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Gifted Child Quarterly 2014, Vol. 58(2) 127 –136 © 2014 National Association for Gifted Children Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0016986214522508 gcq.sagepub.com

Article

Developing skills of critical thinking is widely considered a worthy educational goal, with recognition of its importance increasing in recent years. In typical lists of skills needed for the 21st century, critical thinking appears at or near the top (Bailin & Siegel, 2003; Trilling & Fadel, 2009; Walser, 2008). Wagner (2008) argued that effective communication, curiosity, and critical thinking skills are no longer only desir- able outcomes of elite liberal arts education, but the essential competencies for life in the 21st century. From a policy per- spective, the Goals 2000: Educate America Act (1994) emphasized that critical thinking abilities are necessary in the 21st century for productive employment and an essential characteristic of quality education. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (2004), a leading advocacy organization with business and state education department partnerships across the United States, calls for the integration of critical thinking, problem solving, and communication skills across all areas of the curriculum. Perhaps most significantly, the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010), which have been adopted by 46 of the 50 states in the United States, reflect a strong commitment to developing critical thinking skills among all students from kindergarten to Grade 12 through

increased emphasis on argumentation and analyses of claims and evidence (VanTassel-Baska, 2013).

Debates over definitions of critical thinking abound (Ennis, 1989, 1990; Paul, 1990), but one definition is now widely accepted and is used in the current study. Critical thinking is defined as “purposeful, self-regulatory judgment which results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well as explanation of the evidential, concep- tual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual consider- ations upon which judgment is based” (Facione, 1990, p. 3). This omnibus definition, despite being unwieldy, also pro- vided the framework for the most comprehensive meta-anal- ysis regarding instruction of critical thinking (Abrami et al., 2008).

These efforts to improve national curriculum and increase emphasis on teaching critical thinking skills to all students should have implications for educators working with gifted

522508GCQXXX10.1177/0016986214522508Gifted Child QuarterlyKettler research-article2014

1University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA

Corresponding Author: Todd Kettler, College of Education, Department of Educational Psychology, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle, #311335, Denton, TX 76203-5017, USA. Email: [email protected]

Critical Thinking Skills Among Elementary School Students: Comparing Identified Gifted and General Education Student Performance

Todd Kettler1

Abstract Education reform efforts, including the current adoption of Common Core State Standards, have increased attention to teaching critical thinking skills to all students. This study investigated the critical thinking skills of fourth-grade students from a school district in Texas, including 45 identified gifted students and 163 general education students. Identified gifted students outperformed general education students on both the Cornell Critical Thinking Test and the Test of Critical Thinking (d = 1.52 and d = 1.36, respectively). There was no evidence of main effects or interaction effects for gender in measures of critical thinking within these samples. Critical thinking scores of students in the three schools did not differ significantly, nor were differences in scores associated with length of exposure to the gifted education program. The association of higher ability with advanced critical thinking skills, but at the same time, the lack of evidence of an effect of the gifted education programs (which did not focus specifically on critical thinking skills) suggests that differentiation of curriculum and instruction for gifted or advanced learners might fruitfully include deliberate differentiation of instruction in this area.

Keywords differentiation, programming/service delivery models, thinking skills, cognition, learning, critical thinking

128 Gifted Child Quarterly 58(2)

and talented students. The concept of differentiated learning experiences based on educational readiness is a foundational idea for the field of gifted education. The national program- ming standards for gifted education advocate that to effec- tively work with identified gifted and talented students, educators need to understand the characteristics of the stu- dents in the population. Furthermore, “These characteristics provide the rationale for differentiation in programs, group- ing, and services for this population and are translated into appropriate differentiation choices made at curricular and program levels in schools and school districts” (National Association for Gifted Children, 2010, p. 8). Differentiated curriculum and instruction based on differences in developed skills and abilities is a chief aim of gifted education (Adams & Pierce, 2006; Roberts & Inman, 2009; Robinson, Shore, & Enersen, 2007; VanTassel-Baska, 2013). Research and rec- ommended practices advocate for differentiated curriculum and instruction in response to advanced reading (Reis & Boeve, 2009; Reis et al., 2007, VanTassel-Baska, 2013) and mathematics skills (Johnsen & Sheffield, 2013; Swiatek, 2007; Wilkins, Wilkins, & Oliver, 2006). Ultimately, the dif- ferentiation principle may suggest that for any skill the development of which is a goal, advanced levels of educa- tional readiness should be matched with advanced learning experiences (Tomlinson & Allan, 2000).

