Ðàçìåùåíî íà http://www.allbest.ru/

FEDERAL STATE AUTONOMOUS EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

FOR HIGHER PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

Department of Foreign Languages

BACHELOR'S THESIS

Field of study: Linguistics

Degree programme: Foreign Languages and Intercultural Communication

USING DEBATES IN CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS DEVELOPMENT

Bylova Polina Dmitrievna

Moscow, 2019

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Debate as the modern educational technique

1.1 Debate in the context of modern society

1.2 The Features of Debate as an Educational Technique

2. Using Debates in Teaching a Foreign Language

2.1 The Features of Using Debates in Teaching a Foreign Language

3. Using Debates in Critical Thinking Skills Development

3.1 Critical Thinking in the Context of Modern Education

3.2 The core critical thinking skills and dispositions

3.3 Developing critical Thinking Skills by Using Debate Technique

Conclusion

References

Appendix

Introduction

1.2 The Features of Debate as an Educational Technique

At the turn of XX century the Russian Federation faced a sudden social and political change that brought new challenges for all educational institutions, including the school education system. The situation of social change was the reason for formulating new federal standards of primary and secondary school education and developing renewed curricula for all the academic disciplines studied including foreign languages. New educational standards were supposed to follow the purpose of student's adaptation to the new life conditions in a pluralistic democratic society where tolerance and cultural exchange are valued. One of the ways how these values could be acquired by the future generations of school students is using formal classroom debates.

Russian educators were introduced to using debate technique in secondary school education by the Open Society Institute's “Debate” international program targeted at spreading democratic values and preparing the students for being the members of modern civil society. Found in 1993, the “Debate” program provided a satisfactory ground for adding debate to the set of modern pedagogical techniques that can be practically applied by secondary school teachers on the lessons. The processes of modern school education renewal in Russian Federation and high educational potential of debate technique were the main reasons that caused a wave of educators' attention to the new pedagogical technique (Kalinkina, 2002).

As far as the new pedagogical technique was about to emerge among those previously known and widely used by secondary school teachers, the expert evaluation was needed. The new pedagogical technique was assessed in order to see the advisability of organizing debates within the framework of a lesson or as an extracurricular educational activity. Consequently, it's important to pay attention to the evaluation of debate technique's educational potential provided by the Russian experts in the sphere of education and pedagogy. As a result of expert assessment conducted by a group of specialists taking part in the Federal Expert Council on General Education of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, the following potential benefits of using debate technique were formulated. Debate technique was estimated as the one that can contribute to critical thinking and system analysis skills development, the ability to formulate and communicate student's personal position, improving argumentation skills (Garibzyanova, 2015, pp. 212-214). In addition to the list of debate technique's potential benefits the researchers point out that its positive influence is even more expanded. For instance, Song Lei (2012) suggests that debate provides teachers with possibilities for more adequate evaluation due to strictly defined time limits and oral presentation structure (Song, 2012, pp. 145-146). Moreover, relying to the fact that the reference to any credible source is needed to prove the validity of the arguments, the use of debate technique shapes students' research skills (Song, 2012, pp. 145-146).

Therefore, before making any assumptions considering the educational value of debate technique, it is necessary to have a brief look at the rules regulating the structured classroom debate organization, to review the main formats that could be used within the framework of the lesson or extracurricular activity, to describe the features of debate that define the principles of its use in senior classes of secondary school.

Firstly, it should be emphasized that the starting point of any debate from which the discussion unfolds is the motion - the topic that stimulates the students to develop the team strategy of defending or refuting the position expressed by debate motion. While conducting a structured classroom debate the teacher shouldn't underestimate the significance of motion. The motion should be formulated in such way that the educational potential of debate technique is fully used. The significant characteristic of any debate motion is that it should be thought-provoking and inviting to start a discussion. Keeping in mind the fact that debate is a practice of formalized discussion that deals with two opposite opinions represented by government (or proposition) and opposition teams, the motion should stimulate a clash between contrasting viewpoints and encourage both teams to create their own argumentative strategies.

Thus, Svetenko (2001) highlights three main requirements to the debate motion. Firstly, any debate motion should reflect significant social problems and, secondly, it should be an object of public interest (in other words - to be relevant), and, finally, it should be appropriate for having an argument (Svetenko, Kalinkina, & Petrenko, 2001, p. 14). Consequently, the motion chosen for conducting a debate should encourage the discussion of socially significant issues and challenges faced by society in student's home country and the rest of the world. At the same time the motion should represent an object of public interest that easily catches attention of the audience. Moreover, it should remain contradictory and encourage an argument between affirmative and negative teams by providing a satisfactory ground for conducting a debate.

