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Logical thinking in secondary school students' essays
Author
Ng, Lai Fun
Supervisor
Cheung, Yin Ling
Abstract
Logical thinking is an important skill in the teaching of writing, particularly in argumentative writing, one of the several text types that secondary school students have to write. Logic is important in writing as it leads to the believability and acceptability of what is written. Logical thinking and argumentative writing go hand in hand as one underlying requirement of writing an argument is the ability to discern logical connections between different claims or assertions, whereby the relation between one claim to another claim is considered to be true, valid and acceptable to parties involved.
This study starts with the observation that the teaching of logic may be one area that is lacking in the English curriculum in secondary schools. Hence, it seeks to investigate whether having an intervention programme whereby students are taught the fundamental principles of logical thinking and the knowledge of informal logical fallacies will have any impact on the students’ writing. Four classes of Secondary Three students were involved in the study, of which two classes formed the experimental classes and two formed the control classes. Sixty-five students were involved in the experimental classes and 38 students were involved in the control classes. Intervention consisted of four logical thinking lessons that were conducted during curriculum time as part of the students’ English curriculum. Pre-intervention and post-intervention essays were collected. Essay titles for the pre- and post-intervention tasks were related but not exactly the same. The essays were analysed for their logical connections. The number of logical fallacies and other logical problems were taken note of for each essay. Paired t-tests were run on SPSS software to determine the significance of the number of fallacies noted.
Focus group discussions were separately conducted with students from the experimental and the control classes. A survey was also conducted among the experimental classes to gather the students’ feedback to the study. Additionally, interviews were conducted with nine teachers to garner their opinions on the teaching of logic in the English curriculum and their methodology and experiences in the teaching of argumentative writing.
The study found that the t-test conducted for one of the two experimental classes was significant while that conducted for the second experimental class was not significant. Both the t-tests of the two control classes were not significant. Survey results suggest that students in both the experimental and the control classes favour the teaching of logic in the curriculum, although the problems that not all may take well to such lessons were highlighted and the many types of logical fallacies make the learning challenging. The interviews with teachers reveal that while all but one welcomed the idea of teaching logic in the English curriculum, several concerns were raised, such as teacher competency, whole school readiness, and capabilities of students.
The study is a preliminary study into the explicit teaching of logical thinking in the English curriculum. While results are not conclusive because of small sample sizes, the study offers some direction in future research involving logical thinking and writing.
This study starts with the observation that the teaching of logic may be one area that is lacking in the English curriculum in secondary schools. Hence, it seeks to investigate whether having an intervention programme whereby students are taught the fundamental principles of logical thinking and the knowledge of informal logical fallacies will have any impact on the students’ writing. Four classes of Secondary Three students were involved in the study, of which two classes formed the experimental classes and two formed the control classes. Sixty-five students were involved in the experimental classes and 38 students were involved in the control classes. Intervention consisted of four logical thinking lessons that were conducted during curriculum time as part of the students’ English curriculum. Pre-intervention and post-intervention essays were collected. Essay titles for the pre- and post-intervention tasks were related but not exactly the same. The essays were analysed for their logical connections. The number of logical fallacies and other logical problems were taken note of for each essay. Paired t-tests were run on SPSS software to determine the significance of the number of fallacies noted.
Focus group discussions were separately conducted with students from the experimental and the control classes. A survey was also conducted among the experimental classes to gather the students’ feedback to the study. Additionally, interviews were conducted with nine teachers to garner their opinions on the teaching of logic in the English curriculum and their methodology and experiences in the teaching of argumentative writing.
The study found that the t-test conducted for one of the two experimental classes was significant while that conducted for the second experimental class was not significant. Both the t-tests of the two control classes were not significant. Survey results suggest that students in both the experimental and the control classes favour the teaching of logic in the curriculum, although the problems that not all may take well to such lessons were highlighted and the many types of logical fallacies make the learning challenging. The interviews with teachers reveal that while all but one welcomed the idea of teaching logic in the English curriculum, several concerns were raised, such as teacher competency, whole school readiness, and capabilities of students.
The study is a preliminary study into the explicit teaching of logical thinking in the English curriculum. While results are not conclusive because of small sample sizes, the study offers some direction in future research involving logical thinking and writing.
Date Issued
2019
Call Number
PE1405.S55 Ng
Date Submitted
2019