This study examined measured levels of critical thinking skills among identified gifted students and general educa- tion students to determine whether critical thinking skill levels should be considered when designing differentiated learning experiences. Within the literature of critical think- ing, very few studies examine the critical thinking skills of preadolescent students in upper elementary grades. Furthermore, there may have been a time when critical thinking was an exclusive purview of gifted education, but 21st century education advocates call for all students to be engaged in the development of critical thinking skills across the curriculum. Thus, educators of gifted students may ask whether differences in critical thinking skills support a need for differentiation of curriculum and instruction spe- cifically for gifted learners. In other words, as developing critical thinking skills becomes more prominent in curricu- lum (e.g., Common Core State Standards), should educa- tors of identified gifted students approach critical thinking in the elementary grades from a differentiated instruction perspective?

Two research questions were developed for this study. Two follow-up questions were also analyzed to guard against potential threats to validity of the findings:

1. Is there a difference in developed critical thinking skills between identified gifted and general education students? Follow-ups to Research Question 1: Among the identified gifted student group, is there a relation- ship between the amount of time spent in the gifted program and scores on measures of critical thinking?

Does critical thinking performance vary among schools in the study?

2. Is there a difference in developed critical thinking skills between male and female students or does gen- der have a moderating effect on critical thinking skill differences between identified gifted and general education students?

Literature Review

Gifted Education and Gifted Students

The field of gifted education has considered critical thinking a desirable goal for gifted programs (Linn & Shore, 2008; Parks, 2009; Struck & Little, 2011), and critical thinking instruction has been included as an evidence-based practice in the National Gifted Programming Standards (National Association for Gifted Children, 2010). Some research stud- ies in gifted education have documented attempts to improve critical thinking skills among populations of students identi- fied as gifted and talented (VanTassel-Baska, Bracken, Feng, & Brown, 2009; VanTassel-Baska & Stambaugh, 2006). However, in spite of some attention afforded to developing critical thinking skills among gifted students, the literature of gifted education has not actively advocated for using docu- mented levels of critical thinking as a foundation on which to differentiate instruction.

Relevant literature identifies several characteristics repre- senting advanced skill development typical of gifted stu- dents. First, there is a relationship between advanced cognitive ability and processing speed (Kranzler, Whang, & Jensen, 1994; Rogers, 1986). Students with higher levels of intelligence generally process information faster than aver- age ability peers on both simple and complex tasks (Roberts, Beh, & Stankov, 1988; Spiegel & Bryant, 1978). Second, gifted students are generally more thorough problem solvers than average ability peers (Davidson & Sternberg, 1984; Shore & Lazar, 1996). Gifted students have also demon- strated a wider variety of strategies during problem solving than age peers (Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1985; Montague, 1991). Third, there is evidence that gifted students employ more metacognitive strategies during learning than their nongifted peers (Shore, 2000; Shore & Kanevsky, 1993), and gifted students are generally better at assessing their abilities for a learning task than their nongifted peers (Coleman & Shore, 1991; Ewers & Wood, 1993). Fourth, gifted students generally are able to sustain attention to a problem or task in ways their nongifted peers do not (Bloom & Sosniak, 1981; Piirto, 1992; Root-Bernstein & Root-Bernstein, 2004; Sriraman, 2004). Fifth, evidence suggests that students with higher levels of cognitive ability have superior memory and more efficient retrieval when compared with nongifted peers (Borkowski & Peck, 1986; Cohen & Sandberg, 1977; Dark & Benbow, 1990, 1991; Ford & Keating, 1981; Hunt, Lunneborg, & Lewis, 1975; Keating & Bobbitt, 1978). Sixth,

Kettler 129

gifted students generally demonstrate advanced abilities for abstraction and generalization during learning when com- pared with nongifted peers (Ablard & Tissot, 1998; Hettinger & Carr, 2003; Hoh, 2008; Shavinina & Kholodnaja, 1996; Sriraman, 2004, 2008; Winner, 1996). Seventh, gifted stu- dents differ from their nongifted peers in their ability to learn with minimal instruction, sometimes referred to as curtailed learning (Gross, 2004; Krutetskii, 1976; Lee & Olszewski- Kubilius, 2006; Lynch, 1992; Mills, Ablard, & Lynch, 1992; VanTassel-Baska, 1983; Winner, 1996).

