processes

and approaches have no detailed description, analysis, and insight explanation.

Therefore, the meaning and function of quantitative assessment for reasoning skills

development are limited.

4. The implementation of Teachers' portfolios

Reasoning skills assessment needs more foci on individual’s competency and

characteristic concerning his/her ability to utilize knowledge for problem-solving and

logic inference. Teachers' portfolio assessment is the representative assessment

strategy for socio-historical comprehension regarding participants’ performance and

understanding of certain issues. Teachers' portfolio strategy purports to collect their

pedagogical experiences and cognitive development of students during students’

learning processes. Data collected in the portfolio also include the students' work,

exertion, and improvements and accomplishments. This strategy assists observers to

perceive the pragmatic and processing assessment as a whole entity. Based on this

observation and reflection, teachers can modify their pedagogical teaching toward the

students' learning competency and progresses.

For reasoning skills assessment, teachers' portfolio strategy has the following

characteristics:

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(A) It adopts the multifarious assessment approaches to analyze students’ reasoning

skills;

(B) It mainly emphasizes students’ learning processes and reasoning skills

development;

(C) It encourages teachers to investigate and amend their own teaching strategies

through long-term observation on students’ feedbacks concerning reasoning skills

improvement.

(D) Teachers' portfolios are the combination of teaching portfolio and reflective

analyses. This reflection could be constructive to further understand the effective

learning and teaching concerning reasoning skills.

RESEARCH METHODS

This research was conducted to identify the effects of Reasoning Skills

intervention on reasoning skills improvement for students registered in postsecondary

technical education programs. Reasoning is a cognitive process with dynamic, on-

going, individualized, and problem-solution-oriented characteristics. Therefore,

qualitative research methods were employed to further understand the in-depth, in-

breadth, and detailed contributions created by this cognition-modified intervention

(Patton, 1990). The following qualitative research strategies were used:

(1) Loudly thinking: This strategy purports to probe participants’ thinking contents

through verbal expression which is used as crucial qualitative data. During the

period of this interventional experiment, the students were requested to speak

loudly about their opinions and supportive reasons in order to collect qualitative

data regarding students’ thinking process, styles, and results.

(2) Teachers' observation: In order to understand the complexities of many validities,

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researchers’ participation in and observation of the phenomenon should be the

appropriate approach for more authentic understanding and explanation of the

qualitative data. This study employed semi-construction strategy to observe

students’ reasoning skills and attitudes in response to discussion topics and their

peers’ opinions.

(3) Teacher's portfolios analysis: The teacher’s portfolio, recording his/her own

meta-reflection concerning teaching strategies and students’ performance, was a

crucial data resource for this experimental research. Teacher’s portfolio could be

constructed as a scenario which was narrative portrayals including interview

results, detailed descriptions of class phenomenon, cognitive reflection, and

teaching modification (Patton, 1990). In this study, a teacher’s portfolio was

employed, through the whole semester, to detailed document teaching strategies,

issue contents, and the development of students' reasoning skills and attitude. It

was also documented that teacher’s on-going reflection and adjustment of

interventional approaches in response to students’ learning achievement and

motivations.

1. Population and Sample

The targeted population were students enrolled in technical education programs

at the postsecondary level. However, in this quasi-experimental study, twenty-three

students, taking a related course, were selected in a technical college located in

central Taiwan as a sample while considering the research control and validity of this

study. This sample included students of the four major professional fields

(Engineering School, Management School, Design School, and Humanity School).

These participants might generally represent the students in postsecondary technical

education programs (Table 1).

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Table 1 Participants ’ background College Education system Gender Engineering M anagement Design Humanity two-year four year male female

Number 8 10 2 3 16 7 10 13Percent 35 43 9 13 70 30 43 57 Total N=23

2. Research Instruments

The reasoning skills curriculum was developed on the basis of a series of

research regarding reasoning skills identification and improvement for college

students in the last three years. This curriculum purported to enhance students'

reasoning skills and depositions through speculating about academic learning and life

issue discussion. The background theories on reasoning skills, four stages of

reasoning process, and nineteen reasoning sub-skills were the major contents in this

curriculum.

In this study, the researcher himself was also a research instrument involving

data collection and analysis. The researcher must be qualified with in-depth

understanding of research issues and insight observation of students’ reasoning

performance. The researcher here has the experience of reasoning research for more

than three years and the teaching experience in postsecondary education for five

years.

