Content uploaded by Jody Piro
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Jody Piro on May 23, 2016
Content may be subject to copyright.
This article was downloaded by: [Dr Jody Piro]
On: 14 August 2015, At: 12:38
Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG
Click for updates
Action in Teacher Education
Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uate20
Discussions in a Socrates Café:
Implications for Critical Thinking in
Teacher Education
Jody Piroa & Gina Andersonb
a Western Connecticut State University
b Texas Woman’s University
Published online: 14 Aug 2015.
To cite this article: Jody Piro & Gina Anderson (2015) Discussions in a Socrates Café: Implications for
Critical Thinking in Teacher Education, Action in Teacher Education, 37:3, 265-283
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01626620.2015.1048009
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the
“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,
our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to
the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions
and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,
and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content
should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources
of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,
proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or
howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising
out of the use of the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-
and-conditions
Action in Teacher Education, 37:265–283, 2015
Copyright © Association of Teacher Educators
ISSN: 0162-6620 print/2158-6098 online
DOI: 10.1080/01626620.2015.1048009
Discussions in a Socrates Café: Implications for Critical
Thinking in Teacher Education
Jody Piro
Western Connecticut State University
Gina Anderson
Texas Woman’s University
The purpose of this study was to benchmark the types of Socratic questioning that were occur-
ring in a Socrates Café, an online discussion forum, in a graduate-level diversity course in teacher
education. The Universal Intellectual Standards were used to analyze Socratic questioning. Results
suggested that the nine Universal Intellectual Standards provided an exceptional deductive frame-
work for understanding the types and frequencies of Socratic questioning occurring in the Socrates
Café. The benefits of using a Socrates Cafe discussion for instruction to scaffold critical thinking are
discussed and implications for teacher education are considered.
INTRODUCTION
Oliver (2001) suggested that critical thinking is a core learning goal for universities, and it is also
central to the values of teacher education in that it promotes civil discourse and democracy in
action for individuals and for the larger community. Valuing the democratic purposes of educa-
tion may be considered a central tenant of teacher education and the ability to critically analyze
positions in discussion is a necessary component of those values. These goals are consistent with
John Dewey’s (1916) educational aim, the cultivation of critical thinkers and socially responsible
citizens.
Teacher education pedagogy can do much to facilitate spaces where students engage with
difficult and contrasting ideas within civil discourse. To prepare students who are literate in
multiculturalism and an inclusive society (Banks, 1996), the opportunity to participate in demo-
cratic learning opportunities must be created. Those educators who hope to create learning
spaces that foster democratic values may do so by exploring difficult ideas through contem-
porary educational dialogue and engaging in deliberative discussions that bring students with
diverse viewpoints together. Instruction that challenges stereotypes and assumptions is indispens-
able in student exchanges, yet without these facilitated instructional spaces, students may remain
Correspondence should be addressed to Jody Piro, Department of Education and Educational Psychology, Western
Connecticut State University, 181 White Street, Danbury, CT 06810. E-mail: piroj@wcsu.edu
Downloaded by [Dr Jody Piro] at 12:38 14 August 2015
266 JODY PIRO AND GINA ANDERSON
insulated in comfort zones that perpetuate stereotypes, shade interpretations of social interac-
tions, and exaggerate differences between groups of people (Naudé, 2011, 2012). Purposeful
and deliberative pedagogies may accomplish communication across these differences. Linda
Darling-Hammond (1996) stated:
America’s capacity to survive as a democracy ...rests on the kind of education that arms people
with an intelligence capable of free and independent thought ...that helps people to build common
ground across diverse experiences and ideas ...that enables all people to find and act on who they
are, what their passions, gifts, and talents may be, what they care about, and how they want to make
a contribution to each other and the world. (p. 5)
Recent research indicates critical thinking to be a significant area of improvement needed
in preparing preservice and in-service teachers for increasingly diverse classrooms (Gorski,
2009). Critical thinking as a common instructional aim in teacher education has broadened to
pedagogies supported by asynchronous online discussion boards (Yang, Newby, & Bill, 2005,
2008). Instructors hold aspirations that their students will apply critical analysis to their own
thinking and that of their peers in discussion forums. E-learning environments show promise for
encouraging critical thinking (Thomas, 2002), and collaborative student learning is supported by
social constructivists who maintain that learning does not occur in isolation (Vygotsky, 2006).
Yet students often use fallacious logic within their arguments and discussion forums can become
repositories of distorted thought.
As a proponent of critical thinking and civil discourse, Christopher Phillips (2001) originally
established Socrates Cafés by creating open-invitation discussion groups in coffee shops and
libraries and by investigating open ended questions with participants, such as “What is justice?
What is good? What is courage?” (Phillips, 2011). The same process can be implemented in
online environments as well. As part of a Socrates Café, open-ended Socratic questioning by
instructors and students may scaffold the critical thinking of complex educational issues (Elder
& Paul, 2008; Golding, 2011; Knezic, Wubbels, Elbers, & Hajer, 2010; Paul & Elder, 2007). The
purpose of this study was to benchmark critical thinking that was occurring in a Socrates Cafe
by way of Socratic questioning in an online discussion forum and to explore the implications for
teacher education.
APPROACHES TO CRITICAL THINKING
For the purposes of this article, we explore the connection between diversity curricula and critical
thinking. We examined the vast literature on critical thinking within the context of the study.
Lai (2011) found several approaches to critical thinking bound in the philosophical, educational,
and psychological disciplines (Lewis & Smith, 1993). All three approaches to critical thinking
are addressed as they intersected with the study, along with measures of critical thinking and
approaches to critical thinking in online or hybrid class formats.
Philosophical Approach
The philosophical approach to critical thinking, a system that emphasizes “reflective and rea-
sonable thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do” (Ennis, 1985, p. 45) and
Downloaded by [Dr Jody Piro] at 12:38 14 August 2015
DISCUSSIONS IN SOCRATES CAFÉ 267
“disciplined, self-directed thinking that exemplifies the perfections of thinking appropriate to
a particular mode or domain of thought” (Paul, 1992, p. 9) is an outcome of this approach. The
philosophical approach to critical thinking may be found in the works of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle,
and, more recently, Richard Paul and Linda Elder (Lai, 2011). The philosophical approach to
critical thinking promotes the notion that broad critical analysis skills may be taught that are inde-
pendent of content and cross subject domains. It is representative of Scriven and Paul’s (1987)
definition of critical thinking as:
intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, syn-
thesizing, and/or evaluating information from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection,
reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on
universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions. (para 2)
Paul and Elder (2007) suggested that humans regularly perceive truths and untruths in ways that
do not reflect reality. Humans do not naturally grasp the truth but see things as they want to see
them. It is this distortion in thinking that led Elder and Paul (2007) to create standards for thought,
“standards we can count on to keep our thinking on track, to help us mirror in our minds what
is happening in reality, to reveal the truth in situations, to enable us to determine how best to
live our lives” (p. 3). When students sharpen their critical thinking skills, they create meaning by
using sound logic rather than fallacious assumptions (Paul & Elder, 2007). Universal Intellectual
Standards (Elder & Paul, 2008) offer a structure for this process.
