Critical Information Processing: Promoting 21st Century Thinking Skills in Children

在现代信息社会中，理解和批判性地评估复杂信息的能力对于教育和职业成功，个人发展以及社会和政治参与非常重要。虽然个人批判性思维技能的训练已经在成人身上取得了一些成功，但目前还不清楚培训计划是否可以向儿童传授可推广的思维技能。这是一个问题，因为儿童接触到广泛的不完整和误导性的信息，很容易通过社交媒体获得，因此显然需要批判性思维技能。个人批判性思维技能是否是批判性信息处理综合模型的补充方面，这也是一个悬而未决的问题，它在组合中发挥了有益的作用。该项目将通过开发和测试儿童关键信息处理（CIP）的综合模型，并测试中学生CIP培训计划的有效性来解决这些研究差距。根据以往的研究，CIP的主要组成部分包括：1）识别简单论点的要素，如他们的主张，理由和论据，2）评估论点的结构质量，3）注意来源特征以评估信息的可信度，以及4）控制信息理解和评估中的信念偏差。该研究计划的第一个目的是开发和测试CIP模型，基于理性思维和双过程模型的理论，并在理解和评估嵌入在生态有效的辩论和媒体中的非正式论点中进行操作。我们将检验对CIP四个组成部分的中心认知特征及其相互关系的预测。第二个目的是评估儿童是否受益于在校本环境中进行的为期5周的批判性思维技能培训，以及批判性思维技能是否转移到新的内容和任务中。迄今为止，还没有全面的研究，对儿童的批判性思维技能的训练的影响，以及CIP和儿童的一般认知能力，阅读理解，执行功能和学业成绩的关系。因此，我们将测试以学校为基础的随机试验干预是否可以a）增加儿童对训练过的主题的批判性思维技能，B）转移到更广泛的主题（近迁移），c）转移到新的任务和一般的学术表现（远迁移），以及d）在训练后保持。

In modern information societies, the ability to understand and critically evaluate complex information is important for educational and professional success, personal development, and social and political participation. While the training of individual critical thinking skills has been attempted with some success with adults, it remains unclear whether training programs can teach generalizable thinking skills to children. This is problematic, as children are exposed to a wide range of incomplete and misleading information, easily accessible through social media, and are therefore clearly in need of critical thinking skills. It is also an open question whether individual critical thinking skills are complementary facets of a comprehensive model of critical information processing, which unfold their beneficial effects in combination. This project will address these research gaps by developing and testing a comprehensive model of Critical Information Processing (CIP) for children, and testing the effectiveness of a CIP-training program for secondary school children. Based on previous research, the main components of CIP include the capacity to 1) identify elements of simple arguments such as their claim, reason, and warrants, 2) evaluate the structural quality of arguments, 3) attend to source characteristics for assessing the credibility of information, and 4) control belief-biases in the comprehension and evaluation of information. The first aim of this research program is to develop and test a model of CIP, based on theories of rational thinking and dual-process models, and operationalized in the understanding and evaluation of informal arguments embedded in ecologically valid debates and media. We will test the predictions on central cognitive characteristics of the four components of CIP and their interrelations. The second aim is to evaluate whether children benefit from a 5-week training of their critical thinking skills in a school-based setting and whether critical thinking skills transfer to new content and tasks. To date, there are no comprehensive studies of the effects of training critical thinking skills in children and the relationships of CIP and children’s general cognitive capacities, reading comprehension, executive functions, and academic achievement. We will therefore test whether a school-based randomized trial intervention can a) increase children’s critical thinking skills on trained topics, b) transfer to a wider range of topics (near transfer), c) transfer to new tasks and general academic performance (far transfer), and d) be maintained after training.