3. Data Collection

This experimental research was conducted in a two-hour-credit course, titled

as Reasoning Skills and Life. The data were collected through teaching intervention

and observation.

(1) Experimental intervention

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During the 18 weeks, students were asked to group as discussion teams for

class activities and assignment projects (3-5 people per team). Each group contained

students from more than three colleges in order for them to envision multifarious

issues. Students collected relevant papers and information according to the assigned

issues discussed in class, then present personal opinions, and discuss with others.

Early in the semester, the teacher needed to help students develop the important four-

stage reasoning process, lead students to discuss by guiding discussion direction and

outline of the issues, and offer some hints to encourage their reasoning and

discussion. At the beginning of each class, group discussion was arranged for 30

minutes, then the whole class discussed together for 30-40 minutes. The teacher

would not get involved unless students’ discussion deviated from the topics. Students

were required to hand on a report every three weeks as to organize and reflect their

opinions related to class discussion. Each group should also hand on the final report

concerning certain topics with multifaceted values at the end of the semester.

(2) Data encoding

The research data were collected through the teacher’s portfolio. In this

qualitative study, the teacher took notes on the results of observation during the

students' discussion accompanied with students' identification numbers and

observation dates on the records. In order to protect students' privacy, these data

were anonymous with transferring numbers. Students’ performance in both class

discussion and assignment projects regarding reasoning skills in the filed documents

were also collected with the dates in order to understand their reasoning skills

development during the period of intervention. These data from class observation

and students’ performance were important materials for the researcher to understand

the change of students' reasoning skills in the semester and the feedbacks of

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interventional strategies.

4. Data Analysis

Since reasoning skills are abstract, it might be difficult to obtain the accurate

and quantitative assessment criteria. A series of on-going qualitative observation and

continuing reflection on the reasoning skills development were recognized better than

traditional quantitative assessment, and better explain the quality of reasoning.

Therefore, the data, collected through teachers' portfolios, were analyzed according to

the research purpose and following the procedures:(a) To encode students’ major

statements in their discussion and assignment; (b) To classify the students' attributes

and induct their reasoning skills characteristics; and (c) To analyze the students'

reasoning models and development during the period of this study. The descriptive

validity, interpretive validity, and theoretical validity were also analyzed using the

methods of triangulation.

In order to improve the inner validity of this research, the stratagems applied

here include (1) methods triangulation-using teachers' observation and students'

discussion or assignment to collect information and inspect mutually. (2) Data

triangulation-using various resources such as content of group reports, content of

students' discussion and their responses on monograph test. Meanwhile. Replication

logic is also used here in order to discover students' similar reaction.

RESEARCH FINDINGS

The effects of a nontraditional intervention on the reasoning skills

improvement for students in technical education programs were the major concerns of

this study. Prior to analyzing students’ reasoning skills development, this research

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uncovered that these students generally believed the educational goal of Technical

Education programs were merely to prepare students with professional skills for

future careers. Students perceived that there was no need to learn the general

education, and severely ignored the reasoning skills. Though few students took this

course for curiosity, most students took it casually without any recognition of its

important values.

This study focused on the students’ improvement of reasoning skills and

attitudes during the period of study. The data were therefore analyzed in accord with

time period which was considered as an independent variable.

(1) At the beginning of this experimental period, most students mainly presented

personal points of view, and barely discussed and deliberated universal

ideologies with broad and deep visions.

When discussing the factors of winning Oscar Award, some students said:

” I think Ann Lee--the director of Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon--should

win the Oscar Best Director Award because the film is quite good... the reason

why he did not win the award was about the race issue...”

“when shooting an art movie, the direct leans towards to describe the frame of

mind, I do not agree to discuss about this issue with a more reasonable theory

and I can not discuss and find out the reasons for winning the awards so as not to

deprive the beauty of art."(ST9025532-900326)

In addition, most of the students were influenced by the media and believed:

” The evaluation of Oscar was added with the consideration of American honor

and the discrimination against Oriental Culture... Ann Lee also said that it was

uneasy to step on the region under others' sphere of influence"(ST9041225-

900328)

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Students absorbed the report from mass media without distinguishing the

credibility of the resource, and insightful meaning as well as implication of the

information itself. This phenomenon seemed to reflect that people (especially the

youths) in the liberal society basically still limited themselves to their personal

opinions, hardly opened to the broad vision. These participants even believes that

intuitive sense was more important than reasoning; feeling was more important than

synthesizing. They usually did not speculate how their viewpoints were formed or

supported with what facts.

