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Effective teaching and learning 1 Effective teaching and learning strategies for critical thinking to foster cognitive development and transformational learning

Larry J. Grabau [email protected] University of Kentucky

Abstract The development of critical thinking skills among undergraduates has gained extraordinary attention over the past decade, with individual faculty, entire undergraduate programs, and even university-wide general education programs taking up the critical thinking banner. Unfortunately, critical thinking instruction does not always result in critical thinking skills. There is also some question about whether such skills, once developed, would naturally lead toward two other highly desired outcomes: cognitive development and transformational learning. The objectives of this literature review were: 1) to identify effective teaching and learning strategies for the promotion of critical thinking skills, cognitive development, and transformational learning, and 2) to evaluate whether enhanced critical thinking skills would result in cognitive development and deep, transformational learning. Our literature review found that critical thinking can be developed among undergraduates, especially if critical thinking instruction and student practice is embedded across the curriculum. Effective strategies include analytical writing/re-writing, directed class discussions, practice of retrieval and implementation cues, practice in transfer to other contexts, and challenges to students’ thinking, perhaps even across cultures. Teaching and learning strategies common to critical thinking, cognitive development, and transformational learning include “climate-controlled” class discussions and challenging ideas presented by classmates and others, especially across cultures. These two ideas have been previously described as support and challenge. Critical thinking skills may be related to transformational learning; likewise cognitive development appears to be related to transformational learning. On the other hand, it appears that any connection between critical thinking and cognitive development is not well established.

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Effective teaching and learning 2 However, it is the author’s opinion that linkages among critical thinking, cognitive development, and transformational learning could be subjected to careful, hypothesis-based evaluation, using well-tested measures of each of these three desired outcomes, and including a longitudinal element in such research. Introduction Both Lewis (2006) and Bok (2006) have recently published full-length books on the failings of their institution, Harvard University. Lewis (2006) argues that the “role of moral education has withered. . .” (p. 5) at Harvard, in part because “Professors are hired as scholars and teachers, not as mentors of values and ideals to the young and confused” (p. 4). In fact, like many other institutions of higher education, an emphasis on the acquisition of knowledge seemed to have trumped any prior interest in student’s broader development (see Perry, 1970). Bok’s (2006) work is perhaps somewhat more forward-looking than is Lewis’ (2006), in that Bok identifies and describes at length eight broadlystated purposes for undergraduate education (ability to communicate, critical thinking, moral reasoning, preparing citizens, living with diversity, living in a more global society, developing a breadth of interests, and preparing for work). Bok (2006) asserts that critical thinking and moral reasoning skills are foundational to further development of students. Several years ago, the author volunteered to direct a section of a sophomore course in agriculture and natural resource issues at the University of Kentucky. Our learning goals for that course included enhanced oral and written communication skills, teamwork skills, and critical thinking skills. We asked students to take and defend positions on issues, and that’s where the trouble began. Many of my students saw one position as the only possibly valid choice on a given issue, and became combative when they were challenged to respectfully address those who disagreed with them (or got very frustrated when asked to take and defend a position counter to their own beliefs; for example, whether or not tobacco advertising should be more tightly controlled). This problem led to the most difficult teaching and learning context I have ever faced and caused considerable reflection on my part about the experience. I wondered whether sophomores were ready for this sort of challenge, and I wondered if I could have handled this situation in a better way. Imagine my surprise, when years later, I learned about Perry’s (1970) ideas about cognitive development of college students. In retrospect, it seems that I had a class dominated by “black-and-white” thinkers, while I was trying to introduce the ideas of “shades of gray.”

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Effective teaching and learning 3 That experience has led me to further study of the literature on cognitive development of college students and strategies by which teachers can foster such growth in their undergraduate classrooms. While a fair number of researchers and teachers have continued to study cognitive development (for example, Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986), a good deal more attention has been paid over the past decade to the development of critical thinking skills (e.g., Brunt, 2005). It is unclear whether strategies devised to teach critical thinking skills also impact cognitive development. Further, other researchers (e.g., Mezirow, 2000; Grauerholz, 2001) have focused on transformational (or deep) learning; such learning includes cognitive development, but goes beyond that into emotional, psycho-social, and even spiritual development. Thus, the objectives of this literature review were: 1) to identify effective teaching and learning strategies for the promotion of critical thinking skills, cognitive development, and transformational learning, and 2) to evaluate whether enhanced critical thinking skills will result in cognitive development and deep, transformational learning. Each of the first three major sections below addresses a series of questions related to critical thinking, cognitive development, and transformative learning, respectively, and then the discussion section brings us back to the paper’s objectives. A related area of study is how the progressive development of teachers may be related to their effectiveness at fostering development among their students. For example, Robertson (1999) and Robertson (2001) identify limitations in both teacher-centered models (generally focused on course content) and learner-centered models (generally focused on student learning outcomes). In both articles, Robertson (1999 and 2001) suggests a third way: teacher/learner-centeredness. He explains that model as including the teacher’s own reflection on her/his attempts to facilitate student learning, and argues that this is the model toward which teachers should be aiming to develop themselves in order to become more effective with their students. Since the current paper is already quite long without incorporating a thorough discussion of that literature, I will simply suggest that a good place to start would be Robertson’s articles and the references therein. Critical Thinking Why do we want our students to be able to think critically? Kegan (1994) suggested that skills in critical thinking are essential for our students to function within society; of course, having good critical thinking skills is not a prerequisite for many societal

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Effective teaching and learning 4 functions (like driving a car, owning a gun, voting, getting married, and having children). More boldly, Williams (2005) suggests that if teacher education programs successfully incorporate critical thinking instruction, the resulting teachers will have better skills in this area, their students will likewise be affected, and ultimately, society will run much more smoothly. Perhaps Williams (2005) did not exhibit critical thinking when he made this series of hopeful assertions! Halpern (1998) expressed significant concern about the unfounded beliefs of many Americans in paranormal phenomena; her major concern is that individuals give primacy to their own experience (or to the reported experiences of others) over well-designed research studies. In addition, Halpern (1998) suggests that the extensive array of available information demands that individuals develop critical thinking skills in order to be able to evaluate the quality of information available in the 21st century. Poor leadership decisions by corporate executives would presumably be minimized through better instruction in critical thinking in business curricula (Braun, 2004). Better personal decisions also may result from better skills in critical thinking; for example (Klaczynski, 2001) argues that a clear understanding of when to apply the “sunk costs” concept might help a woman trapped in an abusive relationship make the decision to escape.