Universal Intellectual Standards (Elder & Paul, 2008; Paul & Elder, 1996; Paul, 2008) advance
a framework for structuring critical thinking within the philosophical approach to critical think-
ing. Elder and Paul’s (2008) nine Universal Intellectual Standards are clarity, accuracy, precision,
relevance, depth, breadth, logic, significance, and fairness. These standards may be applied for
assessing the quality of reasoning about a problem (Elder & Paul, 2007). In this approach, crit-
ical thinking skills may be applied regardless of the content and are viewed as interdisciplinary
aptitudes.
The philosophical approach is a style of critical thinking that idealizes a person who is inquis-
itive in nature, open minded, flexible, fair minded, has a desire to be well informed, understands
diverse viewpoints, and is willing to suspend judgment to consider other perspectives may be
considered philosophical in approach (Facione, 1990). This style of critical inquiry advances
thinking that meets “standards of adequacy and accuracy” and “thinking that is goal-directed and
purposive ...thinking aimed at forming a judgment where the thinking itself meets standards of
adequacy and accuracy” (Bailin, Case, Coombs, & Daniels, 1999, p. 287).
The philosophical approach to critical thinking focuses on the student’s ability to logically
analyze arguments rather than solely on the teacher’s content expertise (Plato, Hamilton, &
Huntington, 1961). For example, Socrates assisted students by employing questions, dialogue,
and rebuttal for critically analyzing their understandings and misunderstandings of issues. This
form of pedagogy begins with an open-ended question that proceeds to student response. It may
be the instructor or other students who pose additional questions, furthering the analysis and
discussion outcomes. Through the questioning process, students learn to recognize their own
limitations in content and in analysis, thus leading to an expanded critical thinking. The profes-
sor’s role is facilitative in nature. The professor gently probes students’ responses and guides
students through controversial issues (McAvoy & Hess, 2013). The ultimate purpose is enlarged
personal understandings of difficult educational issues through social and situated learning.
Downloaded by [Dr Jody Piro] at 12:38 14 August 2015
268 JODY PIRO AND GINA ANDERSON
Educational Approach
Educational approaches to critical thinking encompass varying lenses, psychological and philo-
sophical. A hierarchical taxonomic approach to information processing skills (Bloom, Engelhart,
Furst, Hill, & Krathwohl, 1956) is widely used in educational circles to encourage the higher
order thinking skills of synthesis and evaluation. Some have faulted Bloom’s Taxonomy for its
vagueness (Ennis, 1985) and others for lack of reliability (Sternberg, 1986). Still, the notion
of applying instructional interventions to scaffold critical thinking undergirds the educational
approach.
Although higher education instructors have pedagogical hopes for critical thinking in their
courses, some researchers have suggested that increased critical analysis in classrooms rarely
occurs without instructional assistance (Abrami et al., 2008; Case, 2005; Facione, 1990; Halpern,
1998; Hew & Cheung, 2003; Landsman & Gorski, 2007; Paul, 1992). In teacher education, criti-
cal thinking may be viewed as an interdisciplinary form of expression for multiple content areas.
Further, it may be asserted that using a framework for scaffolding critical thinking in teacher
education will increase the probability of a desirable outcome (Halpern, 1998). Knezic et al.
(2010) examined empirical research (i.e., Griessler et al., 2004; Parkinson & Ekachai, 2002;
Pihlgren, 2008; Yang et al., 2005) to explore the use of the Socratic method in teacher educa-
tion. Additionally, use of Socratic questioning (Elder & Paul, 2008; Golding, 2011; Paul & Elder,
2007) has been suggested for enhancing critical thinking in classrooms.
Assessing critical thinking in educational contexts poses some challenges. The debate over
whether critical thinking skills may be taught in general or whether they are content specific
(Case, 2005; Ennis, 1989; Lipman, 1988; Silva, 2008) is related to instruments that measure
critical thinking in general versus specific, domain-oriented measures. There are multiple assess-
ments for measuring students’ critical thinking, including: The California Critical Thinking Skills
Test (Facione, 1990), the Cornell Critical Thinking Tests (Ennis, Millman, & Tomoko, 2005), the
Ennis-Weir Critical Thinking Test (Ennis & Weir, 1985), and the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking
Appraisal (Wilson & Wagner, 1981). A criticism of these measurements is that they are general
critical thinking tests and are not situated and contextual or subject specific (Kennedy, Fisher, &
Ennis, 1991). Furthermore, they are not necessarily designed for online environments.
As educational arenas embrace technology for pedagogy, online discussion forums have
been touted as a means for engaging students in critical thinking at various levels of education
(MacKnight, 2000; Perkins & Murphy, 2006; Trufant, 2003; Yang et al., 2008).AttheK-12level,
using the Internet has been suggested for increasing critical thinking (Kurubacak & Gonzales,
2002; Salpeter, 2003), but critical thinking in these contexts has focused mainly on information
validity and literacy, whether online sources have valid information.
Cognitive-Psychological Approach
The ability to problematize issues and understand the perspectives of others is a particularly sig-
nificant outcome for critical analysis. The cognitive-psychological practice for increasing critical
thinking emphasizes “seeing both sides of an issue, being open to new evidence that disconfirms
your ideas, reasoning dispassionately, demanding that claims be backed by evidence, deducing
and inferring conclusions from available facts, solving problems, and so forth” (Willingham,
Downloaded by [Dr Jody Piro] at 12:38 14 August 2015
DISCUSSIONS IN SOCRATES CAFÉ 269
2007, p. 8). The cognitive-psychological approach to critical thinking emphasizes people’s actual
actions and outputs, rather than the merely idealized expressions of critical thinking which typ-
ify the philosophical approach. This perspective for increasing critical analysis may be found
in the frameworks and taxonomies that this approach promotes for assessing the production of
critical thinking. The cognitive psychological approach to critical thinking suggests that behav-
iors or skills that imply critical thought may be determined (Lewis & Smith, 1993) and that the
use of “skills or strategies that increase the probability of a desirable outcome” (Halpern, 1998,
p. 450) may be measured by frameworks intent on increasing critical thinking. The analysis of
the data through a framework is suggestive of a cognitive psychological approach (Lai, 2011).
