Higher-order thinking

Miri Barak of Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and her colleagues David Ben-Chaim and Uri Zoller from the University of Haifa-Oranim in Israel interviewed and observed teachers to determine the different approaches used in the classroom. To identify the effect these had on thinking skills, students had to complete a questionnaire and a multiple-choice test before and after each lesson. The questionnaire was designed to determine the students' attitudes to thinking skills while the multiple-choice test assessed their ability to use these skills. The researchers also checked on the long-term effect of teachers' approaches by getting the students to complete the questionnaire and test again two years later.