Just what is critical thinking? Brunt (2005), in reviewing the extensive literature on critical thinking in undergraduate instruction in nursing, found that half of the published papers in her review did not include a definition of critical thinking. Clearly, if we do not know what sort of thinking is considered to be “critical” in a given research report, it is very hard to assess whether or not progress is being made with our students. Brunt (2005) defined critical thinking (in the context of nursing practice) as “the process of purposeful thinking and reflective reasoning where practitioners examine ideas, assumptions, principles, conclusions, beliefs, and actions in the context of nursing practice. In addition, this process in associated with a spirit of inquiry, discrimination, logical reasoning and application of standards . . .” (p. 61). At Washington State University (Kelly-Riley, Brown, Condon, & Law, 2007), critical thinking is now assessed in general education courses using a seven-item rubric; those items are: 1) problem identification, 2) personal perspective, 3) recognition of alternate perspectives, 4) identification and

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Effective teaching and learning 5 evaluation of assumptions, 5) evaluation of the quality of supporting evidence, 6) characterization of the context, and 7) development of conclusions and their consequences. At San Jose State University (Mesher, 2007), elements of their general studies program for critical thinking instruction focus on the technical aspects of critical thinking, namely: parts, analysis, and fallacies of arguments. Halpern (1998) defines critical thinking as “the use of those cognitive skills or strategies that increase the probability of a desirable outcome . . .” (p. 450). Facione’s (1990) Delphi project (among a large group of philosophers) resulted in this depiction of critical thinking: “We understand critical thinking to be a purposeful, selfregulatory judgment which results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference as well as explanation of the evidential conceptual methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations upon which that judgment was based” (p. 2). Meanwhile, Tremblay & Downey (2004), asked their students to critically evaluate research-based reports from the Internet, popular magazines and newspapers, trade magazines, proceedings of professional meetings, peer-reviewed scholarly journals, theses and dissertations, and books. Students responded favorably to this relatively narrow application of critical thinking instruction. On the other hand, critical thinking may not include all that is necessary to be an effective thinker. Smith (2002) argues that critical thinking fails to include creativity, problem-solving, and even decisionmaking. He thus argues for instruction in general thinking skills to take place in dedicated courses, and to go beyond explication and practice in critical thinking. Further, Smith (2002) argues that domainspecific thinking skills are best developed in the context of domain-specific instruction; clearly, he believes that some domain-specific thinking skills will not be developed through instruction and practice in general thinking skills. Smith (2002) would suggest that critical thinking skills developed in an algebra class may not transfer readily as critical thinking skills for a history class. In contrast, Halpern (1998) suggests that instructors should focus on the teaching of critical thinking skills in such ways as to permit, even encourage their use across domains. van Gelder (2005) goes so far as to argue that if such skills cannot be transferred across domains, we have accomplished little as instructors!

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Effective teaching and learning 6 How do we measure critical thinking? Most commonly, critical thinking is measured through the use of a multiple choice survey instrument, such as the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (Watson and Glaser, 1994) or the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (Facione & Facione, 1994). Various research groups have tested the value of such standardized exams for specific disciplines; for example, majors in education (Gadzella, Stacks, Stephens, & Masten, 2005). On the other hand, some researchers have devised their own discipline-specific exams (for example, Lawson, Alkhoury, Benford, Clark, & Falconer, 2000). The California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI), developed by Facione & Facione (1992), assesses seven aspects (truth seeking, open-mindedness, analyticity, systematicity, self-confidence, inquisitiveness, and maturity) of students’ dispositions toward the use of critical thinking. Stewart & Dempsey (2005) found that nursing seniors did not have higher scores on the CCTDI than nursing sophomores. In addition, they found no relationship between CCTDI scores and standard exam scores, concluding that a nursing-specific test of critical thinking dispositions is needed. Perhaps the most intensive work on the measurement of critical thinking by undergraduates has been in nursing programs (e.g., Brunt, 2005; Dickerson, 2005; Stewart & Dempsey, 2005; Twibell, Ryan, & Hermiz, 2005; Valiga, 2003). This work has been driven by the expectation by accrediting bodies that teaching in critical thinking become part of the nursing curriculum, and that the measurement of critical thinking as a learning outcome is demonstrated. Several reports on the enhancement of critical thinking (or its linkage to nursing competence in general) have produced ambiguous results. As a result, some nursing researchers have called for a nursing-specific test of critical thinking skills (e.g., Stewart & Dempsey, 2005). Interestingly, Valiga (2003) asks whether the unclear results of critical thinking instruction on critical thinking learning might be explained by an over-emphasis on teaching content as opposed to paying greater attention to thought processes; this question reveals that Valiga (2003) is asking some critical questions of her own about the responsibility for critical thinking learning. Unfortunately, it appears that the ability to demonstrate critical thinking skills in an academic setting may not be linked to nursing competence in a clinical setting or performance on standardized exams (Brunt, 2005). It is possible that a mismatch exists on at least two levels of critical thinking instruction in nursing programs: 1) between instruction in critical thinking skills and their application

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Effective teaching and learning 7 on exams of nursing competence, and 2) between the types of critical thinking skills emphasized in academic instruction and those called upon in clinical settings.

What teaching and learning strategies promote critical thinking? Yes, it can be done, and can generalize across contexts Nearly two decades ago (in 1989), Pascarella (1999) showed that the first year of college resulted in modest growth in selected aspects of critical thinking (as assessed by the Watson-Glaser Appraisal). Unfortunately, their sample size was small enough that it was not possible to identify what aspects of the first-year experience of these college students was responsible for their growth in determining the validity of assertions purportedly based on an available set of data and in distinguishing between strong and weak arguments. More recently, a meta-analysis of ten years (1991-2000) of literature found that student involvement produced a gain in critical thinking as compared with students who were not involved in campus activities (Gellin, 2003). Tsui’s (2002) study included all four possible combinations of institutional growth in critical thinking (high and low; assessed by self-reports of their undergraduate students) and institutional selectivity (high and low; assessed by average college entrance exam scores). In this qualitative study, Tsui (2002) found that a strong writing (and re-writing) orientation and class discussions across the entire curriculum were associated with enhanced critical thinking skills. Tsui (2002) emphasized that while individual instructors could engage their students in more extensive writing assignments (particularly of an analytical rather than a descriptive nature), an institutional commitment to such activities is necessary for optimal student growth in critical thinking skills. It was most encouraging to see that a school with a relatively low entrance exam average was able to measure significant growth in critical thinking among their students; that supports Halpern’s (1998) assertion that critical thinking can indeed by taught. Halpern’s (1998) ideas on how to teach critical thinking skills are based in cognitive science. She argues that critical thinking involves a “dispositional” element; that is, knowing when to employ the skills (e.g., in response to a cancer diagnosis vs. selecting an ice cream flavor) and then choosing to make use of the skills when they are called for. She gives a taxonomy of macro-abilities which she considers to