(2) Students usually expounded the meaning of information with personal

preoccupied conception but not distinguished its objectivity and meaning before

forming personal opinion.

In the debit, students have mentioned:

" Taiwan Electricity Cooperation is the unit supporting the idea of building

nuclear power station. The information that Taiwan Electricity offered would

certainly lean towards the statement that Taiwan lacks electricity power;

therefore, it is not objective or convincing if we take these data as an

evidence.”(ST9033442-900328)

Obviously, the students first perceived that Taiwan Electricity Cooperation was

the supporter of Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, and then they affirmed the information

of Taiwan Electricity offered was not convincing, yet they did not provide any

evidence to retort it.

(3) Students seemed misconceived contemplating as immediately judging, and

directly drawing conclusions. They could not appropriately recognize the

importance, nor appreciate the value, of gathering information, providing strong

arguments, rationally narrating opinions, and synthetically drawing conclusions

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for specific issues.

(4) After receiving the reasoning skills intervention for two months, part of the

students started to develop a reasoning format and became able to consistently

address on the specific issues and logically analyze the factors for each issue. Yet

they still lacked the mastery of relating concrete evidences to their arguments.

This course first developed the four-phase reasoning models to cultivate

students' reasoning skills and better understand the issues, form the thesises, logically

communicate, and synthesize for conclusions. The process of contemplating is more

important than the results. The sub-skills are also introduced in this course. In the

discussion about why Ann Lee could not win the Best Director Award, students

answered (ST9025545-900428):

(a) The background of Chinese Culture and Western Culture are quite different.

The Western people basically maintain their affection with each other through

religion; Chinese people emphasize the hospitality and loyalty. The Chinese

Culture is very various from the Western.

(b) The Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon is restrained by social morality, and

the Gladiator won the award because of technological special effect costing a

huge sum of money. The styles of the two movies are totally different.

(c) Each judge has different favors or stands (extract, interest.) from others;

therefore, the judges may lean towards or ignore some viewpoints.

(d) Every judge might not have seen the whole movies, but might just part of them.

Based on the four points above, I would assume that every judge has different

viewpoints, we can neither compare the two movies nor say it is fair or not.

The statements aforementioned indicated that the students gradually started to

aim directly at one issue, analyzed the interrelation among factors, and showed their

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primary improvement of reasoning skills. However, they were still weak at mastering

concrete evidence for argument.

(5) Students obviously developed their reasoning skills and attitudes with different

speeds while receiving this reasoning skills intervention.

After receiving the course for two months, students slowly but surely

recognized the importance of reasoning skills and gradually showed their reasoning

skills improvement while discussing and reporting. Students' performances reflected

that the students of the College of Management and the College of Humanity had the

best perform of reasoning skills. Perhaps this was due to that their class activities and

home work requirements focusing more on speculating and expressing some

multifarious social issues. Relatively, students in the College of Engineering seemed

not have so obvious reasoning skills improvement. These students might be trained,

in their subject studies, to merely concern about technological rightness or wrong.

They have limited opportunities to make alternative choices and communicate for

negotiation or compromise.

(6) In the late semester, most of students performed well in speculating the current

affairs with multifarious alternative points of view after receiving the three-

month curriculum of reasoning skills. However, these students’ reasoning skills

were still not well maturely developed.

Students obviously improved their reasoning skills in mid-term reports and class

discussion by presenting multifaceted viewpoints of an event. These students became

able to concentrate on the specific issues with accurate arguments, logical inference,

and synthetic conclusion. For instance, the following observational conclusions were

drawn on the basis of a student’s report which was titled as " The Analysis on the

Sexual Harassment Case of a Chairperson In one Party": (ST9052426-900509)

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(A) The students could take the some relative examples to view the event, such as

the various accusations and every explanation of the accuser and the

contrast. It reflected the student’s vision to deal with things in various

angles.

(B) In the discussion, students indicated their capabilities of identifying the

major points of the argument and the suspicious points, and the implicated

issues (or ambiguous meanings) needing more contemplation and discussion.

Students could also proceed to the identification of various standing points

and, fully and objectively, presented their declarations with acceptable

evidence for each side.