Evidence supporting these characteristics has provided a foundation for the differentiation principle in gifted educa- tion. These characteristics may result in advanced skill development in a variety of domains across the core curricu- lum. The most commonly studied and discussed areas where developed skill differences demand differentiated educa- tional opportunities are reading and mathematics (Jolly & Kettler, 2008). However, differentiation of curriculum and instruction may be implemented in any learning environment in which the evidence suggests that some students have already attained advanced levels of the skill being taught.

Critical Thinking in Elementary School Students

In general, the literature on critical thinking focuses on older students, often college-student populations. There are also a number of studies on teaching and measuring critical think- ing in nursing education. However, there are a few studies which have examined critical thinking skills among elemen- tary student populations, including some populations of gifted students.

A recent evaluation was conducted of the Destination Imagination (DI) program using the Cornell Critical Thinking Test (CCTT; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko, 2005), demonstrat- ing higher scores for students participating in the DI program than those for a comparison, nonparticipating group (Missett, Callahan, Hertberg-Davis, McCarty, & Whitmire, 2010). There were two studies (VanTassel-Baska & Stambaugh, 2006; VanTassel-Baska et al., 2009) using the Test of Critical Thinking (TCT; Bracken et al., 2003) to measure elementary students’ critical thinking skills. The more recent study (VanTassel-Baska et al., 2009) was conducted in Title I schools to measure growth in reading comprehension and critical thinking over a 3-year period. Subjects participated in an instructional intervention as part of Project Athena, a set of curriculum units developed for high-ability learners. One of the explicit goals of the Project Athena curriculum was to develop students’ critical thinking skills. Students made statistically significant improvements in critical think- ing skills as measured by the TCT; however, both groups of students, experimental and control, made similar gains over the 3-year period.

There was a finding from the VanTassel-Baska et al. (2009) study that was particularly relevant to the present study. In that study, the authors divided the students in both

experimental and control groups into three categories based on IQ. Students with higher IQ scores earned higher TCT scores, suggesting that identified gifted students would score higher on measures of critical thinking than would their gen- eral education peers.

The present review identified gaps in knowledge that were not well represented in the critical thinking literature. Aside from the two studies published (VanTassel-Baska et al., 2009; VanTassel-Baska & Stambaugh, 2006) using the TCT, no other recently published studies were identified investigating critical thinking with elementary student popu- lations. The Administration Manual for the CCTT (Ennis et al., 2005) listed a few unpublished studies with elementary students, but since they were unpublished, they could not be reviewed or verified. According to the Administration Manual for the CCTT, several of the unpublished studies examined potential gender effects on critical thinking performance.

Method

Participants

Participants were 208 fourth-grade students from a suburban school district in Texas. Three participating schools were selected at random from the collaborating school district, and student participation within those schools was voluntary. Campus A had 56 students participate; (64% of 4th grade enrollment); Campus B had 75 students participate (90% of 4th grade enrollment), and Campus C had 77 students partici- pate (79% of 4th grade enrollment). For analysis, participants were classified into two groups: general education students and identified gifted students. The participants were 46% Asian, 40% White, 11% Hispanic, and 4% Black. This was representative of the population of the participating schools: 47% Asian, 40% White, 9% Hispanic, and 4% Black.

General Education Group. In the general education group (n = 163), the average age was 10 years and 2 months. There were 68 Asian students (41.7%), 67 White students (41.1%), 20 Hispanic students (12.3%), and 8 Black students (4.9%). The general education group included 79 males (48.5%) and 84 females (51.5%). There were 20 students in the general edu- cation classified as economically disadvantaged (12.3%).