Reflecting the cognitive-psychological approach to measuring critical thinking, data in this study
were analyzed through a taxonomic structure, the Universal Intellectual Standards.
Philosophical, educational, and cognitive science approaches to critical thinking literature each
influenced the development of this study. Socratic dialogue and questioning has shown promise
in cultivating critical thinking. However, research that measures critical thinking via Socratic
questioning or that provides a framework for their enhancement in contextual and domain-
specific online environments, such as teacher education, warrants further investigation. The lack
of research in the assessment of online, subject-specific measures of critical thinking provided
the impetus for the inquiry into Socrates Café online discussion as an instructional tool in teacher
education.
THE SOCRATES CAFÉ
The Socratic method has found novel form in a new expression, the Socrates Café. A Socrates
Café “reveals people to themselves” and “makes them see what their opinions really amount to.”
In that the true philosopher “helps to inculcate men and women against the seductive half-truths of
sophists,” the Socrates Café “is not so much a search for absolute truth and certainty as it is a quest
for honesty” (Phillips, 2001, p. 53). A Socrates Café promotes reflection, reconceptualization
of taken-for-granted notions, and perspective building. A full discussion of our Socrates Café
follows.
An online discussion forum, the Socrates Café, served as the construct for the expression of
critical thinking in this study. This construct was chosen to facilitate critical analysis of the issues
so that students might increase their awareness of Socratic questioning by examining their own
and other students’ written expression. The instructors’ role in the online Socrates Café was to
develop opportunities to interact and pose Socratic questions in a process-oriented search for
students’ own reflective conceptions of taken-for-granted assumptions about current issues and
to develop their understanding of those issues.
Our Socrates Café parallels a pragmatic philosophical forum in that discussion topics are
related to the participants’ own lives as educators (Pamerleau, 2014).We situate our Socrates
Café in Parker and Hess’s (2001) typology of discussion where the purpose of a Socratic semi-
nar is to reveal the world with greater clarity and nuance to the participants. In that we require
a textual grounding for analysis, our Socrates Café resembles a Socratic seminar, whose pur-
pose is to increase students’ powers of understanding, or what Adler (1998) termed “enlarged
understandings,” through the application of content and reading to open-ended questions. This
requirement focuses on a disposition of scholarliness and use of text through readings to inform
Downloaded by [Dr Jody Piro] at 12:38 14 August 2015
270 JODY PIRO AND GINA ANDERSON
the participant’s dialogue in text. Like Phillips’ (2001) Socrates Café, we explore big questions
in an open-forum style discussion.
We also differentiate our use of Socrates Café from traditional discussion and public Socrates
Cafés. The Socrates Café in this study is not face-to-face or synchronous whereas the forum
of traditional Socratic seminars and Socrates Cafés tend to be face-to-face in organization. Our
Socrates Café diverges from Socratic seminar in that the purpose is more political and agency
oriented than the Socratic seminar, which has no specific outcome rather than increased under-
standing (Parker & Hess, 2001). The Socrates Café results in a clearer understanding of issues
that emerged from the Socratic seminar and then culminates in a course of action. In the case of
the participants, this action may result in integration of the principles of diversity and democracy
into classrooms. Unlike a public philosophy forum where participants come of their own voli-
tion and shape the flow of discussion in entirety (Pamerleau, 2014), in the study Socrates Café,
“attendance” in the online forum is required. Although Phillips’ Socrates Café (2001) and other
public philosophical discussions are not evaluated by the facilitator or participants, and in fact, all
participant responses may be given equal measure, our Socrates Café was evaluated by using the
Intellectual Standards (Elder & Paul, 2008) as a framework for taxonomic analysis of Socratic
questions. The nine Universal Intellectual Standards (Elder & Paul, 2008) known as clarity, accu-
racy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, logic, significance, and fairness were used to scaffold
critical thinking and to develop Socratic questions during the discussion, as well as to assess their
use at the conclusion of the activity. Guidance by and assessment with the Universal Intellectual
Standards differentiates the Socrates Café used in this study from forums of discussion grounded
in public philosophy (Pamerleau, 2014).
METHOD
This inquiry was located within teacher-researcher methodology (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009).
The research context was the online discussion posting from the teacher-researchers’ course and
critical thinking via Socratic questioning in the online discussion was identified as the as the
area of inquiry (Mills, 2003). The purpose of this study was to benchmark the types of Socratic
questioning in an online Socrates Café. The research questions were “When Socratic questioning
occurred in the Socrates Cafe, what were the types and frequencies of questioning that were
employed? What were the implications for scaffolding critical thinking instruction in online and
hybrid environments in teacher education?”
Background and Theoretical Framework of the Context
As professors who coteach a graduate-level teacher education course on diversity, the researchers
regularly engage in critical conversations about pedagogical practices. The conversations support
and challenge the continued practice of fostering students’ critical analysis. We vacillate between
the acts of constructing, affirming, deconstructing, and rejecting our practices in iterative cycles;
a constant situating and repositioning of ourselves and others within the context of the work of
teaching a diversity curriculum. This ongoing process led to the creation of the Socrates Café
in an online discussion forum that asked students to use Socratic questioning to investigate their
own and peers’ lines of analysis with the goal of increasing critical thinking. This study served to
benchmark that attempt.
Downloaded by [Dr Jody Piro] at 12:38 14 August 2015
DISCUSSIONS IN SOCRATES CAFÉ 271
Sociocultural and situated learning theories framed this graduate, diversity course in teacher
education, revealing the reciprocal nature of teaching and learning. Socrates Café discussions
require students to apply critical thinking and Socratic questioning, which are considered higher
ordered skills, within an online, social setting. The application of these skills does not occur in a
vacuum. Rather, sociocultural theory conveys that learning occurs through social interaction with
self, others, and the community within specific contexts (Vygotsky, 2006). As students engage
with the course content and readings, reflect upon their own diversities and experiences, and
discuss the connections and disconnections of these topics and experiences with others within a
taxonomic form of scaffolded instruction, new meanings and understandings may emerge.
Situated learning theorists similarly posit that learning occurs as a function of the activity,
context, and culture (Korthagen, 2010). Sociocultural and situated learning are social, cultural,
and contextual that suggests human development and social interaction are interconnected and
cannot be divided. Socrates Café discussions provide the opportunity for authentic investigations
of diversity topics with student colleagues, rather than in isolation by individuals, which is often
required for traditional types of assignments. In essence, the real-world context of the diversity
topics, the social interactions created in the Socrates Café discussion boards, and the framework
used to help scaffold the critical thinking instruction create opportunities for learning. Socio-
cultural and situated learning structures complemented the context that situated this inquiry—an
online discussion forum titled Socrates Cafe within a diversity course in teacher education.