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Effective teaching and learning 8 constitute critical thinking, and she suggests that true critical thinkers effectively monitor their own thinking about issues. Most importantly, Halpern (1998) argues that students can be trained to know when to apply critical thinking skills in novel contexts; one example of such training would be the use of retrieval cues. “Sunk costs” are a common structural element in developing arguments for (or against) specific projected actions (e.g., additional dollars to repair a used car). Of course, practice in applying such retrieval skills would be essential to help students identify the requisite cues for bringing those skills into play. According to the emerging model of Klaczynski (2001), adolescents use both analytical processing (what most would describe as critical thinking) and heuristic processing [which Jarvis et al. (2004) describe as dependence on impressions and intuitions]. Teens may default to heuristic processing, since it is both firmly entrenched in their thought processes and it “may represent overgeneralizations of strategies that are often adaptive” (Klaczynski, 2001, p. 289). As instructors, we may need to strive to help our students understand the environmental cues which “flip on” their heuristic processing switches, then to get them asking themselves whether or not that processing style makes sense in that situation. (Of course, one could argue that we’re getting in meta-cognition here, and moving ahead into a discussion of cognitive development.) van Gelder (2005) argues that good methods to teach critical thinking ought to be soundly based in cognitive science. He suggests that critical thinking requires hard, sustained work, at least as intensive as learning a second language! He strongly suggests that critical thinking be made an explicit part of curricula, rather than expecting that students somehow develop such skills by osmosis. Like Halpern (1998), he argues that teachers must prepare their students to transfer critical thinking skills across contexts. van Gelder (2005) believes that mapping will help many students grasp the logic involved in critical thinking. Finally, van Gelder (2005) suggests that teachers interested in developing critical thinking skills of their students must actively work against “belief preservation”, that natural human tendency which grants prior belief pre-eminence and allows the believer to select her/his own evidence in support of a strongly held belief. His suggestion is that we teach our students to grant extra validity to assertions which challenge their long-held beliefs. In contrast, Howe (2004) argues that critical thinking “cannot be taught explicitly, but rather must be integrated into all subject areas and related to the ideas

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Effective teaching and learning 9 students already have” (p. 522). It seems that Howe (2004) is more confident than Halpern (1998) and van Gelder (2005) that teachers may already be teaching something akin to “critical thinking across the curriculum.” Incorporation into general education programs Washington State University and San Jose State University have recently adopted general education models which focus on the development of critical thinking skills. Washington State University (Kelly-Riley et al., 2007) has incorporated critical thinking expectations across its entire general education curriculum. Prior to taking that step, student writing was regarded as generally excellent, even though an independent assessment of critical thinking skills shown in student writing revealed relatively little development, even by the junior year. Apparently, the stated institutional goals of enhanced critical thinking skills were not matched by specific expectations and concomitant faculty development support to drive the acquisition of measurable critical thinking skills. When the 7-item rubric (discussed above) was provided to both students and instructors, progress in critical thinking skills was much more rapid. San Jose State University has constructed “Mission Critical,” a web-accessible approach to planning for instruction in critical thinking skills; that approach is intended to be useful for courses in communications, English, history, linguistics, language development, psychology, and philosophy (Mesher, 2007). Its content focuses on the aspects of arguments, their analysis, and common fallacies. If critical thinking is to be seen as a technical skill focusing on argument alone, San Jose State has made a pretty good start on its development. Unfortunately, this approach seems to minimize the richness involved in a more broadly defined critical thinking, and instead may reduce critical thinking to an “arguer’s toolkit.” Program-level focus, nursing as an example Dickerson (2005) working in the context of continuing education for professional development of nurses, directs her comments toward the instructors; she begins by asking instructors to do a selfassessment of their own critical thinking ability. She also encourages teachers to view themselves as facilitators of student learning, rather than as content experts. Another novel aspect of her work is to encourage such facilitators to give their students time to reflect on what they have learned with respect to critical thinking skills. Twibell et al. (2005) found nursing faculty perceived that they were developing

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Effective teaching and learning 10 critical thinking skills among their students through asking well-phrased, timely questions, taking part in thoughtful clinical conferences, and responding, in writing, to student journals and other written products. One could certainly ask whether or not such activities produce measurable gains in student learning on an appropriate critical thinking assessment, since it seems that most faculty across disciplines say that they teach critical thinking skills in their classrooms. Valiga (2003) asserts that nursing instruction which centers on content and minimizing nursing practice errors may be counterproductive for the development of critical thinking skills. She also wonders whether a broader incorporation of appropriate pedagogies across the entire curriculum might be more effective than a few stellar examples of such instructional environments. Course-specific efforts Active learning is given high marks at all levels of instruction; Burbach, Matkin, & Fritz (2004) were able to confirm (using a pre- and post-course Watson-Glaser assessment) that a course with extensive elements of active learning (journal writing, service learning, small groups, and case studies) helped their leadership students increase the use of critical thinking skills. Unfortunately, Burbach et al. (2004) were unable to identify which of their active learning elements, if any, were responsible for the greater use of critical thinking skills observed by the end of the course. Case studies, long popular in business programs, may support the development of critical thinking skills, as might course-embedded instruction in critical thinking skills like Socratic questioning (Braun, 2004). Education majors with preparation in math and/or science exhibited better reasoning skills than education majors without such preparation (Vass, Schiller, & Nappi, 2000). Further, modest classroom interventions (a total of 60 minutes of instruction) improved proportional, probabilistic, and correlational reasoning skills of education majors (Vass et al., 2000). Unfortunately, Vass et al. (2000) did not report the specifics of their classroom interventions; they also make a substantial leap in their thinking to suggest that a remedy to the lack of critical thinking skills across the entire K12 continuum may be partially addressed by combining math and science instruction. The Vietnam War remains fertile ground for the development of critical thinking skills (Warren, Memory, & Bolinger, 2004). Warren et al. (2004) argue that an “infusion” approach (developing critical thinking skills in the context of specific content) is much better than an “isolation” approach (attempting to develop critical thinking skills in courses on critical thinking

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Effective teaching and learning 11 itself). Their descriptive study may provide a model for working with history students in other contexts, but may have limited application to other instructional contexts. Jungst, Thompson, & Atchison (2003) reported that natural resources students who were engaged in constructive conflict about issues did more critical thinking and developed a deeper understanding of such issues. A key aspect of their work was that pairs of students were asked to independently prepare reasons for support or opposition to a proposed resolution for a natural resources issue, discuss their reasons with the alternate pair, then switch sides and repeat the exercise. Low tolerance of undergraduates for ambiguity was related to a high value placed on control of their time, as described in the course expectations (DeRoma, Martin, & Kessler, 2003). The authors had speculated that a higher degree of course structure might help students learn to accept higher levels of ambiguity in course concepts; however, only modest support for that idea was generated. Some would argue that modest progress will be made in the development of critical thinking skills in the absence of life experiences which challenge long-held assumptions about the nature of life. Harrigan & Vincenti (2004) gave their family and consumer science students an intercultural assignment; in short, students were partnered with international students to work through an examination of assumptions and values. While this study was relatively small (n=16), some inferences were still drawn: 1) face-to-face communication, given the inherent difficulty of communicating across languages and cultures, may have facilitated learning relative to the electronic communication (e-mail) used in this study, and 2) the international students were quite surprised by the uncritical acceptance of cultural assumptions made by their US partners. Indeed, international (or at least intercultural) connections may well provide appropriate stimulus for the development of critical thinking skills and dispositions. Note that Astleitner (2002) has made an extensive case for instruction in critical thinking in an on-line format; he does so by producing a narrow definition of critical thinking (“evaluating arguments”) and calls for the use of instructional technologies to accomplish this. Interestingly, he asserts that “it seems very difficult to successfully implement critical thinking into traditional classroom instruction.” This seems to directly counter Harrigan & Vincenti’s (2004) suggestion that face-to-face contact is essential for intercultural learning.