Let us provide the examples of debate motions that fully meet the requirements proposed by specialists. The motion “Parents should secretly install spyware to their children's electronic devices” refers both to the issue of privacy and security in the smartphone era and to the problem of trust in parent-child relationships, both of the topics are widely discussed issues relevant to the current situation in modern society and debate participants' daily life. The way how the motion is formulated immediately provokes the clash of two opposite opinions and facilitates argumentation with a reference to personal experience, scientific data and media sources. In the set of methodological materials encouraging learning through debate Svetenko (2001) suggests that the following statements are great examples of well-formulated debate motions: “Advertisement on television should be prohibited”; “Death penalty should be cancelled”; “Television has a negative influence on our society” (Svetenko, Kalinkina, & Petrenko, 2001, p. 16).

However, another challenge in choosing debate motion is that the problem constituted by it should be narrow enough for a brief discussion within the time limits of one lesson or debate club session. The problems that appear to be too generalized may require more extended coverage than just one session. Choosing a more precise object of discussion could be more effective than conducting a series of debates for discussing different aspects of one global problem. Therefore, broader motion should be reformulated to create a narrow object of debate. The problem expressed by the motion “Television should be banned” contains a whole set of interconnected problematic issues and may confuse the debaters and make them distract from participating in discussion. On the contrast, the motion “Violent scenes on the television should be banned” is more specified and precise because it highlights a concrete problem (broadcasting the scenes of violence) within the whole set of problematic issues connected with television.

The next feature of debate technique is distribution of strictly prescribed roles among the members of formalized argumentative discussion. The roles differ depending on the debate format but, however, the competition of two teams defending opposite angles of view at the problem is universal. In addition to the team members that participate as speakers debate involves a host or a moderator. While in extracurricular competitive debating the host can be chosen from active debate club, during lessons this role is usually reserved for teacher. Any debate involves judges taking notes and scoring participant's speech performance and timekeeper (this activity can also be a host's function).

Debate technique can be practically applied in the multiple formats corresponding to lesson aim and objectives, number of participants, time limits of a lesson or an extracurricular event dedicated to debating. As it was suggested by Barnet & Badeau (2014), “the format may vary from place to place, but there is always a structure” (Barnet & Bedau, 2014, p. 457). The general pattern of all formal debates is that the affirmative team supports the motion while the negative team always denies that the claim expressed by the motion could be legitimate. Nevertheless, the most commonly used debate formats include Parliamentary Debate, Karl Popper Debate, Middle School Debate and multiple variations tailored to different educational needs. Less common formats used for conducting debates are Cross-Examination or Policy Debate and Public Forum Debate. At present time more and more debate formats emerge with the spread of extracurricular competition events for school and university students that consider regular debate participation essential part of their education. However, the new formats that were specially tailored to the needs of particular debate organizations or events are mostly variations of Parliamentary Debate or Karl Popper Debate. The number of participants or time limits may vary why the structure remains the same.

Debate format that is called “Parliamentary” is based on the discussion practices taking place in the British parliament. As it can be concluded from the political background that served as the base for Parliamentary Debate, the motion should be viewed as a “legislative Bill placed before the UK House of Commons” (International Debate Education Asssociation, 2019). The terms in Parliamentary Debate are borrowed from political discourse, respectively, the affirmative team is called “the Government” or “the Proposition” and negative team received the name of “the Opposition”, the host is sometimes called “the Chair”. The Government consist of the Leader (also called the Prime Minister), the Deputy Leader and the Whip, the same distribution of roles is valid for the members of Opposition team.

Another specific feature of Parliamentary Debate is the opportunity to ask the opponent for clarification and give additional explanations considering your arguments while answering opponent's questions. The jury is supposed to give the additional points for the questions asked and the clarifications given. The Parliamentary Debate is one of the most common formats used in senior classes of secondary school in Russian Federation. Moreover, the “Higher School of Debate” club that served as the base for conducting pedagogical experiment described in the empirical part adopts the parliamentary format for its sessions.