(C) However, while synthesizing for conclusions, students still usually limited to

their preconceived perceptions and did not really include others’ opinions

mentioned before. Therefore, the obviously self-contradictory points existed.

This fact seemed imply that these students just followed the required steps to

list every arguments from multifarious standpoints, however, they still

intuitively limited to their own ideologies while synthesizing various

arguments and drawing conclusions. Some students even declared such a

conclusion" Each side is reasonable and possesses its reasons; it is hard to

say which side is right or wrong", after they presented each other's opinion.

No personal finally conclusion was gained. This phenomenon indicated that

students were not well educated on the reasoning skills.

The aforementioned phenomena reflected that the students started to be able to

collect the supporting information for specific arguments and even analyze the inside

relationship among factors. However, their viewpoints and supporting evidence were

merely located on one side, not on the broad vision. They seemed not able to vision

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the contrast side nor employ practical experience to evaluate and to make

a sophisticated decision.

(7) Students’ discussion and project reports presented the remarkable structure of the

four phases of reasoning skills which included issue identification, viewpoint

establishment, argument and defense, and synthetic conclusion drawing.

However, students were still relatively weak at the development and facilitation

for each reasoning sub-skill.

In the late experimental period, students were asked to discuss the topic

regarding the individual recruitment policy for each university. This discussion was

also the subject of homework project. Students’ discussion and project reports

indicated the following characteristics (Teacher’s portfolio 900516):

(A) Students became able to precisely express their major proposition for the

target theme. Their declaration was basically concentrated to the

recruitment policy and clearly address their viewpoints with concisely

supportive arguments;

(B) Students were becoming able to present their own viewpoints and reasons for

each argument. However, their viewpoints and reasons seemed not to be

formed on the bases of multifarious and synthetic analyses on the facts, but

were more likely derived from personal preconceptions or other persons’

statements. They seemed not to be used to reflecting others’ statements by

means of recollecting more relative research and reports, and triangulating

the assertions. This fact might signify that students were still be weak at self-

examining the insights of information with diversified values and viewpoints;

(C) The students' reasoning model was much similar to writing styles of children

in elementary school and junior high school. They followed the rules and

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steps of composition spinning along one central idea and analyzing it from

various angles, but for one purpose. For instance, while students perceived

the examination system was not good, they kept stating its weaknesses

without reflecting other points of view. They were hardly objective to

proceed to synthesize the pros and cons of the targeted subjects;

(D) Based on students’ applying statistics theories to social events, they seemed

not able to accurately understand their study and hardly authentically

transferred academic theories to social applications. It was obviously that

students misperceived statistical theories, such as normal distribution, and

caused a bias image on university exam and recruitment policy.

Surprisingly, these students seemed form their opinions based on some

obscure and inaccurate academic conception, and bias assumption. This

phenomenon might cause students’ self-content of ignorance while they

could not notice this fallacy from the beginning to the end (Teacher’s

portfolio 900513).

(E) Students did not intensively and passionately discuss the serious social

topics. Students might seldom concern about the social events, comparing

with gossip topics such as the marriage between a young man and old lady.

It seemingly reflected that students seldom touched and concerned with these

serious topics. They usually insisted on their own standpoints, while once

touched them, without sophisticated overview on multifarious opinions.

(F) There was another obvious phenomenon found in students’ discussion that

students' viewpoints and recognition were limited to complaining contents

heard from others. They seldom focused on the topics themselves and

preceded the analysis on the collected information from various resources

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representing diverse viewpoints and senses of value. Therefore, students

presented just their own personal opinions, attitudes, and tendency without

strong and persuasive reasons for arguments. For example, the discussion

on University Exam System and Policy of Recruiting Students Individually

was almost limited to the influence of examination styles on students’ and

professors’ feelings and opinions, and the like. Their concerns never

extended to the future direction and goals of technical education, the

functions and missions of entrance examination to universities and students,

and efficient connection and transference for various levels in educational

system.

(G) The contents of students' discussion exposed that their reasoning skills were

still stayed at the first stage of the dualism system, and could only distinguish

the right and wrong (Paul, 1993). There were a small amount of students

promoting to the second level and could present the contextual factors for

each argument and/or behind each phenomenon. In the past qualitative

research, it was revealed that the performance of reasoning skills from low

to high stage could be divided into four levels including dualism,

multiplicity, contextual relativism, and responsible knowing. In other word,

these students could merely identify rightness and wrong of arguments based

on some criteria, which usually came out of the information they could reach

instead of the results they rationally analyzed and evaluated. Only a few of

students could stride over the boundary of so-called correct answer,

rationally think through multifarious perspectives, and finally concluded

their own personal opinions. In general, these students did yet develop their

reasoning skills to identify, analyze, and synthesize the information for a

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major topic.