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Effective teaching and learning 12 Summary—Teaching and Learning Strategies to Promote Critical Thinking Encouragingly, critical thinking skills can be developed among undergraduate students (Halpern, 1998; Pascarella, 1999; Tsui, 2002). According to Halpern (1998) and van Gelder (2005), cognitive science provides key insights on how to go about this development. As the above paragraphs have underscored, the wider the critical thinking emphasis is on a given campus, the more likely it is that these skills will be developed and be transferable to other contexts (Halpern, 1998; van Gelder, 2005). But what specific steps must be taken, assuming we want our undergraduates to develop critical thinking skills? The following set of strategies is drawn from the above literature, screened for relatively high generalizability across instructional contexts. Analytical writing (and re-writing), along with directed class discussions were associated with more critical thinking by students (Tsui, 2002). Practicing specific critical thinking skills (e.g., retrieval of implementation cues) is helpful (Halpern, 1998; Klaczynski, 2001). Teaching for skills in transferring critical thinking to other contexts (Halpern, 1998; Klaczynski, 2001), and carefully combating belief preservation or innate heuristic processing (van Gelder, 2005; Klaczynski, 2001) are also positive. Surprisingly, some suggest the instructors may need to sacrifice course content in order to allow for critical thinking skill practice (Dickerson, 2005; Valiga, 2003). Warren et al. (2004) encouraged instructors to work to develop discipline-specific reasoning skills within the context of a given discipline. Finally, students need to have their thinking challenged, especially by other students (Jungst et al., 2003; DeRoma et al., 2003), and perhaps even across cultures (Harrigan & Vincenti, 2004).

Cognitive Development Assuming that cognitive development can be described as a series of stages, what are the stages and how might they differ by gender and culture? Perry’s (1970) framework for the development of male college-age Harvard students, as modified for women by Belenky et al. (1986), has had an enduring influence on thinking about cognitive development stages, especially during the college years. Of course, Perry’s work has some things in common with the broader human development models of Piaget (1970) and Erikson & Erikson (1977); the distinctive feature of Perry’s work is that he focused on male traditionally-aged college students,

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Effective teaching and learning 13 rather than trying to follow the entire life span of human development. Others have had similar reactions to mine (see the introduction of this paper); for example, a recent national Professor of the Year award winner, upon discovering the Perry scheme, was obviously pained to admit that he was “sophomoric” in his cognitive approach, even though he was a full professor with national recognition for undergraduate instruction. Perry’s (1970) original stages of cognitive development have since been re-conceptualized into four major categories: 1) dualism, 2) multiplicity, 3) relativism, and 4) commitment in relativism. Belenky et al. (1986) developed five “perspectives” in women’s ways of knowing; those perspectives differed from Perry’s (1970) positions in that they were not felt to be linear, nor was the last one listed considered necessarily to be the highest good. Women’s ways of knowing, according to Belenky et al. (1986) are silence (mindless, voiceless), received knowledge (women students as receptacles of knowledge granted by experts), subjective knowledge (in which knowledge became the property of the individual), procedural knowledge (focus on the learning process itself), and constructed knowledge (in which knowledge is contextual and may be created by the knower). Baxter Magolda (1992) identified three different categories among their student population (drawn from both genders): absolute knowers, transitional knowers, and independent knowers. Her three categories appear to correspond to the condensed categories of Perry (1970) as follows: absolute knowers may be dualists, transitional knowers may be multiplists, and independent knowers would be relativists or commited in relativism. Pearson & Rodgers (1998) found that senior students had progressed in their cognitive development compared with first-year students, and that this difference in educational level was much more important than any modest gender effects. They go as far as to suggest that some studies which have reported gender effects may have been confounded by differences in educational level between genders. In contrast to their US counterparts, senior-level Chinese university students scored higher on the dualism scale from the Zhang Cognitive Development Inventory than did first-year Chinese students (Zhang & Watkins, 2001). In a similar, yet surprising way, the first-year Chinese students scored higher in both relativism and commitment in relativism than did senior Chinese students. Zhang & Watkins (2001) speculated that this counterintuitive response may be related to the lack of choice in Chinese higher education. In Perry’s (1970) thinking, cognitive dissonance [related to the Vygotskian (1977)

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Effective teaching and learning 14 notion of the zone of proximal development (ZPD)] results in cognitive development. Zhang and Watkins (2001) suggest that perhaps Chinese students are exposed to less cognitive dissonance, because their curricula are overly specific. Of course, US students may also be exposed to less cognitive dissonance now than they were nearly 40 years ago when Perry did his original work! For both Chinese and US students, extracurricular activities like work, leadership, and travel had a positive influence on cognitive development, perhaps because such activities provide more “real-life” conflict, contributing a healthy “dose” of cognitive dissonance. Zhang and Watkins (2001) argue that teachers ought to aim at deep, rather than surface learning, and that such learning could help drive cognitive development. Minnameier (2001) published a thorough critique of Kohlberg’s (1984) theory of moral development, which itself was built upon Piaget’s (1970) well known ideas about human development. While Minnameier’s (2001) reasoning is dense, and his article’s title could be perceived as presumptuous (a new “stairway to moral heaven”), it is logically compelling. Individuals at his level I “essentially mistake his or her own conscience or moral point of view for the cosmic or divine moral law” [p. 325, note the resemblance to Perry’s (1970) dualist stage]. For individuals at his level II, ‘ moral rules now appear as “man-made” and no longer as “god-given” ’ (p. 325, note the resemblance to Perry’s multiplist and relativist stages). For his level III, moral judgment is “an out-and-out rational reconstruction of morality” (p. 325, note the resemblance to Perry’s commitment in relativism stage).

How do we measure cognitive development? In general, cognitive development is not quantitatively measured. Compared with the number of widely used instruments to assess critical thinking, the assessment of cognitive development has relatively few instruments, and those that exist appear not to be widely used. Perhaps this is because cognitive development is hard to assess; perhaps it is because this area of inquiry simply has not received as much attention. Belenky et al. (1986) preferred the approach of Perry (1970), using unstructured student interviews to assess cognitive development of their students. Baxter Magolda (1987) developed a preliminary instrument to assess cognitive development; more recently Zhang, as part of his dissertation research, developed the Zhang Cognitive Development Inventory (ZCDI), which was used to compare cognitive development of Chinese and US undergraduates (Zhang & Watkins, 2001). It does not appear

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Effective teaching and learning 15 that the ZCDI has had extensive use outside of the studies involving Zhang. According to Pearson & Rodgers (1998), cognitive development is slow and linear, moving one stage at a time. They cite a number of references to support their contention that college students typically move only one or two of Perry’s original nine positions over their college years, and that graduating seniors range from dualist to multiplist with few students reaching relativist stages. Using a model similar to Perry’s, King and Kitchener (1994) found students to move about one stage from their first to senior years.

