Improving Higher Order Thinking Skills by Teaching “With” the Computer

AbstractThis study investigated the use of the computer as a tool for improving students' correlational reasoning skills. A total of 42 teachers and 483 geography students in Grades 9 and 10 participated in the research. Four student treatment groups outperformed a control group on four dimensions of correlational reasoning. Students in task-specific computer, cooperative group learning, and whole-class treatments performed equally well and significantly better than those in a general-purpose computer treatment. Increased sophistication of software may have distracted students in the general-purpose computer treatment. Within the two computer groups, student attitudes toward computing and geography were found to predict performance on the thinking-skills test. Implications for research about tool-mode, computer-based instruction are discussed.