Identified Gifted Group. In the identified gifted group (n = 45), the average age was 10 years and 1 month. There were 27 Asian students (60%), 16 White students (35.6%), 2 His- panic students (4.4%), and 0 Black students (0%). The iden- tified gifted group included 16 males (35.6%) and 29 females (64.4%). There was one student in the identified gifted group classified as economically disadvantaged (2.2%).

The identified gifted participants (21.6%) were identified as gifted and talented according to state and district guidelines. Identification of gifted students began in kindergarten and

130 Gifted Child Quarterly 58(2)

continued annually through high school. In the participating district, all GT identification decisions were made by a cam- pus-based committee comprised of five educators who had training in the nature and needs of gifted and talented students and the identification of gifted students. According to district policy, sources of data that the committee reviewed were cog- nitive ability scores from the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT; Lohman & Hagen, 2003), reading and mathematics achieve- ment scores from the Scantron Performance Series (PS) tests (Scantron Corporation, 2005), teacher feedback on student abilities, and district developed authentic assessments in the core subject areas of science, mathematics, language arts, and social studies. The identified gifted group had a mean CogAT score of 126.03 (SD = 8.46) and the general education group had a mean CogAT score of 100.89 (SD = 10.31). CogAT scores for students in the study were obtained by the school district for all students during the third-grade academic year. Performance Series achievement scores for mathematics and reading were also obtained by the district for all students dur- ing the third-grade academic year. The school district provided those data for the study.

In the participating district, when students were identified for gifted education services, they participated in a weekly (2 hours) pull-out enrichment program and also received dif- ferentiation of the core curriculum in cluster grouped class- rooms. Pull-out teachers and cluster grouped classroom teachers met district and state guidelines for training in pro- viding gifted education services. Differentiated curriculum in the participating district was described as a combination of enrichment and acceleration through curriculum compact- ing, tiered instruction, and independent learning projects; however, empirical verification of the differentiated learning was not included in the present study. Teachers in the district developed the curriculum that was used in the pull-out pro- gram, and cluster classroom teachers developed the differen- tiated elements of the cluster classroom instruction. The quality and frequency of the differentiation may have varied across campuses and teachers whose students participated in the study.

Instruments

Data collection for this study included test scores from the following: the CCTT (Ennis et al., 2005) and the TCT (Bracken et al., 2003). Demographic data were gathered from the participating school district to include the following for each student: cognitive ability scores, academic achieve- ment scores, ethnicity, gender, gifted and talented (yes/no), and economically disadvantaged (yes/no). Economic disad- vantage was categorized based on the federal free/reduced lunch qualifications.

Cornell Critical Thinking Test. The CCTT Level X (Ennis et al., 2005) was used to measure critical thinking skills. The CCTT has been used in numerous studies of critical thinking skills

since it was originally developed in 1985, and it is currently in its fifth edition. The administration guide of the CCTT Level X includes an age range from 4th grade to 12th grade. Level X of the CCTT includes 76 items to measure skill lev- els on five aspects of critical thinking: induction, deduction, observation, credibility, and assumptions. In previous studies reported in the administration guide, reliability estimates ranged from .67 to .90 with a median estimate of .80. The estimated internal consistency (Cronbach’s α) was calculated at .89 for the present study (n = 205).

Test of Critical Thinking. The TCT is a researcher developed test (Bracken et al., 2003) from the Center for Gifted Edu- cation at the College of William and Mary. Two benefits of the TCT are that it is intended for a specific elementary audience, and it was designed to have a high ceiling to reli- ably measure the critical thinking skills of both gifted and general education student populations (Bracken et al., 2003). The TCT was theoretically based on the Facione (1990) Delphi panel’s definition of critical thinking. The TCT consists of 45 items arranged across 10 scenarios. Each scenario is followed by three to six items; items are multiple-choice format with four answer choices per item. In previously reported studies in the administration guide, Cronbach’s α of the TCT was .89 for the total population, and each grade level group’s internal consistency ranged from .83 to .87. Cronbach’s α was calculated at .79 for the present study (n = 205).