What teaching and learning strategies promote cognitive development? Student support should precede student challenge Because Belenky et al. (1986) found that women’s ways of knowing differed significantly from the ways of knowing for Perry’s (1970) group of Harvard men, it should be no surprise that these women (the four authors) suggest different approaches to teaching and learning to facilitate the cognitive development of women. They call for more and earlier self-disclosure by instructors, saying, in part: “Our teachers appear to us first in the guise of gods and are later revealed to be human. We think the revelation might occur sooner if those of us who teach could find the courage—and the institutional support—to think out loud with our students.” (Belenky et al, 1986, p. 216) also argue that teachers should more intentionally validate their students’ current learning tools, being more cautious about kicking the props out on prior knowledge, providing an appropriate level of course structure, and implementing “connected teaching” (which welcomes a diversity of opinion and is sensitive to the differences present in the classroom). Thompson (1999) suggests that individuals develop cognitively in response to the levels of challenge and support they experience in their learning environments. She places “cognitive stagnation” as the result of an under-challenging environment, “cognitive elitism” as a result of an over-supported environment, and cognitive development as resulting from an environment with balanced levels of challenge and support. Given that many college faculty encounter dualist students in our classrooms, Thompson (1999) suggests that an appropriate learning environment would include challenge for traditional views (especially by classmates), physical and psychological availability to students to support them through the challenge, and a well-structured classroom environment (to minimize potentially disconcerting ambiguity). Of the three ideas above, it appears that the most difficult

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Effective teaching and learning 16 to accomplish is crafting a classroom environment that invites free exchange of diverse ideas, because dualists will, by their very nature, be troubled by viewpoints differing from their own, especially if no authority figure steps in to indicate that such views are obviously unacceptable. Conventional wisdom may hold that students holding “low-level belief systems” [involving a high need for closure, low tolerance for uncertainty, and strong interest in preserving personal theories; see Jarvis, Creasey, & Brooks (2004)] need to be have their values shaken up by cognitive dissonance and classroom debate so that they can be stimulated to re-think their worldview. However, Jarvis et al. (2004) found that when such adolescents are challenged, they engaged in heuristic processing, which relies on their impressions and intuitions. Further, their work supported the need to combat defensive beliefs before asking students to move on toward higher order thinking. Jarvis et al. (2004) suggest that instructors must do all they can to make students comfortable in open group settings (in which multiple perspectives will be expressed) before allowing substantial cognitive dissonance and argumentation to take place. Going beyond simply making students comfortable, Valanides & Angeli (2005) argue that an infusion approach toward teaching critical thinking principles should be implemented to influence students’ epistemological beliefs. Even a 65-minute instructional intervention had at least a short-term influence on their students’ thinking. Students may progress cognitively at different rates in different disciplines Lawson et al. (2000) presented evidence for three categories of scientific concepts in biological science; namely descriptive, hypothetical, and theoretical. Unfortunately, some biologists teach as if all biological concepts were descriptive, leaving their students puzzled over the difference between descriptive and theoretical concepts. One way of seeing this is that Perry’s (1970) dualists might be comfortable with descriptive concepts, but uncomfortable with either hypothetical or theoretical concepts. Lawson et al. (2000) emphasize that biology instructors should recognize that many concepts are hypothetical or theoretical, and therefore gear their instruction in such a way as to help students develop appropriate thinking skills. Interestingly, Lawson et al. (2000) argue that biology instruction ought to begin with the more readily observable descriptive concepts, only moving to hypothetical and theoretical concepts once these descriptive ones were well in hand (or well in mind!). Finally, according to Tobias (1990), a significant fraction of science students have difficulties understanding science

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Effective teaching and learning 17 instruction, probably because it is presented from a framework that is well-worn and comfortable for the instructors, rather than appropriate for the students. Amazingly, Hammer (1994) who worked with physics students, suggested that “Some students’ knowledge may remain fragmented, because, in part, they do not expect it to be coherent . . .” (p. 178). He believed that physics instructors are obliged to help students develop a conceptual framework for physics, rather than simply plugging numbers into various formulae until they got what seemed to be a reasonable answer. Of course, the first step to helping students develop such a conceptual framework is to convince them that one exists! As Hammer (1994) advises, physics texts sometimes encourage students to look for a formula that includes the variables which are given in a problem, rather than directing students towards the conceptual underpinnings of the problems. Hammer (1994) urges that physics instructors explicitly address student beliefs about physics as a primary instructional objective, even at the expense of course content! Palmer & Marra (2004) attempted to compare science and engineering students’ epistemological perspectives across knowledge domains, namely sciences and humanities. They defined three learning orientations for both sciences and humanities. For sciences, stage I was “science as fact”, stage II was “science as theory”, and stage III was “science as a collection of facts within theories” (p. 317). Similarly, humanities stage I was “social science as fact”, stage II was “social science as multiple perspectives”, and stage III was “social science as multiple perspectives that can be evaluated on the basis of evidence” (p. 317). Palmer and Marra (2004) found that these science-oriented students made the jump from stage I to stage II more readily in the humanities/social sciences than in the sciences. In contrast, the shift from stage II to stage III was more natural for the sciences. Perhaps this difference can be explained by a difference in approach to student learning; many humanities instructors present multiple points of view from the outset of their courses, while science instructors may instead be content to start with definitions and concepts before moving on to experimentation and evidence. Palmer and Marra (2004) do suggest that internships may be important in helping students to develop in the way they perceive knowledge about various disciplines. Kail (2004) argues persuasively that cognitive development takes place in both global and domainspecific contexts; thus, instructors across disciplines should be aware that we are working together toward broad goals, yet need to challenge our students to grow in their thinking within our own disciplines as well. It is perhaps not hard for a teacher to imagine a science student as reaching Perry’s

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Effective teaching and learning 18 “commitment in relativism” in biology, yet remaining dualist or multiplist in her understanding of the humanities (or vice versa). Student cognitive development is individual, and often happens outside the classroom Kloss (1994) suggested that “a nudge is best” (p. 151) when trying to challenge dualists among our undergraduate populations. Among strategies to help dualists step toward multiplicity, Kloss (1994) presents them with multiple essays commenting on the same phenomenon from different perspectives, validating different points of view, expecting students to justify statements they make, and building a classroom climate in which a student (or faculty member!) may change perspective as more evidence and understanding is acquired. Kloss (1994) also suggests that instructors craft a beginning of term writing exercise which will help them get a sense of the stages of cognitive development among their students. According to Polkonsnik & Winston (1989), students must develop a sense of autonomy before cognitive development can occur. Baxter Magolda (1992) emphasized appropriate living arrangements as a key aspect of the sometimes difficult cognitive development of undergraduates, especially for her category of absolute knowers. Terenzini, Pascarella, & Blimling (1996) identified several out-of-class experiences as positively associated with cognitive development; namely, living-learning communities (in which social and academic activities are purposefully interwoven), part-time, on-campus employment (perhaps because full-time, off-campus employment might be a negative to cognitive development?), socializing across ethnic lines, doing an internship or study abroad, and discussions with students and faculty on academic topics. In contrast, Terenzini et al. (1996) found that living at home, being involved in a sorority or fraternity, participating in men’s revenue sports, and spending lots of time socializing to be negatively involved with cognitive development. Thus, it is not only what goes on within our classrooms which determines the cognitive development of our students. Astin’s (1999) student involvement theory presumes that “the greater the student’s involvement in college, the greater will be the amount of student learning and personal development” (p. 528). Astin’s (1999) sense of what constitutes student involvement includes investment in academic work, participation in co-curricular activities, and interactions with faculty. Of course, when Astin’s (1999) theory is confronted with aspects of the earlier Terenzini et al. (1996) report, one could certainly argue that the sort of involvement matters a good deal. Further, Astin (1999) does not specifically reflect on cognitive development; instead, he uses the less