Context of the Study
The context of this study was in one diversity course within a required graduate teacher educa-
tion program with students in preservice and in-service teacher education programs. The goals of
the course included understanding the conceptual and philosophical issues of diversity in schools;
issues of discrimination, bias and equity surrounding students with diverse needs; issues concern-
ing multicultural, pluralistic, and global education; issues of nontraditional families; the impact
of specific types of diversity on teaching and learning including race, ethnicity, culture, socioeco-
nomic status, language, religion, gender and sexual orientation, cognitive differences, ableness;
multicultural curriculum and culturally responsive teaching; and assessment issues related to
students from diverse backgrounds.
Diversity pedagogies construct visions of possibility for students and society. These
pedagogies focus on the intersection of power and knowledge and oppose social, economic, and
political formations that limit or reduce individual or collective visions of the future (Cushner,
McClelland, & Safford, 2012; Lusted, 1986). Social justice pedagogies were embedded in the
diversity course, constituting a focus on power relations as essential to pedagogy (McLaren,
2007). The application of social justice pedagogies and the facilitation of our students’ critical
analysis of intersections of power, privilege, and the social constructions of knowledge prompted
an instructional decision to scaffold critical thought within the course.
The Socrates Café
The diversity course utilized an online Socrates Café discussion with Socratic questioning as scaf-
folding toward the goal of critical inquiry. Through online resources, use of a Socrates Café and
Downloaded by [Dr Jody Piro] at 12:38 14 August 2015
272 JODY PIRO AND GINA ANDERSON
Socratic questioning were introduced and facilitated in the online forum. An ungraded practice
Socrates Café discussion was modeled initially. A model prompt is demonstrated below:
Read Peggy McIntosh’s White Privilege located in the corresponding thematic unit. Discuss
the connections/disconnections you made to the article and any impressions it made upon you.
Regardless of your race or ethnicity, describe any actions or events you may have encountered or
from which you have benefitted based on McIntosh’s reference to this “invisible package of unearned
assets.
Following the instructor prompt, students engaged in the online discussion and the professors
gave written feedback to the students. After that, the professor-researchers provided initial topics
or questions related to course readings, which then provided a springboard for students to organ-
ically write original and reply postings. These resources were the only interventions provided to
students. The professor-researchers did not offer any subsequent subject for discussion, and all
postings were made by students in the course. Students wrote original and response postings
each week within a 15-week semester to issues within the class based upon readings, inter-
ests, or current events. Sample student postings, which occurred through semester-long diversity
courses, included content related to globalization, prejudice, discrimination, immigration laws,
and religious diversity.
Data Collection and Analysis
This study involved a data-collection system consisting of postings within a required online dis-
cussion forum titled, The Socrates Café, through Blackboard, a learning management system.
The postings from approximately 70 students in two sections of the course were analyzed for
two subsequent semesters. Data were collected throughout the semester and were selected based
upon the following criteria: an original posting or reply that demonstrated at least one Socratic
question; and postings were selected at multiple points in time throughout the semester. Although
the coding structure for the reading of the online forum postings was taxonomic, the analysis of
the qualitative data was grounded in a constructivist approach (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005), as was
the researcher reflexivity of the data collection and analysis (Kleinsasser, 2000). Both professor-
researchers engaged in the collection and analysis of the data. The professor-researchers analyzed
a selection of 48 original postings and 143 student replies for a total of 191 Socratic questions.
None of the data were retouched for grammar or syntactical purposes.
The data were analyzed using a directed content analysis approach (Gall, Gall, & Borg, 2008;
Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) with a structured deductive reading (Kyngas & Vanhanen, 1999) through
an already identified situated framework. Socratic questioning within a Socrates Café forum was
coded for level of Universal Intellectual Standard. We used Elder and Paul’s (2008) nine Universal
Intellectual Standards: clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, logic, significance,
and fairness. The taxonomy was used in much the way it was created, to structure the partici-
pants’ thought processes away from complete egocentric thinking—“It is true because I think it
is true. It is true because I have always believed it. It is true because it is in my selfish interest
to be true” (Paul & Elder, 2007, p. 9) with the purpose being “to become infused in the thinking
of students, forming part of their inner voice, which then guides them to better and better rea-
soning” (Paul & Elder, 2007, p. 10). The use of the taxonomy for the purposes of benchmarking
Socratic questions in teacher education is a novel use of the standards. Table 2 demonstrates the
Downloaded by [Dr Jody Piro] at 12:38 14 August 2015
DISCUSSIONS IN SOCRATES CAFÉ 273
TABLE 1
Research Method
Research questions When Socratic questioning occurred in a Socrates Cafe, what were the types and frequencies
of questioning that were most often employed? What were the implications for scaffolding
critical thinking instruction in online and hybrid environments in teacher education?
Data collection Archival online Socrates Café postings from one year of a diversity class in a teacher
education curriculum.
Data analysis Deductive directed content analysis: Taxonomic using the Intellectual Standards (Elder &
Paul, 2007).
Trustworthiness Peer debriefing; inter-rater agreement.
Limitations Nongeneralizable; narrowing of data through construct.
Universal Intellectual Standard, the type of Socratic question that was coded for a standard, and
the frequency of that type of Socratic question.
The coding decisions were based upon the situatedness and contextual nature of the content
of the postings. The coding decisions reflected a more holistic analysis of the entire flow of stu-
dent contemplation within the discussion board rather than the single, atomistic posting, itself.
Trustworthiness was addressed by using peer debriefing (Marshall & Rossman, 2010) through
ongoing data chats. Inter-rater agreement of coding was enhanced through the data chats between
the researchers. Practice in the use of the taxonomy prior to and throughout the analysis fur-
ther strengthened trustworthiness. Institutional Review Board protocols were observed. Table 1
summarizes the research methods.
RESULTS
When students sharpen their critical thinking skills, they create meaning by using sound logic
rather than fallacious assumptions (Paul & Elder, 2007). Universal Intellectual Standards offered
a structure for this process. The nine standards were used to code Socratic questioning events
within the Socrates Café. In general, varying types of Socratic questioning were found within
the online Socrates Café. The highest frequencies of postings (n=51) were coded at Intellectual
Standard Five-Depth and Intellectual Standard Nine-Fairness (n=35). The Universal Intellectual
Standards with the least amount of postings within the online Socrates Café forum were
Intellectual Standard Seven-Logic (n=4) and Intellectual Standard Six-Breadth (n=9). The
following table, modified from Elder and Paul (2008), lists the Intellectual Standard the types of
questions that would identify the Socratic Question at that level, and the frequency of Socratic
questioning coded for each Intellectual Standard.