Procedures

The principal investigator administered all the assessments to the participants in classrooms at the participating cam- puses. Participants’ teachers assisted with proctoring to maintain consistent and reliable testing environments. A total of 203 students took both tests of critical thinking. Five stu- dents only took one of the two tests due to absence. To account for a potential practice effect, 108 of the students (53%) took the CCTT first followed by the TCT. The other 95 students (47%) took the TCT first followed by the CCTT. For each campus testing session, two teachers’ classrooms were designated at random by name draw to receive the CCTT on testing date one, and the other two classrooms were administered the TCT first on testing date one. Testing- date intervals ranged from 5 to 15 days. For the CCTT, the mean difference in scores between first and second testing dates was small and negative (−2.23), t

(202) = −1.42, p = .16,

d = −.20. The mean difference on the TCT was also small but positive (.92), t

(204) = .98, p = .33, d = .12. Practice effects did

not affect the study.

Analysis

There were two research questions being considered in this study. The first research question compared the between

Kettler 131

group mean scores on critical thinking for identified gifted participants and general education participants. To test the null hypothesis that no differences existed, a one-tailed t test was conducted to compare the means scores obtained on each measure of critical thinking.

There was a follow-up question which examined the potential relationship between scores on critical thinking tests and the amount of time spent in the gifted program. This question addressed a potential threat to the validity of the findings—participation in the gifted program may have the effect of developing critical thinking skills. If time spent in the gifted program contributed to improved critical thinking scores, a relationship between the two variables—time spent in the program and critical thinking scores—would be expected. A Pearson product moment correlation analysis was used to test the null hypothesis that no relationship existed between the two variables.

A second follow-up question addressed another potential threat to validity of the findings—effects associated with the school students attended. School A was a typical elementary school with the standard state-approved curriculum and resources offered by the district. School B was an elementary school that for the past year had begun to focus on project- based learning. Approximately 10% to 20% of the standard, state-approved curriculum was taught using project-based learning units that were developed by the teachers at the school. School C was an elementary school that for the past 2 years had begun to focus on science, technology, engineer- ing, and mathematics initiatives (STEM). Teachers at School C designed integrated units of study for math/science and language arts/social studies that had an intentional emphasis on STEM careers and problem solving. The quality and con- sistency of these particular focus areas in Schools B and C were not empirically verified as part of this study but rather obtained from the general descriptions of the schools them- selves. There was no evidence from any of the three schools that critical thinking skills were explicitly taught in the cur- riculum. A random effects analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to test the null hypothesis that no between group (schools) differences in critical thinking scores could be attributed to the nested variable of which school the par- ticipants attended.

The second research question asked if critical thinking performance varied based on gender and whether gender served as a moderating variable in the differences between the identified gifted and general education group. To answer this question, a two-way ANOVA was conducted using gen- der as a moderator.

Results

Table 1 presents a correlation matrix of the measured vari- ables in the study: CCTT, TCT, CogAT Composite, PS Reading, and PS Math. Significant relationships existed between all pairs of the variables. Students’ achievement

scores have a positive and significant relationship with their cognitive ability scores. Additionally, students’ critical think- ing scores on both measures have a positive and significant relationship with both their cognitive ability and their achievement in reading and math. Since both the CCTT and the TCT measure similar constructs of critical thinking (Facione, 1990), there was an anticipated correlation between the scores on the two tests.

Comparing Critical Thinking Between Gifted and General Education Students

The first research question analyzed the differences between the mean critical thinking scores of two groups of partici- pants, identified gifted and general education students. Stem-and-leaf plots as well as Q-Q Plots were used to ver- ify the normality of the distribution of scores for both the CCTT and the TCT. In both analyses, Levene’s Test was used to analyze the parametric assumption of equality of variance between the two groups. Effect sizes were reported using Cohen’s d (Cohen, 1988, 1992) as a measure of the differences between the means. Cohen’s d effect sizes are interpreted in the following ways: small (.20), medium (.50), and large (.80).

Means were compared for participants’ performance on both the CCTT and the TCT (see Table 2). Group sizes varied slightly as one fewer participant in each group took the CCTT due to absence. There was an observed mean differ- ence of 13.29 (95% confidence interval [10.77, 15.80]). As hypothesized, there was a significant difference in the mean scores between the two groups with identified gifted students scoring higher, t

(116.73) = 10.47, p < .001, d = 1.52.