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Effective teaching and learning 19 direct terminology of personal development. Assuming that most undergraduate students fit into the dualistic or multiplistic stages (Pearson & Rodgers, 1998), instructional patterns could presumably be designed to help them develop cognitively. Pearson & Rodgers (1998) suggest that such students be confronted (gently!) with various options to explore, but warn that development may be slow. While this section focuses on cognitive development of students during their college years, Leicester & Pearce (1997) advocate lifelong moral and cognitive education. Continuing education students perceived their learning in terms of functional life impact (e.g., getting a union’s computer placed in the work setting rather than at home), relativistic thinking (especially as to how interpersonal relationships affect decisions), and even in terms of a life strategy for professional development (Leicester & Pearce, 1997). What should not be lost on us as college educators is that our students will continue to develop cognitively after they complete their formal college education (and that may be comforting, given what has been said above about the modest gains in cognitive development we can expect over the course of a student’s college years). Summary—Teaching and Learning Strategies to Promote Cognitive Development Perhaps the most important inference to draw from the literature on cognitive development of undergraduates is that student support should precede student challenge. Several authors argue for the establishment of an open, diverse, welcoming class environment (Belenky et al., 1986; Thompson, 1999; Pearson & Rodgers, 1998); Jarvis et al. (2004) go one step further, urging that cognitive dissonance be deferred until instructors are able to establish the appropriate class climate. On a related note, Belenky et al. (1986) encourage instructors to engage in appropriate self-disclosure (with the goal of encouraging more self-disclosure among their students) and to support pre-existing ways of knowing wherever possible (with the goal of keeping students aboard for the coming cognitive challenges). Students appear to progress at different rates in different disciplines (Kail, 2004), and instructors may be able to use this to good advantage in their students’ cognitive development. For example, science instructors, knowing that humanities may be more amenable to the initial presentation of multiple points of view, may wish to start their courses with descriptive information (Lawson et al., 2000), then make use of mental scaffolding constructed by their humanist colleagues to help their students move into theories and hypotheses (Palmer & Marra, 2004). In addition, instructors may be wise to intentionally

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Effective teaching and learning 20 address student beliefs about their content areas, even to the point of giving up some content coverage (Hammer, 1994). Student cognitive development may be better facilitated by a personal approach; for example, Kloss (1994) suggests that instructors devise early-term assignments to get an idea of their students’ individual cognitive “positions” or “perspectives.” In addition, appropriate out-of-class experiences can be helpful (Terenzini et al., 1996) especially if they include supportive yet challenging living arrangements (Baxter Magolda, 1992).

Transformational Learning How does transformational learning differ from cognitive development? Mezirow (2000) identifies the construction of meaning as the central idea of the human learning process. His transformation theory goes well beyond cognitive development; it also includes emotional intelligence, critical reflection, and even social activism. Transformational learning requires that the learner become aware of her/his own underlying assumptions, as well as the pre-suppositions of those around him/her. That process in itself can become emotionally threatening, thus requiring the use of what Goleman (1998) describes as emotional intelligence (awareness, empathy, and control). Mezirow (2000) decries our argument culture as counterproductive to the development of transformational learning, as the assumption is generally made that there are two (and only two) competing sides to any given issue. Instead, Mezirow (2000) suggests that we make progress in learning by growth in our individual frames of reference, the set of assumptions and expectations we used to filter our experiences. We can progress by improving an existing frame of reference, discarding an old one to take on a new frame, by transforming our point of view, or by transforming our habits of mind (Mezirow, 2000). In order to make that sort of progress, we must “really talk” and “really listen”; some elements of that higher communication include freedom from self-deception, empathy toward others, broader awareness of the context, more skill in weighing evidence and evaluating arguments, and willingness to come to at least a tentative agreement on principles (Mezirow, 2000). Perhaps most importantly, Mezirow (2000) suggests that transformations in habits of mind can either be epochal (resulting from a sudden, dramatic insight) or incremental (resulting from a series of related insights). For example, an epochal transformation may result from what Mezirow (2000) calls a “disorienting dilemma” (p. 22); for

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Effective teaching and learning 21 example, some Americans experienced a dramatic change in their worldview following reflection on the implications of the dramatic attacks of September 11, 2001. According to Grauerholz (2001), deep or transformational learning goes beyond cognitive learning into the realms of emotional intelligence, affective learning, and values discussions. She draws in work by Hoffman with Iranian immigrants in which such deep learning actually changed the values of the immigrants so that they took on modified identities. Taylor, Marienau, and Fiddler (2000) surveyed international educators as to their developmental goals for their adult learners and distilled from the responses five key dimensions, with from 5 to 10 items within each dimension. Those dimensions of desired development were: 1) toward knowing as a dialogical process, 2) toward a dialogical relationship to oneself, 3) toward being a continuous learner, 4) toward self-agency and self-authorship, and 5) toward connection with others. When one carefully examines the items which contribute toward knowing as a “dialogical process,” it is surprising that nearly all of the ten items fit nicely with a broad description of critical thinking skills. In addition, one could argue that stages 2 through 4 represent the cognitive movement of a learner from dualist to multiplist to relativist to commitment in relativism. Finally, the fifth stage of Taylor et al. (2000) could coincide with Mezirow’s (2000) transformational learning or Graerholz’s (2001) deep learning. Thus, the progressive sequence (from stages 1-5) presented by Taylor et al. (2000) appears to move from critical thinking (stage 1) through cognitive development (stages 2-4) to transformational learning (stage 5). While these connections are imperfect and were not drawn by Taylor et al. (2000), they may be helpful to the understandings this paper is attempting to reach. On the other hand, one could certainly argue that stages 4 and 5 of Taylor et al. (2000) might roughly coincide with Perry’s (1970) commitment in relativism. Kegan (1994) described transformational learning as “the fundamental growth of the mind” (p. 273) which he further described as “qualitative changes in how the student knows, not just what the student knows” (p. 273). Kegan’s (1994) sense appears to have been that the development of selfdirected adult learners was the highest goal for educators. Kegan (1994), who worked at Harvard with Perry (1970) wrote extensively about their shared reading classes for struggling first-year students, noting that when students were finally asked to trust their new reading strategies in real class work, that