Analysis of Socratic Questioning Through the Universal Intellectual Standards
In this section of the results, examples of Socratic questioning types as they were analyzed from
the data are provided. Adhering to the organization shown in Table 2, we demonstrate repre-
sentative postings that were coded at a Universal Intellectual Standard and the types of Socratic
questions that were created within that posting.
Downloaded by [Dr Jody Piro] at 12:38 14 August 2015
274 JODY PIRO AND GINA ANDERSON
TABLE 2
Standards, Types, and Frequencies of Socratic Questions
Level of intellectual standard Types of Socratic questions asked within the posting
Frequency of
Socratic
questioning
Standard One- Clarity Could you elaborate further? 19
Could you give me an example?
Could you illustrate what you mean?
Standard Two- Accuracy How could we check on that? 22
How could we find out if that is true?
How could we verify or test that?
Standard Three- Precision Could you be more specific? 17
Could you give me more details?
Could you be more exact?
Standard Four- Relevance How does that relate to the problem? 26
How does that bear on the question?
How does that help us with the issue?
Standard Five-Depth What factors make this a difficult problem? 50
What are some of the complexities of this question?
What are some of the difficulties we need to deal with?
Standard Six-Breadth Do we need to look at this from another perspective? 8
Do we need to consider another point of view?
Do we need to look at this in other ways?
Standard Seven- Logic Does all this make sense together? 4
Does your first paragraph fit in with your last?
Does what you say follow from the evidence?
Standard Eight-Significance Is this the most important problem to consider? 11
Is this the central idea to focus on?
Which of these facts are most important?
Standard Nine-Fairness Do I have any vested interest in this issue? 34
Am I sympathetically representing the viewpoints of
others?
Total Socratic Questions N=191
Intellectual Standard One-Clarity
Within a discussion on religious diversity a student wrote about deciding how to best
address diverse celebrations, such as Kwanza, Christmas, and Eid. She asked, “How do I, as
the teacher, address varying celebrations in my classroom?” In a follow-up reply, a fellow
student continued her line of inquiry. She suggested that celebrations should be a learning activ-
ity not a worship experience and followed up with another clarity question, “Do you think
that is a clear enough distinction between the two instructional activities?” A third student
asked, “Can you clarify what you mean by teaching celebrations?” These questions in this
context were coded as Intellectual Standard 1-Clarity, in that each sought elaboration from
peers.
Downloaded by [Dr Jody Piro] at 12:38 14 August 2015
DISCUSSIONS IN SOCRATES CAFÉ 275
Intellectual Standard Two-Accuracy
Within a discussion on Alabama’s immigration law, two students questioned the sovereignty
of state law that they felt was unfair to the immigrants in that state. One student asked, “Can
citizens from other states influence a state decision such as this one?” Another student posed
the question, “As teachers, would we be legally bound to provide student names of those we
suspected were residing illegally?” In the context of quality of education and level of crime, a
student questioned other students by stating, “Crime is not something that we inherently value,”
then went on to question, “if this is indeed true, how does education encourage us against crime?
Is it because more education reduces our desire for crime because we earn more money?” Each of
these Socratic questions was coded at the level of Intellectual Standard 2-Accuracy, in that each
asked other students to consider how one can determine the veracity of contentions.
Intellectual Standard Three-Precision
In the context of a discussion of the responsibility that teachers have in the affective and
cognitive domains, a student maintained that the philosophy of progressivism combines the affec-
tive and cognitive domains of education and teaches real-world skills. A fellow student posted a
Socratic question, asking for more precision for this contention, by using Intellectual Standard
3-Precision: “Can you be more specific? Can you give examples of skills that students would
be taught by progressives?” In the context of a discussion of a news release that a high school
student was not allowed to attend her prom because her date was female a student asked another
student for clarification on why she agreed with the school board cancelling the event. The stu-
dent asked, “Can you offer some clarification or more details on why you argue that cancelling
the prom was the wisest decision? Isn’t the way to solve the issue to improve tolerance and
understanding?”
Intellectual Standard Four-Relevance
In a discussion on setting expectations for students, an original posting discussed her parent’s
disciplinary choices for her siblings by questioning the relevance, Intellectual Standard Four, of
expectations on the outcomes of each sister and how the different expectations had impacted their
lives: “If the same expectations had been set for my sister than for me, would the outcome have
been any different for them?” The relevance of globalization on education was discussed, with
the context specifically addressing the outsourcing of goods and services to other countries for
cost savings. The student making the original post asked, “Do you think that the same factor of
globalization influences the institutions of education?”
Intellectual Standard Five-Depth
In an original post addressing the a priori contentions of the textbook (i.e., studying diversity
is good; it will create a better educational system), a student making an original post examined
the inherent difficulty and complexity of the notion of diversity curricula by using Intellectual
Downloaded by [Dr Jody Piro] at 12:38 14 August 2015
276 JODY PIRO AND GINA ANDERSON
Standard Five-Depth. She asked peers to question, “What is a ‘better’ educational system? What
makes a ‘better’ person? What is this ‘good’ end toward which we are striving by studying diver-
sity?” Another student, addressing the inherent complexity of this issue asked, “Where would
we start as classroom teachers?” This last question addressing the depth and complexity of the
issue was coded at Intellectual Standard 5, rather than just looking for clarification, which would
suggest Intellectual Standard One.
Intellectual Standard Six-Breadth
Examples of breadth were found in two different discussions; one regarding a PBS Frontline
show focusing on a teacher’s hands-on lesson on racial discrimination, and one on the benefits of
collaborative teaching and learning. For the former discussion, a student posed the original ques-
tion, “Could schools include other issues of discrimination besides race, such as gender, sexual
orientation, classism, ableism, etc. in similar types of lessons?” For the latter discussion, a student
posed the original question, “Is collaborative work always the best idea or could competition or
individual teaching and learning also yield positive results?” Both Socratic questions were coded
as the Intellectual Standard Six—Breadth, because of their comprehensive nature and attention
to multiple viewpoints.