Summary of the research findings

The results of data analysis indicated that these students originally possessed

apathetic attitude to take this course “Reasoning Skills and Life” for university

requirement. At beginning of the experimental period, students were generally

lacking awareness of the importance and functions of reasoning skills, and pursuing

only technological skills and knowledge in their majors. Reasoning skills were

misconceived as useless knowledge to their future academic careers and professional

careers.

Like most of current university students, the participants have been over-well

treated to deem that college instructors should prepare all teaching materials for class

activities and effectively fill in students’ memory systems without reflective

understanding and synthetic comprehension. To these students’ recognition, learning

only meant to take the notes and memorize them for examination. Therefore, at the

beginning of this experimental semester, participants were uncomfortable to adjust

their learning strategies and involuntarily previewed the daily class materials. They

seemed to be passive and unable to raise questions for class discussion while reading

assigned papers. After receiving this eighteen-week experimental curriculum, these

students obviously improved their recognition on the importance of reasoning skills,

and finally realized that reasoning skills development should be the major goals for

higher education. This reasoning skills intervention assisted students to envision any

event with manifold, insightful, wide, and reflective aspects. Students also self-

expressed they no longer made decisions sentimentally without any sophisticated

speculation.

Students’ reasoning skills were gradually developed from one-way thinking

25

style to multifarious dimensions. That is, students could obviously speculate

problems through multifarious viewpoints for better proposals. Their discussion and

project quality approved that they have ameliorated their reasoning approaches in

terms of the four stages of reasoning skills procedure. They also gradually realized

the reasoning processes and endeavored to identify the central issues of major topics,

developed several arguments, represent the supportive evidences for each argument,

and synthesize for more insightful conclusions. However, the 19 sub-skills of

reasoning skills proposed in this study were not obviously ameliorated. In other

word, students still had difficulties in identifying the authentic meaning of the

information and the reliability of information resource. Consequently, students could

hardly carry out analysis, deduction, and conclusion considering broad vision.

Students were clearly unable to select appropriate criteria for evaluation and

judgment. These reasoning skills might need more interventional strategies or longer

period of teaching.

DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The society in the 21st century is characterized by the rapid increase and

upgrading of knowledge, and multifarious and diversified senses of value.

Professional experts, therefore, should be able to integrate the knowledge of various

professional fields for better competition and survival in future careers. Therefore,

current higher education endeavors to the transferable and generalizable competency

preparation, such as learning skills and decision-making skills (Abell, 1999; Greenan,

1994). Higher education certainly purports to meet the needs of today society; it

undertakes the more important mission to inspire students to create knowledge for the

unknown future world. The educational goals of technical programs at the higher

26

education level are to prepare students with proficiency for economical prosperity and

social development. Although students certainly need the professional skills to create

successful vocational careers, the denotative knowledge and multifarious senses of

value are equally important for them to succeed in this society. Professional experts

in the future world would succeed only if they can incessantly facilitate themselves

with new knowledge, identify and exploit authentic information, and integrate

knowledge through reasoning skills.

This research, ironically, found that students registered in technical

education programs intently perceived their educational goal as to accomplish the

professional skills for future vocational careers only. They did not understand the

importance of reasoning skills and ignored these key competencies. Some students

even believed they were supposed not to be good at these skills, and even had no need

to enhance their reasoning skills, because they were technical education students

instead of comprehensive university students. Whereas, this characteristic of

technical education might limit, even hurt, these students’ future career development.

The main purposes of reasoning skills intervention were to help students

clarify accurate background of questions/issues, to appropriately distinguish the

viewpoints and stands, to precisely analyze the insightful problems, to authentically

identify the hypotheses, to logically express their own main concepts, and to create

synthetic knowledge or values from information chaos. These reasoning skills and

attitudes are just the core competencies most needed for students in current technical

education programs. This one-semester reasoning skills intervention provided

students with opportunities to understand the importance and the effective approaches

for better reasoning skills. These students gradually became able to identify the

central points of discussion issues, develop major concrete arguments, and logically

27

communicate with supportive evidences for each argument. However, they seemed to

be still unfamiliar with synthesizing various perspectives for comprehensive

conclusions. This phenomenon might imply that these reasoning skills could be

nurtured through open-minded discussion and other encouraging pedagogical

activities. These inspiring interventional strategies could also lead students to reason

for comprehensive understanding and creative learning; these high order learning

could be hardly achieved through the traditional teaching strategies which only for

knowledge inheritance and transmittance.

