Scientific Thinking through the Development of Formal Operations: Training in the Cognitive Restructuring Aspect of Field-Independence.

Abstract Experimental groups of first year pupils in an English rural comprehensive school were given materials designed to develop the cognitive restructuring aspect of field‐independence in an attempt to gain a parallel increase in formal operations. The Chelsea College Science Reasoning Task II (to test for formal‐operations) and the Group Embedded Figures Test (to test for field‐independence) were given to experimental and control groups before and after the intervention. A significant increase in the experimental group over the control group was found in both tests. This was interpreted as showing that an increase in the cognitive restructuring aspect of field‐independence was associated with an increase in formal operational thought in 11‐12year olds.

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