Intellectual Standard Seven-Logic
The Intellectual Standard of logic was noted in a discussion on recent immigration laws viewed
as punitive based on several students’ previous posts. A student claimed she was playing devil’s
advocate when she posted the reply questions, “Are we all suggesting that it’s okay to turn our
heads on one thing that is illegal and not another? Should all law breaking situations be treated
differently, then? How do we discern what is okay to turn our heads at and what is not?” Her line
of questioning indicated she was concerned with consistency and the elimination of contradiction.
Intellectual Standard Eight-Significance
One discussion investigated the context of assumptions such as the Amish not valuing edu-
cation or diversity. According to a student’s viewpoint, many Amish people assume this stance
because, according to her statements, most Amish never go to school beyond the eighth grade,
marry within their own faith, and often shun the social and economic influences of the dominant
culture. Follow-up Socratic questions that were posted from a second student included, “Does
their society suffer because it does not share these same ideals? Or, would the acceptance of these
ideas cause their society to suffer? Do the actions (or inactions) of a self-contained society affect
those who aren’t a part of it?” A third student responded with additional questions of her own,
I wonder, is a public-schooled American with a PhD held in higher esteem by his/her community
than a respected Amish elder within his community? Perhaps the ‘education’ valued by the Amish is
a different type of education than a structured public institution’s curriculum?
These response questions were coded as Intellectual Standard Eight due to awareness of what
constitutes significance or substantial meaning to the issue at hand; whether the Amish value
education and diversity.
Downloaded by [Dr Jody Piro] at 12:38 14 August 2015
DISCUSSIONS IN SOCRATES CAFÉ 277
Intellectual Standard Nine-Fairness
An ongoing discussion of deconstructing arguments from the textbook led to the questions,
“Is there common knowledge or a majority moral principal we all share as humans? What is
the definition of a ‘better’ way of living that education ensures?” A student replied with the
following additional questions, coded as Intellectual Standard Nine-Fairness, which indicated
she was concerned with the viewpoints of others rather than privileging her own position, “What
is considered common knowledge? Who gets to decide this? What is morality, and who draws
the lines? Are we talking about religious morality or human instinct morality? Is there a ‘better’
education that exists? If there is, what makes it ‘better’?”
DISCUSSION OF RESULTS
In this study, an online Socrates Café structured our inquiry into critical thinking in an online dis-
cussion. The nine Universal Intellectual Standards provided an exceptional deductive framework
for understanding the types and frequencies of Socratic questioning occurring in the Socrates
Café. The standards relating to depth, relevance, and fairness represented the most utilized
standards. The standard relating to logic was used least often in the Socrates Café.
We found it interesting to discover which levels of Universal Intellectual Standards were
applied more often than others. For example, the Intellectual Standard Seven-Logic was coded
less frequently than other standards. The nature of the course content or teacher education disci-
pline may have played a part in in the lower frequency level of this standard. Diversity studies,
especially in the field of teacher education, often focus on equity and social justice issues. Ethical
dilemmas that challenge the definitions of what is legal and what is ethical are common. The
difference between what is equal, equitable, and fair is often debated, as well. More often than
not, issues are problematized rather than simplified, as multiple perspectives are valued over one
ideology. Thus, it may be that certain intellectual standards are more meaningful to this field than
in others (Elder & Paul, 2008). The content of diversity curricula often requires a complexity of
thought that exceeds a binary analysis of the issues. The questions that demonstrated the intellec-
tual standards of depth and fairness reaffirm the contextualized nature of the discipline. Critical
thinking via Socratic questioning may be contextual, content driven, and domain specific (Bailin,
2002; Willingham, 2007).
The Universal Intellectual Standards for creating defined categories of critical thinking based
upon the production of Socratic questioning were found to be beneficial for understanding the
types and frequencies of questioning that were being produced in an online discussion forum
called the Socrates Cafe. Socratic questioning is assessed by the Universal Intellectual Standards
within a Socrates Cafe for the pedagogical goal of enhancing critical thinking holds promise for
practice. The main limitation to the study is that it is contextual and non-generalizable to a wider
population.
Implications
If, as the results suggest from this contextual study, a Socrates Café that employs Socratic
questioning structured through the Universal Intellectual Standards scaffolds critical thinking
Downloaded by [Dr Jody Piro] at 12:38 14 August 2015
278 JODY PIRO AND GINA ANDERSON
instruction, there are theoretical and practical implications for teacher education. Scaffolded crit-
ical thinking instruction in online teacher education courses has far-reaching implications toward
a much broader, pedagogical goal. Socrates Café online discussions in this study invited partici-
pants to engage with issues that surpassed the self and connected with larger societal problems,
which therefore has the potential to enhance civil discourse necessary in a democratic society.
Critical thinking as a pedagogical goal may be perceived within the larger objective that teacher
educators often have for their students, creating a reflective practice (Schön, 1983). Establishing
a community of critical discourse surrounding educational issues by engaging with contrasting
ideas, assisting others to view perspectives outside of their own frameworks of thought, and insist-
ing on using evidence support one’s contentions enhances democracy in action (Dewey, 1916).
Critical thinking by way of Socratic questioning within the Socrates Café supports the combined
accumulation of individual and community growth. Civil discourse as a value in a democracy is
an outcome when individuals and communities use critical thinking to examine difficult issues.
The interactions with others as a result of the Socratic questions and dialogue stimulates a tran-
scendence of the self and further improves the “habits of mind” (Meier, 2002) necessary for the
interpretive element of thinking. Discussions in Socrates Café are contextually situated and spring
from the participants’ own social, cultural, ethnic, and gendered experiences. This approach is
consistent with the sociocultural and situated theoretical foundations of the Socrates Café discus-
sion and the research, itself, and teacher educators interested in grounding their practice in these
foundational values may find benefit in Socrates Café discussions.
If critical thinking skills may be taught then there are considerations for practice as well
(Halpern, 1998; Kennedy et al., 1991). There are several practical instructional interventions
that teacher educators may consider to promote the use of Socratic questioning for critical think-
ing within online or hybrid courses. A first level of intervention might include an explicit lesson
(Ennis, 1989) using the framework of Universal Intellectual Standards. Supporting visual and
reading materials within the online electronic forum may be provided and an open-ended, domain
specific question(s) may guide the Socrates Café. The questions should be grounded in the con-
tent and reflect actual problems in educational settings (Halpern, 1998). This intervention stems
from the cognitive science position that students require “deliberate practice” (Van Gelder, 2005)
in the actual experience of critical thinking and questioning. As some online formats require
one or more traditional instructional meetings, a second-level intervention to support Socratic
questioning might include a face-to-face Socrates Café lesson that would be fashioned upon the
online forum. In the lesson, students would address content related to the class in a collaborative
grouping environment and analyze the types of Universal Intellectual Standards they discov-
ered within their dialogue (Anderson & Piro, 2013). This intervention addresses a collaborative
approach to teaching critical thinking (Abrami et al., 2008; Heyman, 2008; Paul, 1992) and a
domain-specific approach to critical thinking (Bailin et al., 1999; Lipman, 1988; Silva, 2008).