Integrative and supportive reasoning programs are crucial for learners to better

understand the nature of various subject matters and their applications to all

professional fields (Davis, 1995; Kemler, 1998; Paul 1993; Potts, 1994). This type of

curriculum and intervention can assist students to actively construct knowledge

instead of passively receiving crystallized knowledge only. It also brings all students

to build a critical understanding of subject matters and reasoning skills, through

analysis, evaluation, inquiry, and problem solving. Such incorporation strategies also

provide the integrative framework for teachers to reconsider the major purposes of

education and subject matter, and prevent students from being passive in the

acceptance of subject matter and encourage them to become active analysts of subject

matter (Ruggiero, 1988).

Based on the research findings and discussion aforementioned, this study

synthetically drew the following concrete conclusions:

(1) These students’ attitude toward this course concerning reasoning skills might

reflect that students in technical education programs preconceived technical

education as job preparation programs. School education was misconceived as a

vehicle of knowledge and skills transmittance and seemed to neglect the original

28

essence of knowledge creation and human wisdom inspiration.

(2) As students confronted new information, they tended to intuitively accept or

refuse its reality and impacts based on their own attitude. They seldom proceeded

to clarify the reliability of information resource and analyze the insightful

implication under its appearance, the previous hypothesis, prejudices behind the

information, and the impact of new information on this society. This fact

indicated that these students urgently needed reasoning skills in this era with

explosive information and multifarious values.

(3) Although the access to mass information media became increasingly convenient,

students’ ability and attitude to make the most of public information channels

were still severely limited. They seemed not able to envision and discuss public

affairs from alternative perspectives. It was a discouragement that the advanced

information technology and facilities did not effectively assist students to open

their minds to alternative information resource, evoke their interaction, neither

finally develop their own points of new vision.

(4) This 18-week reasoning skills intervention was proved to efficiently promote

students' recognition on the importance of these skills and also improve self-

discipline toward the critical learning and daily life. This intervention could also

obviously improve students' reasoning styles and approaches. Students became

able to identify and concentrate on discussion issues, and present clear arguments

with supportive evidences. The higher order reasoning skills, such as drawing

synthetic conclusions, could not be equivalently improved in this short period of

intervention.

(5) This study also revealed that the targeted 19 reasoning sub-skills were not

obviously enhanced through this intervention. It probably indicated that these

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sub-skills could not be separately trained. These sub-skills might need more

specific instruction.

(6) Teacher’s portfolio was proved as an effective assessment strategy for qualitative

understanding of reasoning skills development, considering students’ individual

differences and teachers’ reflective teaching. This strategy acted the functions of

both the profound observation of qualitative research and scientific function of

quantitative research. In teachers’ portfolios, quantitative improvement and

qualitative development regarding students’ reasoning skills could be analyzed

and synthesized for further understanding the instructional effects and the

developmental processes of reasoning skills. Teaching activities and contents

could be also concretely modified according to students’ cognitive development.

The development of increasingly advanced technologies and high

competitiveness of international economy accelerate the demand of educational

effectiveness and efficiency. However, this trend of modern technical education

gradually limits the functions of school education to the transmittance for practical

knowledge and technical skills, but neglects the original education goals of inspiring

human intelligence and creating knowledge. The educational goal of technical

programs is to prepare individuals with professional proficiency which includes

human philosophy and scientific techniques. The contents taught in today school

education can be used merely as the experience and means of learning and thinking

for the future problems. In other words, these students will utilize the school

experiences happening today to create new knowledge in the future world. Any

current knowledge, inevitably, will be out-of-date for future problems. Therefore, it

is more needed to learn the reasoning skills for inspiring and creating new knowledge

than to passively receive and recite the knowledge.

30

Students' reasoning skills and attitudes might not be improved through merely one

specific course and limited number of teachers in the school education. Reasoning

across the curricula emphasizes the change of classroom activities from subject

learning to analytical learning focusing on dynamic knowledge in order to develop

students’ profound understanding and cognitive skills (Janz, 1999; Mariorana, 1992).