Table 1. Correlation Matrix of Variables.

CCTT TCT CogAT PS Reading PS Math

CCTT — TCT .60 — CogAT .60 .60 — PS Reading .48 .70 .67 — PS Math .49 .54 .70 .67 —

Note. p < .01 for all of the correlation estimates listed.

Table 2. Comparison of Gifted and General Education Students’ Critical Thinking.

Test Group n Mean SD

Standard error of

mean

CCTT Gifted 44 44.91 6.31 0.95 General education 159 31.62 10.59 0.84

TCT Gifted 45 28.84 4.88 0.73 General education 160 21.28 6.16 0.49

132 Gifted Child Quarterly 58(2)

Table 3. Critical Thinking Scores for Male and Female Participants.

Gender

CCTT TCT

n Mean SD n Mean SD

Female 111 34.39 11.13 110 23.66 6.83 Male 92 34.64 11.42 95 22.09 6.45 Totals 203 34.50 11.24 205 22.94 6.68

Table 4. Analysis of Gender Differences Within the Identified Gifted Group.

Test Gender n Mean SD Standard

error of mean

CCTT Male 15 47.07 3.54 0.91 Female 29 43.79 7.15 1.33

TCT Male 16 27.00 4.73 1.18 Female 29 29.86 4.73 .89

The second analysis used the TCT to measure the critical thinking skills of the two groups. There was a mean differ- ence of 7.57 (95% confidence interval [5.60, 9.54]). As hypothesized, there was a significant difference in the mean scores between the two groups with identified gifted students scoring higher, t

(203) = 7.59, p < .001, d = 1.36.

The identified gifted group demonstrated more advanced levels of critical thinking compared with the general educa- tion group. A follow-up question to this initial analysis asked whether participation in the gifted education program was associated with differences in observed critical thinking skills, an association that might reflect an effect of the gifted program on the development of the skills.

Among the identified gifted participants in the study, the amount of time spent in the gifted program ranged from 4 to 50 months with a mean of 23.27 (SD = 14.38) months. Some students were identified as early as kindergarten, other were identified as recently as the previous semester of fourth grade. Pearson product moment correlations were analyzed between the number of months identified gifted students had been in the gifted education program and their scores on both the CCTT and the TCT. For both the CCTT and the TCT the correlation was positive but nonsignificant, r = .21, p = .18 and r = .24, p = .12, respectively. Thus, the evidence did not suggest that the amount of time spent participating in the gifted program in this school district yielded improvements in critical thinking abilities.

An additional follow-up question examined the potential critical thinking skills differences among schools. All the vol- unteer participants in the study came from the same school district but from three elementary campuses. The three cam- puses used the same curriculum standards as prescribed by the state and many of the same instructional resources; how- ever, two of the campuses had unique focus areas as previ- ously mentioned. A random effects model analysis of variance was conducted to examine the differences in the mean scores among the three campuses. In this model the school is treated as a random effect and the analysis tested the null hypothesis that there was no effect for the school that the students attended. The model is as follows: Y

ij = µ + U

i + W

ij . Y is the

critical thinking score of the jth pupil at the ith school; µ is the mean test score of the entire population; U is the random school effect measuring the average score at school i with the average score of the population; W represents the individual- error attributed to the pupil j compared with the average at school i. Effect sizes were reported with the partial eta squared (η2) estimate of the magnitude of the effect.

In the random effects ANOVA for the CCTT measure of critical thinking skills, no effects attributed to school were found for the three group means, F

(2, 200) = .38, p = .69, η2 <

.01. In the random effects ANOVA for the TCT measure of critical thinking skills, no effects attributed to school were found for the three group means, F

(2, 202) = .08, p = .93, η2 <

.01. In both analyses the data suggested the null hypotheses should be not rejected; thus, there were no detected random

effects attributed to the schools at which the participants attended.

Gender Differences in Critical Thinking Skills

The second research question examined potential gender dif- ferences in developed critical thinking skills among elemen- tary students. This question also considered the potential moderating effect gender might have on observed differ- ences between the identified gifted group and the general education group. As in the first research question, each anal- ysis was conducted separately with the CCTT and the TCT.

