94 Frameworks for Thinking

Presseisen’s models of essential, complex and metacognitive thinking skills

Description and intended use

Presseisen presents a taxonomy of essential thinking skills, a model of complex thinking skills and a model of metacognitive thinking skills in a chapter in Costa’s (2001) book Developing Minds. This is a revised version of similar material which she originally presented 10 years earlier (in Costa, 1991). She seeks to provide a common understanding of ‘thinking’ which will help teachers in their planning, teaching and assessment. The overriding aim is to improve students’ cognitive performance. Presseisen (2001, p. 52) believes that a shared understanding of thinking will also ‘help educators examine the kinds of material available to them to enhance thinking in the classroom’.

According to Presseisen (2001), there are at least five categories of thinking skill that have to be included in a taxonomy of essential thinking skills: qualifying, classifying, finding relationships, transforming and drawing conclusions. These are ordered from simple to more complex, as shown in table 3.6. The main use of such a taxonomy is in ‘planning a curricular sequence’ (2001, p. 49).

Essential skills are not enough, since they need to be orchestrated and used in different combinations for different purposes. Presseisen (2001, p. 58) stresses that it is important that ‘educators develop and use a common design to link essential skills to higher-order, more complex operations’. She uses Cohen’s (1971) macro-process strategies of problem-solving, decision-making, critical thinking and creative thinking to create a 4 3 matrix with task, essential skills and yields. This produces her model of complex thinking skills in which the elements of the taxonomy can be applied (see table 3.7).

In her model of metacognitive thinking skills, Presseisen acknowledges the importance of self-regulation. This has two main dimensions: monitoring task performance and selecting appropriate strategies (see table 3.8).

Presseisen ends her chapter with an overview called a ‘Global view of thinking’. In addition to cognition and metacognition, this introduces two new components:

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Table 3.6. Presseisen’s taxonomy of essential thinking skills

Qualifying	•	recognising units of basic identity
(finding unique characteristics)	•	defining
	•	gathering facts
	•	recognising tasks/problems
Classifying	•	recognising similarities and
(determining common qualities)		differences
	•	grouping and sorting
	• comparing
	•	making either/or distinctions
Finding relationships	•	relating parts and wholes
(detecting regular operations)	•	seeing patterns
	•	analysing
	•	synthesising
	•	recognising sequences and order
	•	making deductions
Transforming	•	making analogies
(relating known to unknown)	•	creating metaphors
	•	making initial inductions
Drawing conclusions	•	identifying cause and effect
(assessing)	•	making distinctions

•inferring

•evaluating predictions

•Epistemic cognition: the skills associated with understanding the limits of knowing, as in particular subject matter and the nature of the problems that thinkers can address.

•Conation: the striving to think clearly, including personal disposition, and to develop and consistently use rational attitudes and practices.

No classificatory system is proposed for epistemic cognition and

conation.

Evaluation

Presseisen’s writing is influenced by her commitment (1988) to reduce student drop-out and improve the effectiveness of teaching in schools.

Table 3.7. Presseisen’s model of complex thinking skills

	Problem-solving	Decision-making	Critical thinking	Creative thinking
Task	Resolve a known	Choose the best	Understand	Create novel or
	difficulty	alternative	particular	aesthetic ideas
			meanings	or products
Essential skills	Transforming;	Classifying;	Relationships;	Qualifying; relationships;
emphasised	conclusions	relationships	transforming;	transforming
			conclusions
Yields	Solution	Assessment	Sound reasons	New meanings
	Generalisation		Proof	Pleasing products
	(potentially)		Theory

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Table 3.8. Presseisen’s model of metacognitive thinking skills

Monitoring task performance

(leads to more accurate performance of task)

Selecting and understanding appropriate strategy

(leads to more powerful ability to complete thinking processes)

•keeping place, sequence

•detecting and correcting errors

•pacing of work

•focusing attention on what is needed

•relating what is known to material to be learned

•testing the correctness of a strategy

Here she achieves her aim to provide accessible models of thinking which are potentially useful to teachers. Her model of complex thinking skills is clearly expressed and sets ‘essential’ thinking skills in purposeful contexts. By dealing with metacognition in a separate model, she avoids the potential problem of an over-complex single structure, and conveys the key ideas very directly.

What Presseisen calls a taxonomy of essential thinking skills does seem to be ordered by a principle of complexity, albeit with fuzzy boundaries between categories. The categories resemble the product dimension of Guilford’s (1967) Structure of Intellect model, but Presseisen combines Guilford’s ‘relations’ and ‘systems’. Her models of complex and metacognitive thinking skills have types of task and product as organising principles and are consistent with a wide range of literature and with established areas of psychological research. Presseisen takes an eclectic approach to theory, seeing value in a wide range of established and contemporary psychological and philosophical approaches.

These models are principally concerned with the cognitive domain and Presseisen has little to say about the emotional and social aspects of thinking, which many argue to be equally important in developing a shared understanding of the processes of cognitive construction. Presseisen does include a consideration of the role of dispositions in learning, but this receives little elaboration and it is not entirely clear how either dispositions or epistemic components relate to each other or to the three models.

98 Frameworks for Thinking

Presseisen provides teachers and learners with a meaningful vocabulary with which to discuss the processes and products of thinking and learning from a rationalist perspective. Her 2003 chapter is an excellent theoretical introduction to the subject, but teachers wishing to apply her models will look for more concrete examples and case studies.

Summary: Presseisen

			Relevance for
			teachers
Purpose and structure		Some key features	and learning
Main purpose(s):		Terminology:	Intended audience:
•	to outline a ‘global	• clear definitions	• teachers and
	view of thinking’	and explanations	students
•	to improve thinking	of terms
	in the classroom

•to have teachers plan instructional sequences

Domains addressed:		Presentation:		Contexts:
•	cognitive	•	accessible to a	•	education
•	conation (partial)		wide readership,
			including learners
Broad categories covered:		Theory base:		Pedagogical stance:
•	self-regulation	•	Guilford	•	thinking skills
•	reflective thinking	•	Bloom		should be
•	productive thinking	•	an eclectic		developed in
•	building understanding		theoretical		meaningful contexts
•	information-gathering		approach	•	pupils should be
					given more complex
					and challenging
					tasks
Classification by:		Values:		Practical illustrations
•	structural complexity of	•	rationalist	for teachers:
	essential thinking skills	•	strong belief that	•	few examples given
•	type of task and product		teaching thinking
			will improve the
			quality of education