The second debate format widely used in education is called Karl Popper Debate in memory of sir K. R. Popper, the Austrian-British philosopher whose thought served as the source of educators' inspiration for adopting the use of debate technique. This debate format was designed with putting a great emphasis on critical thinking skills development, teamwork and enhancing tolerance and acceptance for different opinions. The speakers in Karl Popper Debate work in groups of three persons. Unlike other debate formats, the Karl Popper Debate gives the speakers an opportunity to offer arguments to the opponent team. The student's ability to see manifold ways of reflecting on the problem is encouraged, the students participating in Karl Popper Debate are inspired to find as many approaches to the problem as possible. Being specially developed for using in secondary schools and youth competitions in form of debate, this format is frequently used in Central and Eastern European countries, Russian Federation, at present time it is gaining more popularity in African schools (International Debate Education Asssociation, 2019).

Aiming at popularizing debate activities among young participants, the Middle School Debate competitive format was developed by the International Debate education Association (IDEA). The school students are encouraged to view themselves as equal and valid participants of democratic processes. Adolescence is viewed as the most suitable individual development stage for acquiring media literacy, research and public speaking skills. This format highlights the importance of aligning the motions discussed and the whole debate process to psychological and social peculiarities of teenagers. The use of Middle School Debate is supposed to empower the young people in their appreciation for debate and the intention to pursue it to the higher levels of education (International Debate Education Asssociation, 2019). In Russian Federation the Middle School Debate format is mostly used in organizing competitions and extracurricular educational events.

The Cross-Examination Debate, or the Policy Debate focuses the attention of participants on the core elements of the problematic issue discussed. This debate format is rarely used by foreign language teachers because its primary focus is on content rather than on delivery. Due to minor importance of speech accuracy and fluency the Cross-Examination has less benefits for teaching foreign languages and that's why the Parliamentary Debate or the Karl Popper Debate is usually preferred.

In addition to that, another format known as the Public Forum Debate is widely used by educators. Public Forum Debate give students an opportunity to develop the skills of spontaneous public speaking and critical thinking by adopting the format often seen in American political talk shows. The Public Format debate is primarily oriented at developing adaptability and immediate reaction to constantly changing circumstances as the discussion progresses. The participants of Public Forum Debate are learnt to anticipate numerous contingencies in their spontaneously performed debate speeches without taking any additional time for preparation. Unlike in other formats, Public Format Debate is always open-ended which means that there are no outcomes anticipated and participants are encouraged to develop their unique rhetorical strategies. Debates in Parliamentary, Karl Popper or Cross-Examination formats are rarely open to a large audience apart from fellow students and educators. On the contrary, Public Forum Debate should be transparent and accessible to the wider audience and that's why it is open for everyone who is interested in listening to debaters.

The procedure of conducting a debate may include preliminary stage when the students improve their understanding of debate motion by reading articles or brainstorming, especially while studying a textbook unit dedicated to any specific topic. However, the preparation stage is optional, and the classical debate is supposed to be more spontaneous.

When the motion is announced debaters have several minutes to prepare their oral presentations. The first speaker to open the debate is the Government Leader, or the Prime Minister. It is commonly accepted that debate should be started by the affirmative team. According to Barnet & Bedau (2014), the first affirmative speech “serves as introduction, giving summary overview, definitions, criteria for resolution, major claims and evidence, statement and intention to support the resolution” (Barnet & Bedau, 2014, p. 458). The first speech defines the whole argumentative strategy that is going to unfold during discussion. While the Government Leader presents his or her speech, the Opposition team members focus their attention on arguments provided in order to build the line of counter-argumentation.

After a short pause intended for preparing the speech and building the team strategy of refutation, the Opposition Leader presents the talk in which all the arguments of the previous speaker need to be refuted. Al the arguments provided by the affirmative team a challenged by counter arguments. In addition to that, the Opposition Leader adds new arguments against the position expressed in the debate motion. The Deputy Prime Ministers of both teams have the function of expanding the team strategy started by the first speakers, they need to present the argumentation line of the whole team in the most persuasive way possible. The role of the Whip in debate is restating the team's position, summarizing the arguments provided and giving a logical conclusion that closes the team's presentation. The last speakers (especially the Opposition Whip) shouldn't provide any new arguments or ideas, their primary function is closing the debate. However, the Whips are allowed to clarify arguments that are already provided and give additional evidence to prove their validity.

As it can be seen from the description of debate process, providing arguments is the key to supporting and defending the team's position. The three types of arguments commonly used during debates are simple, convergent and independent. On the most basic level the argument can be composed by giving a single claim and supporting it by another single claim, a reason. A classic example of simple argumentation was provided by Toulmin (2003). In Toulmin's model of the simple argument the statement “Harry was born in Bermuda” and its consequence “Harry is a British citizen” are an example of moving from evidence to a claim via a warrant (as far as each person born in Bermuda is a British citizen, this evidence can be used to support the claim) (Toulmin, 2003, p. 97). In general, all simple arguments have similar structure.