The literature review suggested that gender effects were unlikely as they were typically not present in previous stud- ies using the CCTT and the TCT; however, several of the previous studies were unpublished beyond being mentioned in the administration manual, and previous studies had not considered potential gender effects as a moderating variable interacting with giftedness. Data on scores by gender are pre- sented in Tables 3 and 4.

To consider potential effects of gender, a two-way ANOVA was conducted using gender as a moderator vari- able (Baron & Kenny, 1986). Using the CCTT as the depen- dent variable, no main effects (F

1,199 = 1.61, p = .21) or

interaction effects (F 1,199

= 0.37, p = .55) for gender were detected. Using the TCT as the dependent variable, no main effects (F

1,201 = 2.42, p = .12) or interaction effects (F

1,201 =

1.49, p = .22) for gender were detected.

Discussion

This study analyzed developed differences in critical think- ing skills among upper elementary students. The results pro- vided evidence that differences in students’ critical thinking

Kettler 133

skill development are present as early as fourth grade. The results have potential implications for researchers who con- tinue to investigate critical thinking skills and instructional interventions with identified gifted and general education populations. Additionally, the results have potential implica- tions for educators in elementary school settings who teach critical thinking skills and implement differentiated learning experiences based on evidence of developed differences in those skills.

Identified gifted students demonstrated advanced critical thinking skills compared with general education students. While this descriptive study supports this finding, further research using explanatory designs is necessary to under- stand why gifted students demonstrate more developed criti- cal thinking skills in fourth grade than their general education peers. Analyses suggested that the amount of time the identi- fied gifted students spent in the gifted program was not related to critical thinking skill development. Students iden- tified for the gifted program later in elementary school dem- onstrated advanced levels of critical thinking similar to those who were identified earlier in elementary school. Thus, the gifted students developed advanced critical thinking skills by the spring semester of fourth grade regardless of the amount of time they spent participating in the weekly program for gifted education.

Developing skills of critical thinking is a pervasive 21st century goal for all students. The principle of differentiation suggests that when an educational goal calls on the teacher to teach a particular set of skills, understanding and respond- ing to developed differences in those skills is important. The literature of gifted education identifies a few skills on which gifted students perform at higher levels than comparable students in the same grade in school. These developed skill differences manifest themselves in advanced levels of per- formance in various aspects of the school curriculum, most notably math and reading. The principle of differentiation should extend to teaching critical thinking skills as part of the elementary curriculum. Ideally, teachers respond to stu- dents’ demonstrating advanced reading or math skills by presenting differentiated learning experiences in reading and math. An implication of this study is that teachers might also want to respond to students’ advanced levels of critical thinking skills with differentiated learning experiences based on a scope and sequence of critical thinking skills and applications.

The evidence that gifted students demonstrate more developed critical thinking skills than their general education peers suggests that strength in critical thinking could be a strong and desirable characteristic of gifted students. This supports the inclusion of developing critical thinking as a gifted education program goal (Parks, 2009). The present study found a slightly positive but nonsignificant relation- ship between critical thinking skills and time spent in the gifted education program. This implies that identified gifted students in the sample are developing advanced critical

thinking skills somewhat independent of the gifted education program. This finding is consistent with recent research reviews on critical thinking instruction (Abrami et al., 2008). Vaguely stated or implicit goals without direct instruction in critical thinking have had small to no effect on critical think- ing skill development (Abrami et al., 2008). Developing critical thinking skills was not an explicit goal of the gifted program in the participating district, and no evidence of direct instruction in critical thinking skill development was present. Schools wishing to make critical thinking skill development a goal of the gifted education program should explicitly identify critical thinking goals and provide differ- entiated instruction toward those goals. Future studies might continue to examine the effects of various instruction pro- grams to develop critical thinking skills among identified gifted students including specific examination of differenti- ated approaches to critical thinking instruction.