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Effective teaching and learning 22 indeed was the point at which true cognitive development was moving forward. For some, full-fledged retreat was a disappointment to their instructors; for others, it was satisfying simply to see that they did not retreat in the face of this new challenge. Kegan (1994) also argues that a adult learners, who are often too practical and too busy to engage in and enjoy philosophical discussions, need to experience deep learning as much as do traditionally-aged college students. The first step for adult learners in school, according to Kegan (1994), is to exercise critical thinking; they then must become skilled in cultural examination, self-directed learning, sensing themselves as “co-creators” of culture (versus simply reflecting culture), and reading and writing reflectively. As citizens, such adult learners should “contravene our tendencies towards ethnocentrism, gender centrism,” evaluate cultural norms, and perceive our own styles as preferences, rather than superior approaches to life (Kegan, 1994, p. 302). These in-school and in-society skills and behaviors are truly characteristic of transformational learning, but clearly include elements of critical thinking and cognitive development. Merriam (2004) argues that transformational learning cannot occur until a high level of cognitive development has already occurred. She believes that critical reflection and reflective discourse, which are essential for Mezirow’s (2000) transformational learning to occur, are only shown by individuals who have made considerable progress in their own cognitive development. Zhang & Watkins (2001) likewise suggested that enhanced cognitive development could lead to transformational, deep learning. Mezirow (2004) agrees with Merriam (2004) stating that “Cognitive development is indeed foundational for transformative learning.” (p. 70). Unfortunately, as Merriam (2004) acknowledges, it is difficult to imagine studies which would connect specific aspects of cognitive development with the possibility of transformational learning. To further complicate matters, Mezirow (2004) expressed concern that such prerequisite aspects of cognitive development (for transformational learning) might depend on culture. It is perhaps worth noting that Mezirow (2000), Taylor et al. (2000) and Kegan (1994), as advocates of transformational learning were all focusing on adult learners, which are generally presumed to be those who are beyond the 18-22 year old age of traditional undergraduate students. On the other hand, Brown (2004) did his work with traditionally-aged college students. Given the contention of some that a college-age student can only hope to move one of Perry’s stages during her college years (e.g., King & Kitchener, 1994), and our synthesis (above) which suggests that transformational learning may only

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Effective teaching and learning 23 take effect once cognitive development is reasonably advanced, we may only be setting the stage for later transformational learning by our traditionally-aged undergraduates. Mustakova-Possardt (2004), like most of the authors interested in transformational learning, discusses human development across the entire lifespan. Her “moral heaven” is “critical consciousness”; that second term was drawn from earlier work by Freire (p. 246, as cited in Mustakova-Possardt, 2004). Her own words place her top levels at Perry’s (1970) commitment in relativism level; however, her language, in the author’s opinion, fits better with the concepts of transformational learning. Finally, aspects of Brown’s (2004) wisdom construct which are common to most schemes of cognitive development include judgment, self-awareness, and lifeknowledge.

How can we assess transformational learning? Grauerholz (2001) maintains that deep learning is very difficult to quantity, but suggests that the work of Csikszentmihalyi (1988) can help us perceive when it is and when it is not occurring. When a learner achieves Csikszentmihalyi’s (1988) “flow,” the learner is fully engaged in the activity, can lose track of time entirely, and senses deep satisfaction with the process. On the other hand, the absence of deep learning can be detected by visible indications of student boredom (Csikszentmihalyi, 1988). Of course, many students in a given classroom will often fail to show clear indications of either flow or boredom; further, since both flow and boredom are subjective and qualitative, developing quantitative measures of deep learning seem unlikely. Taking the progressive description of development produced by Taylor et al. (2000), one could argue that any of their 36 discrete learning items (spread across five different dimensions) could be appropriately assessed. On the other hand, if we start from Mezirow’s (2000) description of transformational learning, it would seem that evidence for such learning would be detected in changes in values and attitudes, in thought processes and in respect shown for others, especially with differing opinions. While values and attitudes are difficult to quantify, such quantification does not seem unimaginable. At this point, however, it would seem that there are no validated, quantified instruments available to assess transformational or deep learning.

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Effective teaching and learning 24 Rhee’s (2004) framework for teaching and learning of emotional intelligence includes assessment and feedback activities; assessment is connected to the specific aspects of both personal and social competence. Unfortunately, his descriptive report does not include quantification of the assessments of student growth in emotional intelligence in his management course. Brown’s (2004) construct of wisdom involves six dimensions: self knowledge, understanding of others, judgment, life knowledge, life skills, and willingness to learn. He maps the development of wisdom as primarily “learning from life” through reflection, integration, and application; such wisdom can also stimulate an orientation to learning which makes the learner more likely to benefit from her/his experiences, resulting in greater development of wisdom. Brown (2004) describes his construct of wisdom as going beyond cognitive development. While Brown’s (2004) model is not as rich and well-developed as that of Taylor et al. (2004), it does include some similarities, particularly in acknowledging that development beyond cognitive development is desirable.

What teaching and learning strategies promote transformational learning? Mezirow (2000), while profoundly thoughtful about his transformational learning theory, had less to say about how classroom teachers might arrange the learning environment to bring that about, perhaps in part because his context was that of adult learning rather than undergraduate education. Graurerholz (2001) describes transformational learning as “deep learning,” and suggests that holistic teaching is the best approach to make that happen. She develops five general concepts to create such a classroom environment: 1) bring in emotionally-charged issues, 2) connect with students based on their life experiences, 3) eliminate power differentials (e.g., by moving to a facilitator role and away from an expert role), 4) provide for safe discourse, and 5) create peer teams with complimentary skills in critical thinking and problem solving. Grauerholz (2001) also presents an extensive set of specific strategies toward that classroom environment, including appropriate instructor self-disclosure (because it tends to encourage appropriate student self-disclosure) and holding class meetings in novel settings. Rhee (2004) critiques past work with teaching and learning strategies for the development of emotional intelligence, suggesting “that a mere introduction of emotional intelligence as one of the topics in an undergraduate management course may not be sufficient for successfully developing emotional

