Collaborative philosophical enquiry for school children: cognitive effects at 10-12 years.

BACKGROUND: Debates about the modifiability of cognitive ability have been largely resolved by reports of successful 'thinking skills' interventions. However, such interventions are very diverse and generalization of effects relatively little explored. AIMS: This study investigated whether a thinking skills intervention involving collaborative interactive dialogue could lead not only to gains in measured verbal cognitive ability but also generalization to non-verbal and quantitative reasoning ability. SAMPLE: Randomly selected intervention children were aged 10 at pre-test (N=105, four classes/schools). Controls followed a normal curriculum (N=72, three classes/two schools). METHOD: Intervention children engaged in collaborative enquiry for 1 hour per week over 16 months. The control group received normal classroom experiences. The Cognitive Abilities Test was administered before and after the intervention. RESULTS: Intervention pupils showed significant standardized gains in verbal and also in non-verbal and quantitative aspects of reasoning, consistent across intervention schools. Boys and girls made significant gains. The highest quartile of pre-test ability showed the smallest gains. Controls did not gain in any aspect. CONCLUSIONS: Philosophical enquiry involving interactive dialogue led not only to significant gains in measured verbal cognitive ability but also generalization to non-verbal and quantitative reasoning ability, consistent across schools and largely irrespective of pupil gender and ability. The effect sizes from this large-scale field trial in one local authority exceeded those reported in the literature. Implications for theory building, replicability and sustainability are addressed.

Collaborative philosophical inquiry for schoolchildren: cognitive gains at 2-year follow-up.

BACKGROUND: Evidence of maintained gains from thinking skills interventions are rare in the literature even within sectors of education, let alone across sectors. AIMS: This study investigated the cognitive effects of collaborative philosophical inquiry at long-term 2-year follow-up, after the participants had transferred to secondary (high) school without experiencing further philosophical inquiry in the interim. SAMPLE: Sample attrition was greater in the control than in the experimental group, but 96 experimental and 52 control subjects were available. METHOD: Intervened children who engaged in collaborative inquiry for 1 hour per week over 16 months and whose pre-post cognitive gains were reported in Topping and Trickey (2007) were followed up 2 years later, some time after they had transferred from primary to secondary school, again using the Cognitive Abilities Test. RESULTS: The significant pre-post cognitive ability gains in the experimental group in primary school were maintained towards the end of their second year of secondary school. Higher achieving pupils were somewhat advantaged in sustaining these gains. The control group showed an insignificant but persistent deterioration in scores from pre- to post-test to follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: Given the pattern of sample attrition, the group difference seems likely to be underestimated. The study provides evidence of maintained cognitive gains from collaborative philosophical inquiry, transferred across contexts. Implications for future research, policy and practice are discussed.

Collaborative writing: the effects of metacognitive prompting and structured peer interaction.

BACKGROUND: The structured system for peer assisted learning in writing named Paired Writing (Topping, 1995) incorporates both metacognitive prompting and scaffolding for the interactive process. AIM: This study sought to evaluate the relative contribution of these two components to student gain in quality of writing and attitudes to writing, while controlling for amount of writing practice and teacher effects. SAMPLE: Participants were 28 ten- and eleven-year-old students forming a problematic mixed ability class. METHODS: All received training in Paired Writing and its inherent metacognitive prompting. Students matched by gender and pre-test writing scores were assigned randomly to Interaction or No Interaction conditions. In the Interaction condition, the more able writers became 'tutors' for the less able. In the No Interaction condition, the more able writers acted as controls for the tutors and the less able as controls for the tutees. Over six weeks, the paired writers produced five pieces of personal writing collaboratively, while children in the No Interaction condition did so alone. RESULTS: On pre- and post-project analyses of the quality of individual writing, all groups showed statistically significant improvements in writing. However, the pre-post gains of the children who wrote interactively were significantly greater than those of the lone writers. There was some evidence that the paired writers also had more positive self-esteem as writers. CONCLUSION: The operation and durability of the Paired Writing system are discussed.

Disruptive adolescents in the school system: comparative effectiveness of helping strategies.

Large sums of money are often spent on setting up different systems of helping or managing disruptive adolescents in the school system, without reference to objective data on effectiveness. This paper considers 24 alternative systems, scrutinizes the evaluation research on each, and notes that the most expensive systems are not necessarily the most effective. Furthermore, the task of resolving behavioural difficulties may be either under- or over-resourced in individual cases, building in either failure or waste. A guide is given to developing a sequence of intervention strategies of known cost-effectiveness, providing a fail-safe structure for helping disruptive adolescents in educational settings.