The course content serves as the lens for the collaborative and critical thinking process. Using
a general approach to critical thinking instruction through a framework, such as the Universal
Intellectual Standards, and Socratic questioning within a course-specific curriculum, supports the
mixed method of teaching critical thinking that suggests that instruction integrating critical think-
ing into domain specific academic content and teaching general critical thinking skills (Lai, 2011,
p. 32) has the largest effect-size for increasing critical thinking through instruction (Abrami et al.,
2008).
Downloaded by [Dr Jody Piro] at 12:38 14 August 2015
DISCUSSIONS IN SOCRATES CAFÉ 279
An instructional approach for increasing critical thinking through collaborative discussion
is established in Piagetian and Vygotskian traditions (Lai, 2011). Piaget’s notion of cognitive
conflict in learning and Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development suggest that working with
more capable peers or adults has instructional value (Dillenbourg, Baker, Blaye, & O’Malley,
1995). Collaboration works best when it is scaffolded (Nelson, 1994), such as in a Socrates
Café that uses the Universal Intellectual Standards for analyzing Socratic questions. Further, it is
entrenched in the notion of a community of critical learners. Dewey (1916) explained the concept
of community:
There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication. Men
live in a community in virtue of the things which they have in common; a communication in which
they come to possess things in common. What they must have in common in order to form community
or society are aims, beliefs, aspirations, knowledge—a common understanding—like mindedness as
the sociologists say. (Dewey, 1916,p.4).
A collaborative intervention would require students to analyze themselves with the assistance of
peers within their group, leading to the following questions: What types of Socratic questioning
am I producing? What types do I tend to omit in my inquiry?
In a third level of instructional support, teacher educators might provide structured prompts
and replies within the online Socrates Café developed from the content of the course and paral-
leling the assigned readings. Instructors might model (Hemming, 2000) varying types of Socratic
questioning within the forum, and practice coding those Socratic questions within the Universal
Intellectual Standards. Each of these instructional interventions provides fodder for inquiry into
the practice of promoting critical thinking in online coursework.
CONCLUSION
Embedded in a Socrates Café is a search for honesty (Phillips, 2001); and when it is scaffolded
with the Universal Intellectual Standards, it is a quest that may sharpen participants’ critical
thinking skills by using sound logic rather than fallacious assumptions (Paul & Elder, 1996). This
contextual study revealed that benchmarking Socratic questioning types was beneficial for scaf-
folding critical thinking instruction. The use of the Universal Intellectual Standards for creating
defined categories of critical thinking based upon the production of Socratic questioning was an
effective tool for identifying the types and frequencies of questioning that were being produced.
The types and frequencies of Socratic questioning applied in the Socrates Café online discus-
sions were contextual and situational. Diversity issues are complex, and multiple perspectives are
often valued over one ideology. The results of this study support the idea that certain intellectual
standards are more meaningful in certain fields when compared to others (Elder & Paul, 2008).
The Socratic questions that emerged in the online discussions that demonstrated the intellectual
standards of depth and fairness reaffirmed the contextualized nature of the teacher education
discipline. The use of the Universal Intellectual Standards to benchmark, typify, and count the
Socratic questioning occurring within a Socrates Café for the pedagogical goal of enhancing
critical thinking instruction holds promise for practice, especially in online settings where little
precedence has been established.
Downloaded by [Dr Jody Piro] at 12:38 14 August 2015
280 JODY PIRO AND GINA ANDERSON
Discussion—and a Socrates Café discussion in particular—is part of a larger curricular goal
(Parker & Hess, 2001) that intersects the two aspirations of diversity and democracy in an ongoing
inquiry. The Socrates Café makes explicit pedagogical intentions to assist students “to set along-
side one perception of the matter under discussion the several perceptions of other participants,
challenging our own view of things with those of others” (Bridges, 1979, p. 50), creating a new
dialectic in the process. The Socrates Café online discussions in this study revealed a symbiotic
relationship between the value of critical analysis and values of diversity for teacher educators in
that its format has the potential to facilitate civil discourse and democratic engagement for both
individuals and for the larger community.
REFERENCES
Abrami, P. C., Bernard, R., Borokhovski, E., Wade, A., Surkes, M., Tamim, R., & Zhang, D. (2008). Instructional inter-
ventions affecting critical thinking skills and dispositions: A stage 1 meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research,
78(4), 1102–1134. doi:10.3102/0034654308326084
Adler, M. J. (1998). Paideia proposal. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
Anderson, G., & Piro, J. (2013). The Socrates café is now open: Scaffolding critical analysis within a cooperative activity.
In M. T. Cowart & G. Anderson (Eds.), Teaching and leading in diverse schools (pp. 43–58). Arlington, VA: Canh
Nam Publishers, Inc.
Bailin, S. (2002). Critical thinking and science education. Science & Education,11(4), 361–375. doi:10.1023/A:10160
42608621
Bailin, S., Case, R., Coombs, J., & Daniels, L. (1999). Conceptualizing critical thinking. Journal of Curriculum Studies,
31(3), 285–302. doi:10.1080/002202799183133
Banks, J. A. (Ed.). (1996) Multicultural education, transformative knowledge, and action. New York, NY: Teachers
College Press.
Bloom, B. S., Engelhart, M. D., Furst, E. J., Hill, W. H., & Krathwohl, D. R. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives:
Handbook I: Cognitive domain. New York, NY: David McKay.
Bridges, D. (1979). Education, democracy and discussion. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.
Case, R. (2005). Moving critical thinking to the main stage. Education Canada,45(2), 45–49.
Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (2009). Inquiry as stance: Practitioner research for the next generation. Practitioner’s
inquiry. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Cohen, L., & Manion, L. (1989). Research methods in education (3rd ed.). London, England: Routledge.
Cushner, K., McClelland, A., & Safford, P. (2012). Human diversity in education: An intercultural approach (7th ed.).
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Darling-Hammond, L. (1996). The right to learn and the advancement of teaching: Research, policy, and practice for
democratic education. Educational Researcher,25(6), 5–17. doi:10.3102/0013189X025006005
Denzin, N., & Lincoln, Y. (2005). The Sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. New York, NY: Macmillan.
Dillenbourg, P., Baker, M., Blaye, A., & O’Malley, C. (1995). The evolution of research on collaborative learning. In E.