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Effective teaching and learning 25 intelligence” (p. 1). Instead, Rhee (2004) argues for a paradigm shift toward a learner-centered classroom environment, with self-discovery and active learning as its hallmarks. Brown’s (2004) conditions which facilitate the development of wisdom include a student’s orientation to learning (e.g., passive versus active involvement), critical incidents which may stimulate reflection, interactions with others (especially those with differences), and the institutional ethos toward learning (e.g., vocational vs. life-long learning). Mustakova-Possardt (2004) emphasizes what must be done educationally to help undergraduates begin the process of moving toward eventual critical consciousness. Briefly, such an education involves both the mind and the heart, necessarily putting it beyond mere cognitive development. As do many observers, Mustakova-Possardt (2004) decries the moral and spiritual decline in both western and eastern European societies and believes that a different approach to undergraduate education is the answer. She underscores her sense that cognitive development writers [like Piaget (1970), Kohlberg (1984), and Perry (1970)] believed that moral development is a result of knowledge and understanding gained through cognitive development. In contrast, she believes that moral development also requires love (defined as “an active [spiritual] force of attraction to beauty, unity, and growth”—taken from Danesh, p. 67, as cited by Mustakova-Possardt, 2004) and will (defined as “our freedom to choose between good and evil, between action and inaction, and to determine the direction and quality of our lives”—again taken from Danesh, p. 70, as cited in Mustakova-Possardt, 2004). She identifies four dimensions of moral motivation: 1) formation of a moral sense of identity and moral imperative (precritical consciousness stage, should be developed in elementary and middle school children), 2) cultivating a sense of personal authority, responsibility, and agency, 3) cultivating relationship with nature, individuals, groups, and institutions, and 4) cultivating a conversation on the meaning of life. Mustakova-Possardt (2004) suggests that the last three of the above dimensions should be developing during high school and college years. Caffrey, Neander, Markle, & Stewart (2005) worked with the development of cultural competence of nursing students. They measured growth in cultural competence with the integration of cultural content into their course and attributed such growth to a cognitive (knowledge) aspect of cultural competence. Caffrey et al. (2005) measured even more growth in cultural competence when some of

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Effective teaching and learning 26 these students were also granted an opportunity to spend 5 weeks in nursing practice in Guatemala, and credited the affective aspect of cultural competence for this additional growth. Thus, Caffrey et al. (2005), in suggesting that nursing students could not achieve full cultural competence without an appropriate immersion experience, gave credibility to the idea that such transformational learning goes beyond cognitive development. Summary—Teaching and Learning Strategies to Promote Transformational Learning Mezirow (2000), Taylor et al. (2000), and Kegan (1994) see transformational learning as a primarily adult-age phenomena, coming after an appropriate level of cognitive development is attained (Zhang & Watkins, 2001; Merriam, 2004). In contrast, Grauerholz (2001), Rhee (2004), Brown (2004), Mustakova-Possardt (2004), and Caffrey et al. (2005) believe that aspects of transformational learning can be accomplished over undergraduate careers. Specific strategies aimed at development of transformational learning include: 1) establishing a conducive class environment (Grauerholz, 2001), 2) using discovery learning (Rhee, 2004), 3) working through critical incidents as they occur (Brown, 2004), 4) focusing on the meaning of life (Mustakova-Possardt, 2004), and 5) including cultural immersion experiences (Caffrey et al., 2005). It is perhaps important to note that the progressive dimensions of Taylor et al. (2000) strongly imply that both critical thinking and cognitive development are prerequisites for transformational learning. Given the difficulty that some groups (e.g., nursing) are having in documenting growth in critical thinking alone over a college career, it may indeed be too much to hope for that our undergraduates might achieve aspects of transformational learning. Discussion and Conclusion What teaching and learning strategies appear to promote critical thinking, cognitive development, and transformative learning? Critical thinking can be developed among undergraduates (Halpern, 1998; Pascarella, 1999; Tsui, 2002), especially if critical thinking instruction and practice is embedded across the curriculum (KellyRiley et al., 2007; Mesher, 2007). Effective strategies include analytical writing/re-writing (Tsui, 2002), directed class discussions (Tsui, 2002), practice of retrieval and implementation cues (Halpern, 1998, Klaczynski, 2001), practice in transfer to other contexts (Halpern, 1998; Klaczynski, 2001; van Gelder,

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Effective teaching and learning 27 2005), and challenges to students’ thinking (Jungst et al., 2003; DeRoma et al., 2003), perhaps even across cultures (Harrigan & Vincenti, 2004). Cognitive development requires balance between challenge and support (Thompson, 1999) and may be more likely if such support precedes cognitive dissonance (Belenky et al., 1986; Pearson & Rodgers, 1998; Jarvis et al., 2004). Students appear to progress at different rates in different disciplines (Kail, 2004; Palmer & Marra, 2004) and may benefit from mental scaffolding and belief consideration across disciplines (Lawson et al., 2000; Hammer, 1994). Student environments supportive of cognitive development appear to extend beyond the classroom (Terenzini et al., 1996), especially into living situations (Baxter Magolda, 1992). Some authors believe transformational learning primarily occurs after the college years (Mezirow, 2000; Taylor et al., 2000; Kegan, 1994), while others believe aspects of transformational learning can be intentionally developed among undergraduates (Grauerholz, 2001; Rhee, 2004; Brown, 2004; Mustakova-Possardt, 2004; Caffrey et al., 2005). Strategies involved include building a supportive class environment (Grauerholz, 2001), using discovery learning (Rhee, 2004), and including cultural immersion experiences (Caffrey et al., 2005). Teaching and learning strategies common to critical thinking, cognitive development, and transformational learning include “climate-controlled” class discussions (Tsui, 2002; Belenky, 1986; Jarvis et al., 2004; Grauerholz, 2001) and challenging ideas presented by instructors (to a modest extent, see Caffrey et al., 2005), by classmates (to a greater extent, see Jungst et al., 2003; DeRoma et al., 2003), and by others across cultures (Harrigan & Vincenti, 2004; Caffrey et al., 2005) or at least outside their classrooms (Baxter Magolda, 1992; Terenzini et al., 1996). One way to operationalize the twin ideas in the above paragraph is as the two complementary strategies discussed by Thompson (1999): support and challenge. It should be noted that facilitating a climate-controlled class discussion is far from simple (see Grauerholz, 2001 for some potential pitfalls). Likewise, students facing a challenge they perceive as too steep, especially if the challenge comes from an authority figure, may revert to impressionistic and intuitive thinking (Klaczynski, 2001; Jarvis et al., 2004). Further, even if instructors expertly handle both support and challenge, there are no guarantees that their students will grow in critical thinking, cognitive development, and/or transformational learning.

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Effective teaching and learning 28 Does the development of skills in critical thinking lead to cognitive development and transformative learning? Grauerholz (2001) and Taylor et al. (2000) saw critical thinking skills as part of the development of transformational learning; meanwhile, Merriam (2004) and Zhang & Watkins (2001) argued that a certain level of cognitive skills was a prerequisite for transformational levels. The above qualitative studies are merely suggestive of such relationships; the authors inferred relationships between critical thinking or cognitive development and transformational learning without documented evidence to that effect. On the other hand, it appears that any connection between critical thinking and cognitive development is less well established. However, it is the author’s opinion that linkages among critical thinking, cognitive development, and transformational learning could be subjected to careful, hypothesis-based evaluation. Comparable student groups could be provided with either traditional lecture-and-test formats or with support-and-challenge teaching and learning environments (climatecontrolled discussions, including publicly expressed ideas of their classmates). Appropriate general measures of critical thinking, cognitive development , and transformational learning could be utilized (or developed), and path analysis could be used to test for relationships among these three desired student outcomes. Given the interest of Mezirow (2000), Taylor et al. (2000), and Kegan (1994) in adult learning, it would also be essential to include a longitudinal aspect in such research.

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