2001 Volume 25 Issue 1 Pages 13-25
It is necessary to judge rationally the information one receives and to produce creatively new information from it for self-regulated information processing. It is useful for that purpose to improve metacognitive ability concerning thinking. From the above standpoint, this study aimed to develop a course on thinking skills, and to evaluate it. The course was carried out for fifth graders with regard to: (1) How we see?, (2) The distinction between facts and thoughts, and (3) Creative inference, using workbooks that we had developed. Pre- and post-tests were conducted for both a group that had undertaken the course and a group that had not. The results showed that going through the course improved the attitude towards thinking and metacognitive knowledge of thinking, distinction of fact/ opinion/inference, and activity of creative inference. In addition, the awareness of the attitude towards thinking, metacognitive knowledge, and metacognitive activity of thinking were recognized in free descriptions after the course.