This study also reveals some information about the rela- tionship between critical thinking and cognitive ability. The data indicated that approximately 36% (r2 = .36) of the vari- ance in critical thinking skills is related to cognitive ability (see Table 1). Both the CCTT and the TCT have a strong and positive correlation with cognitive ability and academic achievement. This relationship is consistent with the VanTassel-Baska et al. (2009) study that provided evidence that students with higher cognitive abilities scored higher on the TCT. Thus, the evidence of a relationship between cogni- tive ability and critical thinking exists in this study as well as in previous work. More information on the nature of how cognitive ability supports the development of critical think- ing skills would be interesting but beyond the scope of this study.

Limitations and Further Research

The present study is limited in both sample size and demo- graphics. While the total sample included 208 students, the identified gifted group only included 45 students who were largely Asian and White students and not economically dis- advantaged. While that demographic was not the intent of the study, it was the demographic of the schools that were selected to participate. To further validate the findings, the study could be replicated in more diverse populations of ele- mentary students. Replication with middle school students could provide more data on the extent of difference in skill development as well. Are the differences between identified gifted and general education students similar in later grades or have they increased or reduced? The present study used two measures of critical thinking with a curiosity of how the students would perform on two different measures. The esti- mated effects were very similar for both instruments, and it would be anticipated that subsequent studies would be just as valid only using one of the two.

Further research ought to look for ways to further iden- tify an articulated scope and sequence of critical thinking

134 Gifted Child Quarterly 58(2)

skills in general as well as in specific learning domains. As general education embraces critical thinking instruction, gifted education should embrace differentiated critical thinking instruction. The field has made significant prog- ress in articulating what advanced reading instruction includes and what advanced math instruction includes, but there is little to define or guide a program goal dedicated to developing advanced levels of critical thinking. Along similar lines, more development and research are needed to create and validate instruments that could be used to measure critical thinking. First, such assessments would be important for measuring critical thinking skill devel- opment as a program goal, and second, they would be important to help teachers know when and for whom to differentiate.

Data from this study could have implications for subse- quent research involving critical thinking interventions. Since there is a relatively strong relationship between cogni- tive ability, achievement, and critical thinking, cognitive ability and achievement data might serve as covariates or moderating variables in research designs measuring the impact of critical thinking instruction on developing critical thinking skills. In random assignment designs or quasi- experimental designs with pre-established groups, the vari- ance in cognitive ability or achievement is likely to impact pre-intervention levels of critical thinking skills. Furthermore, these differences may interact to reduce or amplify the effects of the treatment.

Additionally, a potential area for further study might include the apparent similarity between tests of critical think- ing and tests of reading. In the present study, reading achieve- ment accounted for more of the variance in critical thinking on the TCT (r2 = .49) than it accounted for on the CCTT (r2 = .23). The TCT shared more variance with reading achieve- ment (r2 = .49) than it shared variance with the CCTT, the other TCT (r2 = .36). These data suggest potential difficulty interpreting measures of critical thinking skills within the context of an authentic curriculum domain such as reading. One might ask, does being a good reader make one a good critical thinker or does being a good critical thinker make one a good reader?

Working, learning, and democratic citizenship in the information rich 21st century appears to be placing increased emphasis on critical thinking skills. The new Common Core State Standards reflect that emphasis on teaching critical thinking to all students, especially in language arts standards. The variance in developed critical thinking skills in this study provides a rationale for differentiation of learning experiences when teaching critical thinking skills to gifted and advanced learners as early as the elementary school years. Additionally the relationship between critical thinking and other variables found in this study could inform subse- quent research designs when considering the effects of inter- ventions on developing critical thinking skills.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, author- ship, and/or publication of this article.

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Author Biography

Todd Kettler is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Psychology in the College of Education at the University of North Texas where he teaches courses in gifted edu- cation, creativity, and child development. He was a contributing author of Using the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts with Gifted and Advanced Learners (Prufrock Press, 2013) and a coauthor of A Teacher’s Guide to Using the Common Core State Standards with Gifted and Advanced Learners in English/Language Arts (Prufrock Press, 2014). He earned his PhD in educational psychology from Baylor University, and he was recently honored with the Advocate of the Year award by the Texas Association for the Gifted/Talented. In addition to his work as a teacher and researcher at the University of North Texas, he spent 17 years as an English teacher and gifted and talented program administrator.