However, more experienced debaters prefer to follow more complex structures of providing an argument. The convergent argument structure gives more opportunities for reasoning as far as it includes two or more bits of evidence converging with one another. When it turns out that only one bit of evidence is insufficient to prove the claim, it should be combined with another pieces of evidence that are more persuasive. In some of the convergent arguments the first bit of evidence can support the second one. In this case the convergent evidences signify a transition from particular to general, or inductive reasoning. The key feature of this approach to building an argumentative strategy is that “the claim results from a convergence of the pieces of evidence and the warrant” (International Debate Education Association, 2003, p. 10).

The students participating in competitive debates are encouraged to use the most persuasive and powerful ways of argumentation they can apply. The experienced debaters often turn to using independent arguments. Independent arguments are even more developed that the convergent one because their structure presents several independent pieces of evidence, any one of which provides a satisfactory ground for supporting the claim. Each of the evidence bits provided as a part of independent argument contains enough information to persuade the jury and the audience. The arguments designed in accordance with this pattern receive the highest points in competitive debates.

For instance, a debater defending the capital punishment abolishment can appeal to immorality of taking any human life and irreversibility of the punishment in case of mistake (International Debate Education Association, 2003). Both evidences are enough to prove the capital punishment abolitionist's position. Representing different directions of reflecting on the problem, these arguments are independent, however, both are valid.

Strictly limited time for preparing and presenting the speech is the key to managing the whole debate process. The way of distributing time may differ depending on the format chosen and educational institution conducting a debate. In Parliamentary Debate format adopted by many debate clubs it is widely accepted that the teams have no more than 3 minutes for preparing their speeches after the motion is announced. The presentation time of each speaker is limited to 6 minutes for the first speakers and 5 minutes for the following, the pause for preparation between presentations lasts only one minute. Timekeeper or debate host makes the participants aware of their time limits and gives them a warning when the amount of time left for presenting the speech is about to end.

Though any debate format can be easily adopted without significant changes, in most cases the teacher needs to change the procedure because of deficient amount of time during lesson and the number of group students exceeding the number of debaters assigned by the format. From the point of following any precise format or adopting an individual model the structures classroom debates can be divided into classical and modified (Svetenko, Kalinkina, & Petrenko, 2001, p. 123). However, it is recommended to ensure that the students have enough time to prepare and deliver their speeches (Haque, 2017, p. 22). The lack of time could be a serious obstacle for adopting debate as a classroom activity.

The judges or the jury members have the function of assessment and providing feedback. Though in classroom debate the role of the jury is usually taken by teacher who by default evaluates the class participation and gives feedback and marks to students, the students may be encouraged to participate as judges to improve their listening and analysis skills. For instance, in the extracurricular competitions organized by “Higher School of Debate” club in the Higher School of Economics the jury members are specially trained volunteers, the bachelor and master students of the Department of Foreign Languages. Being the ones who assess the validity of the arguments provided, the integrity of team strategy, the accuracy and the fluency of speech, the jury has an exclusive right to decide which team is the winner of debate. At the end of debate the judges provide extended feedback and recommendations for improving the performance.

Taking into consideration all the features of debate technique, it can be concluded that its educational value meets the requirements of the experts in the sphere of education and teaching methodology. Nevertheless, the positive effect of using debate technique in education depends on following the rules regulating the discussion process. This includes the adequate formulation of debate motion, distributing debate roles and explaining them to the students, putting the speakers' presentations in the correct order, stimulating the students to provide convergent or independent arguments, dealing with time limitations, which means that the practical realization of debate technique may require additional preparation from teachers and students.

2. Using Debates in Teaching a Foreign Language

2.1 The Features of Using Debates in Teaching a Foreign Language

As the modern interdisciplinary pedagogical technique debate was added to the range of techniques used in teaching many secondary school subjects, including the foreign language. According to the legal document regulating the educational process in Russian Federation, the Federal State Educational Standard, the primary goal of studying a foreign language at school is “ to develop communicative competence in a foreign language, required for successful socialization and self-actualization, as an instrument of cross-cultural communication in the modern poly-cultural world” (Ministry for Education and Science of Russia, 2012). Consequently, the foreign language is studied with a perspective for interpersonal communication with representatives of different nations and cultures, which requires the high level of tolerance, acceptance of cultural diversity, positive perception of different opinions, ideas and positions. By acquiring these democratic values, the students are getting prepared to become a part of culturally diverse world.

