Guide students through four stages of cognitive development

Our roles as lecturers require us to develop students’ critical thinking, a process that is not automatic. In fact, it often occurs over a semester and, in some cases, throughout their entire degree programme. We can draw from educational psychologist William Perry’s work, which asserts that students may experience up to four main stages of cognitive development on their journey to becoming more sophisticated thinkers. In this resource, I explain what these are and how to help students move between the stages. 

Dualistic thinking

Students enter university classrooms with foundational knowledge across various subject areas. In their earlier educational experiences, they are often encouraged to accept information presented in textbooks as facts. Perry describes this approach as dualistic thinking – the first stage of cognitive development. In this stage, thinking is simplistic, and learners use a binary approach to assess information. They categorise the information they are exposed to into broad groups: right or wrong, true or false, just or unjust. Lecturers can support this initial level of thinking by:

1. Encouraging students to take an inventory of their thinking on a topic at the beginning of the lecture or course.
2. Asking students to keep a record of their perspectives on the subject matter under review. The task of writing down thoughts often compels students to think more deeply about their own thinking.

Multiplicity thinking

While dualistic thinking establishes a baseline for how information is processed in students’ minds, it overlooks important nuances of the subject matter. Therefore, lecturers need to assist students in progressing to the second stage of thinking, known as multiplicity thinking. In this stage, students understand that there may be no clear right or wrong answers to questions, and even when learning information regarded as widely accepted facts, there can be differing opinions on them. We can foster multiplicity thinking by:

1. Encouraging students to question their own thinking on a topic through discussion prompts that promote diverging opinions. The focus of these discussions should be on providing logical reasoning for a stance rather than regurgitating positions presented in textbooks.
2. Acting as a discussion moderator and withholding opinions as the lecturer/expert. This enables learners to carefully examine what they know based on their experience and learning about the topic, rather than having their thinking influenced by the lecturer.
3. Encouraging students to participate in activities that challenge the validity of theories by seeking exceptions to ideas presented as fact.

Relativism thinking

In the third stage of cognitive development, information is not accepted as fact solely because a knowledgeable authority provides it. A key aspect of relativist thinking is understanding who established and promoted the ideas and their context. Lecturers can support this stage of thinking by encouraging research as a basis for forming an opinion. 

1. Encourage students to assess the source’s experience and research to determine whether they have sufficient authority. We can do this by asking students to evaluate experts cited in textbooks by consulting their original work in peer-reviewed journals and other scholarly publications.
2. Present supporting and contrasting viewpoints and research from various authorities in the field, enabling students to develop their own understanding based on this evidence. 

This is sometimes the most difficult stage for lecturers, as it encourages students to challenge them as the authority on the subject matter.

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Commitment thinking

The final stage of thinking is commitment, where learners’ thinking enables them to use personal experience and other acquired knowledge to decide what they believe. An important part of this process is to settle on a belief. Continued reflection is also vital in developing a sophisticated thought process. While a student’s commitment to thinking may not always align with conventional facts, this process cultivates critical thinkers who are willing to question convention logically. Unconventional thinking is often a starting point for scholarly research, and critical thinking is a key skill that boosts academic outcomes and employability.

Perry’s model proposes that students can (and perhaps should) be guided from accepting broad generalisations to drawing conclusions through a more sophisticated and critical thinking process. While students may begin a course with rigid dualistic thinking, effective lecturers steer students through a refining process towards deeper, more reasoned, commitment-based thinking.

Adeola A. Matthew is the student recruitment and retention manager at the University of the West Indies Five Islands Campus.

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