That is, the reasoning skills improvement needs the beneficial environment and

opportunities to encourage students to critically think and self-reflect on the

multifarious values. This helpful opportunity should be provided in all courses. In

the educational settings, each course in all professional fields needs to emphasize on

its professional knowledge as well as students’ reasoning skills development. It is

essential for all curricula to develop and enrich students’ reasoning skills as their

major goal. Each curriculum should be developed to assist students in reasoning and

solving problems through transferable curriculum contents, critical teaching activities,

and synthetic assessment strategies. While students are encouraged to learn how to

undertake reasoning skills, they will deliberate on their learning contents and

approach to insightful understanding on their subjects.

In addition, teachers play a crucial role while discussing with students or even

dealing with students’ businesses. Teachers need to demonstrate the example of

searching for authentic information resources, clarifying the reliability of

information, searching for the in-depth meaning behind the matter's appearance, and

envisioning the multifarious perspectives of issues. Teachers, hence, will effectively

infect students’ reasoning attitude to rationally deal with things while they act a

model of good reasoning thinkers.

Traditional education relies too much on quantitative assessment which usually

creates some potential risks. People easily image the quantitative pseudo-precision

31

and deem that the quantitative data are always scientific and represent the truth. This

pseudo-precision often influences human judgment and many people may, hence,

neglect the validity of quantitative data. People might easily underestimate individual

difference behind the quantitative data and ignore the creative thinking of students.

This fact only deprives the teachers and student' chance of denotative development.

Therefore, teacher’s portfolio strategy is so crucial qualitative assessment for

students’ reasoning skills development. This interactive assessment strategy provides

the teacher with a crucial opportunity to observe students’ reasoning processes, and

reflect and adjust teaching strategies to stimulate students’ reasoning skills.

In order to fulfill the educational goal of technical programs and improve

students' reasoning skill, this study finally offers the following suggestions:

(1) Despite the practical function of education has received increasing emphases in

this technical century, the preparation of professional experts strongly needs the

fundamental and generalizable competencies. These skills can assist students to

envision the entire development and application of the professional knowledge,

and facilitate students’ transferable abilities to utilize and create their professional

knowledge and skills.

(2) The curriculum contents and implementation of all courses need to foster

students’ in-depth understanding of subject knowledge, analyses of theoretical

background, and high order cognitive competencies. This emphasis of teaching

strategy and curriculum materials can enhance teachers' and students' recognition

concerning "Thinking is Learning". Meanwhile, this innovative curriculum

implementation may assist students to solve future problems by effectively

applying the recent knowledge and learning experience.

(3) The social culture and campus environment significantly nurture the growth of

32

students reasoning skills. A series of campus symposia for public discussions on

academic issues and social events might assist students to visualize the functions

of reasoning skills and create beneficial campus environment facilitating

reasoning skills development. What is more, these symposia can also evoke the

interactive atmosphere between teachers and students for insightful and

multifarious thinking.

(4) University websites and/or community internet are also effective approaches to

create a discussion area for further interaction among campus members.

Experienced professors can be invited to offer their opinions and responses for

interaction of alternative opinions. Modern students pervade to use the internet as

a public tool to express their own points of view. The internet technology must

benefit and facilitate knowledge production and distribution; universities are

certainly the center to the development of reasoning skills. The internet,

therefore, can be utilized in universities for students to reach the social issues and

understand multifarious viewpoints.

(5) The qualitative assessment using teacher portfolios was proved to be an effective

research method for insight and continuous data in the processes of data collection

and analysis. Teacher portfolios, incorporating the characteristics of both

qualitative and quantitative research methods, also assist instructors to deeply

explore the effects of reasoning skills intervention on the students’ reasoning

skills development.

(6) This study was conducted in one class of students taking a general education

course. Future researches might extend to professional subject courses in order to

explore the effects of Reasoning Skills intervention integrated into professional

subjects on the improvement of students’ reasoning skills.

33

(7) The development of concrete and teachable nineteen sub-skills instruction for

abstract reasoning skills theoretically helps the teaching and assessment of

reasoning skills. However, some consequent questions concerning with the

structure of these nineteen sub-skills and the interactive relation among them still

require more further researches for profound understanding of nature and

mechanism of the reasoning skills.

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