Another goal that should be achieved by means of studying a foreign language is to “have knowledge of the socio-cultural context in the country/countries of the studied language and the ability to adjust their verbal and nonverbal behaviour as appropriate to match that specific context; the ability to identify similarities and differences between the culture of their native country and the country/ countries of the studied language” (Ministry for Education and Science of Russia, 2012). Not only is it important to study the foreign cultural phenomena and improve the understanding of cultural context that is specific to the countries of studied language, but also to be prepared to compare these phenomena with the student's native cultural environment. The significance of native cultural background shouldn't be underrated as far as the foreign language course has one of its goals rooted in preparing the students for communicating the culture of Russian Federation to their foreign interlocutors, the bearers of diverse ethnic, national and cultural background.

Consequently, the modern school education standards approved by the Ministry for Education and Science of Russia maintain that in present time each member of society should be ready for free interaction with representatives of other nations, including the efficient exchange of information and cultural experience. The ability to listen to the opponent's point of view and tactfully defend one's own personal position by proving it with valid arguments is viewed as one of the core skills of the school students acquiring a foreign language, a part of communicative and intercultural competence development. Analysing the previously described features of debate technique from the point of federal educational standard regulating the modern approach to teaching a foreign language at Russian schools, it can be concluded that this pedagogical technique fully meets the requirements of the experts.

Apart from contributing to the communicative and intercultural competence development, the debate technique can be an effective tool for working on developing both receptive (listening, reading) and productive (speaking, writing) language skills.

The two language skills that are primarily trained during debates are listening and speaking. By actively listening and analysing other speaker's presentations which are, from the point of perception, short monologues in foreign language, the students have an opportunity to develop their listening skills. Listening to the opponent team's speeches is essential because their arguments serve as the base for building the line of counter-argumentation and effective refutation. Thus, participating in a debate contributes to such concrete goals in acquiring the foreign listening skills as to train the audial perception of foreign speech and its general and detailed understanding (Guseva & Filon, 2014).

The information received during the opponent's presentation is further used as a starting point for preparing next speaker's utterance. In this way the transition from reception to production is made, the relationship of receptive and productive skills naturally supporting each other is realized in debate technique. All the debate participants (except for the Government Leader, the first speaker opening any debate) create their monologues on the base of the oral texts perceived. In addition to main oral presentations debaters can use the points of information by asking additional questions, clarifying their position or even offering arguments to their opponents (in the Karl Popper Debate format). Respectively, debate participation enhances the skills of prepared and unprepared monologue and dialogue in foreign language. Therefore, debate technique appears to be an effective means of developing both listening and speaking skills during the foreign language lesson in senior classes of secondary school.

At first sight debate technique seems to have scarce connection to developing such language skills as reading and writing as far as it deals with formalized oral discussion. Though listening and speaking remain the leading language skills involved into the process of debating, there is still the opportunity to involve the development of reading and writing skills by combining debates and supplementary activities.

However, debate participation requires an ability to provide valid arguments justified by scientific facts, statistics, real situations, major events happening in the world, common knowledge etc. Due to fact that an unexperienced debater may lack background knowledge for providing persuasive arguments, additional preparation is needed. Sometimes personal experiences and observations also count as an attempt of providing evidence to the argument. Nevertheless, their use is not recommended in order to avoid subjectivity. Preparation for taking part in debate may include browsing through topic-related literature in search of the data that can be used for argumentation and validating one's position, reading textbooks, newspaper and magazine articles, extracts from reference books etc. For example, before organizing a classroom debate, a teacher can suggest the students to read the text which is connected to the debate motion and the social problem stated by it. Taking into consideration this way of preparing the students for taking part in debates, it could be stated that debate technique stimulates the development of reading skills.

Though the connection between using debate technique and developing writing skills seems to be unobvious, such core element of any debate as providing arguments and counter arguments for the position expressed in the motion makes debate technique an efficient way of teaching argumentative essay writing. By shaping the skills of defending an opinion or providing its rebuttal the students train their ability to see each problem both from the positive and from the negative side. Moreover, the students train to provide their arguments quickly by using the strictly limited amount of time usually confined to 1-3 minutes. When writing an argumentative essay in the senior classes of secondary school, the student should present two opposite views on the problem and his or her own position considering the problem expressed by the essay topic. The principles of writing an argumentative essay have similarities with the way how debater's speech is organized. Moreover, the writing skills of students participating in debates can be developed through taking notes while listening to the opponent's speech or designing a plan for their own speech, preparing questions or putting down the theses. debate teaching language critical

