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都很重要。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，但训练项目是否能向儿童传授泛化思维技能仍不清楚。这是有问题的，因为儿童接触到大量不完整和误导性的信息，这些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互补方面，这也是一个悬而未决的问题，这揭示了它们在组合中的有益影响。本项目将通过开发和测试儿童关键信息处理（CIP）综合模型，以及测试中学生关键信息处理培训计划的有效性，解决这些研究空白。基于以往的研究，CIP的主要组成部分包括：1)识别简单论点的要素，如其主张、理由和保证；2)评估论点的结构质量；3)关注源特征以评估信息的可信度；4)控制信息理解和评估中的信念偏差。本研究计划的第一个目标是开发和测试CIP模型，该模型基于理性思维理论和双过程模型，并在理解和评估嵌入在生态有效辩论和媒体中的非正式论点中进行操作。我们将测试CIP四个组成部分的中心认知特征及其相互关系的预测。第二个目的是评估孩子们是否从为期5周的批判性思维技能培训中受益，以及批判性思维技能是否能转移到新的内容和任务中。到目前为止，还没有关于批判性思维技能训练对儿童的影响以及CIP与儿童一般认知能力、阅读理解、执行功能和学业成绩之间关系的全面研究。因此，我们将测试基于学校的随机试验干预是否可以a)提高儿童对训练主题的批判性思维技能，b)转移到更广泛的主题（近迁移），c)转移到新的任务和总体学习成绩（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.