As for the lexical skills development, various topics discussed during debates expand the active vocabulary used by the students. The language is used as a medium to share knowledge from such disciplines as natural sciences or history, consequently, the students should use the topic-related vocabulary. The need for topic-related vocabulary can serve as motivation for discovering and memorizing the new lexical units. According to Daley & Dahlie (2001), there's an opportunity to pre-teach difficult words and facilitate their use in debates (Daley & Dahlie, 2001). Apart from adding more lexical units to the active vocabulary debate technique stimulates the use of special clichés intended for holding a speech. A student's speech is getting enriched with many new clichés that enhance their ability to draw attention of the audience, to apologize, to ask a polite question etc. (Guseva & Filon, 2014, p. 8).

As for the development of phonetic skills, debate participation may encourage the students to work on correct pronunciation, word stress and intonation. Being understood by other participants, both peers and opponents, is essential for debating, consequently, the young debaters begin to appreciate the importance of phonetically correct speech even more. Moreover, debate technique encourages the students to adopt emphatic stress, so-called “dramatic pauses” and other ways to sound more persuasive.

In addition to that, grammar skills are trained by use of different question types and compound sentences because debate participation requires the use of grammatical structures suitable for holding a formal speech.

Therefore, a brief overview of debate technique's educational value in teaching a foreign language showed that the practice of learning through debates corresponds to the requirements of Federal State Educational Standard, such as developing the communicative competence and preparing schools student for communicating their native culture by means of foreign language. The use of debate technique can activate both receptive language skills of reading and listening and productive language skills of speaking and writing. Moreover, debate technique can be a means of improving lexical, phonetical and grammatical skills. The detailed analysis of how critical thinking skills could be developed through debate will be conducted in further chapters.

3. Using Debates in Critical Thinking Skills Development

3.1 Critical Thinking in the Context of Modern Education

Emergence of modern media brought the new challenge to an educator's agenda: school students should be prepared to interact with heterogeneous pieces of information including falsified news, commercial offers, exaggerated figures and public statements lacking argumentative basis. One of the most notable problems in modern education is the growing need for critical thinking skills development. Due to the increased attention to the importance of critical thinking skills development among new generations of emerging workforce educators began to study various methods for developing the skills of critical thinking in the classroom (Halpern, 2003).

According to Halpern (2014), such phenomena of modern society as educated adults believing in antiscientific theories is the clear evidence for lack of critical thinking skills development (Halpern, 2014, p. 3). Such facts as existence of Flat Earth societies and the wide-spread belief that the moon landing was staged (Griggs, 2009) are some indicators of deficient critical thinking skills. Therefore, the growing concern for critical thinking documented by educators and researchers resulted into developing new approaches and techniques in education. Apart from introducing the school students to the fundamental theoretical knowledge the new disciplinary courses were targeted at developing critical thinking skills.

The history of critical thinking as the definite concept in education and science started in the first half of 20th century. Sumner's sociological and anthropological study “Folkways” (1906) provided critique on the school's role in social indoctrination of students. Documenting human's mind stable tendency for sociocentric thinking and its lack of critical evaluation, Sumner claimed that school education should be regulated by “the best knowledge and good sense” in order to avoid production of orthodoxy that “consists of the most worn and commonplace opinions which are common in the masses” (Sumner, 1906, p. 630). Though popular opinions contain “broad fallacies, half-truths, and glib generalizations”, the solution could be found in cultivating and promoting the habit of constant rational control, verification and revisioning introduced by class teachers (Sumner, 1906, pp. 632, 633).

Moreover, the basic understanding of critical thinking as an educational aim can be traced back to the works of Dewey who described this ability of human mind as “active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends” (Dewey, 1910, p. 6), (Dewey, 1933, p. 9) and associated a critical way of thinking with a “scientific attitude of mind”. However, some anticipation of critical thinking development as an emerging educational aim stems back to John Locke's, John Stuart Mill's and Francis Bacon's understanding of scientific thinking, which was reflected in quotations made by Dewey (Hitchcock, 2018).

The further notable contribution to studies of critical thinking in educational context was made by Glaser (1941). In his seminal work Glaser gives three precise features that characterise critical thinking, maintaining that the ability to think critically involves “an attitude of being disposed to consider in a thoughtful way the problems and subjects that come within the range of one's experiences”, “knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning”, and “some skill in applying those methods” (Glaser, 1941).