Spada & P. Reiman (Eds.), Learning in humans and machine: Towards an interdisciplinary science (pp. 189–211).
Oxford, England: Elsevier.
Elder, L., & Paul, R. (2007). Universal intellectual standards. The critical thinking community. Retrieved from http://
www.criticalthinking.org/articles/universalintellectual-standards.cfm
Elder, L., & Paul, R. (2008). Intellectual standards: The words that name them and the criteria that define them. Dillon
Beach, CA: Foundation for Critical Thinking.
Ennis, R. (1985). A logical basis for measuring critical thinking skills. Educational Leadership,43(2), 44–48.
Ennis, R., Millman, J., & Tomoko, N. (2005). Cornell critical thinking tests: Administration manual (5th ed.). Seaside,
CA: Critical Thinking Co.
Ennis, R. H. (1989). Critical thinking and subject specificity: Clarification and needed research. Educational Researcher,
18(3), 4–10.
Downloaded by [Dr Jody Piro] at 12:38 14 August 2015
DISCUSSIONS IN SOCRATES CAFÉ 281
Ennis, R. H., & Weir, E. E. (1985). The Ennis-Weir Critical Thinking Essay Test: An instrument for teaching and testing.
Pacific Grove, CA: Critical Thinking Press and Software.
Facione, P. A. (1990). Critical thinking: A statement of expert consensus for purposes of educational assessment and
instruction. Millbrae, CA: California Academic Press.
Gall, M., Gall, J., & Borg, W. (2008). Educational research: An introduction (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Golding, C. (2011). Educating for critical thinking: Thought-encouraging questions in a community of inquiry. Higher
Education Research & Development,30(3), 357–370. doi:10.1080/07294360.2010.499144
Gorski, P. (2009). What we’re teaching teachers: An analysis of multicultural teacher education coursework syllabi.
Teaching and Teacher Education,25, 309–318. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2008.07.008
Griessler, E., Littig, B., Hüsing, B., Zimmer, R., Santos, D., & Muñoz, E. (2004). Increasing public involvement in debates
on ethical questions of xenotransplantation. Vienna, Austria: Institute for Advanced Studies. Retrieved from http://
www.ihs.ac.at/departments/soc/xeno-pta/xeno_germany.pdf
Halpern, D. (1998). Teaching critical thinking for transfer across domains: Disposition, skills, structure training, and
metacognitive monitoring. American Psychologist,53(4), 449–455. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.53.4.449
Hemming, H. (2000). Encouraging critical thinking: But ...what does that mean? Journal of Education,35(2), 173–186.
Hew, K., & Cheung, W. (2003). Evaluating the participation and quality of thinking of pre-service teachers in an
asynchronous online discussion environment: Part II. International Journal of Instructional Media,30(4), 247–262.
Heyman, G. D. (2008). Children’s critical thinking when learning from others. Current Directions in Psychological
Science,17(5), 344–347. doi:10.1111/cdir.2008.17.issue-5
Hsieh, H., & Shannon, S. (2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qualitative Health Research,15,
1277–1288. doi:10.1177/1049732305276687
Kennedy, M., Fisher, M., & Ennis, R. (1991). Critical thinking: Literature review and needed research. In L. Idol & B.
Fly Jones (Eds.), Educational values and cognitive instruction: Implications for reform (pp.11–40). Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
Kleinsasser, A. (2000). Researchers, reflexivity, and good data: Writing to unlearn. Theory into Practice,39(3), 155–162.
doi:10.1207/s15430421tip3903_6
Knezic, D., Wubbels, T., Elbers, E., & Hajer, M. (2010). The Socratic dialogue and teacher education. Teaching and
Teacher Education,26(4), 1104–1111. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2009.11.006
Korthagen, F. (2010). Situated learning theory and the pedagogy of teacher education: Towards an integrative
view of teacher behavior and teacher learning. Teaching and Teacher Education,26(1), 98–106. doi:10.1016/
j.tate.2009.05.001
Kurubacak, G., & Gonzales, C. (2002). The use of the internet as an enhanced critical thinking tool. Nashville, TN:
Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education 2002 International Conference Proceedings.
Kyngas, H., & Vanhanen, L. (1999). Content analysis (Finnish). Hoitotiede,11, 3–12.
Lai, E. (2011). Critical thinking: A literature review. Pearson’s Research Reports,6,1–49.
Landsman, J., & Gorski, P. (2007). Countering standardization. Educational Leadership,64(8), 40–41.
Lewis, A., & Smith, D. (1993). Defining higher order thinking. Theory into Practice,32(3), 131–137. doi:10.1080/
00405849309543588
Lipman, M. (1988). Critical thinking–What can it be? Educational Leadership,46(1), 38–43.
Lusted, D. (1986). Why pedagogy? Screen,27(5), 2–16. doi:10.1093/screen/27.5.2
MacKnight, C. B. (2000). Teaching critical thinking through online discussions. Educause Quarterly,4, 38–41.
Marshall, C., & Rossman, G. B. (2010). Designing qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
McAvoy, P., & Hess, D. (2013). Classroom deliberation in an era of political polarization. Curriculum Inquiry,43(1),
14–47. doi:10.1111/curi.2013.43.issue-1
McLaren, P. (2007). Life in schools. An introduction to critical pedagogy in the foundations of education (5th ed.). New
York, NY: Longman.
Meier, D. (2002). The power of their ideas: Lessons for America from a small school in Harlem. Boston, MA: Beacon
Press.
Mills, G. (2003). Guide for the teacher researcher. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Naudé, L. (2011). Your culture or mine? Changes in cultural sensitivity in a service-learning class. Journal of Psychology
in Africa,21(3), 487–491.
Naudé, L. (2012). At the cultural crossroads: Intergroup psychology among students in a service learning programme.
Current Psychology,31(3), 221–245. doi:10.1007/s12144-012-9142-5
Downloaded by [Dr Jody Piro] at 12:38 14 August 2015
282 JODY PIRO AND GINA ANDERSON
Nelson, C. E. (1994). Critical thinking and collaborative learning. New Directions for Teaching and Learning,1994(59),
45–58. doi:10.1002/(ISSN)1536-0768
Oliver, R. (2001). Exploring the development of critical thinking skills through a web-supported problem-based learning
environment. In J. Stephenson (Ed.), Teaching and learning online: Pedagogies for new technologies (pp. 98–111).
London, England: Kogan Page.
Pamerleau, W. (2014). Investigating the nature and value of public philosophy from the pragmatists’ perspective. Essays
in Philosophy,15(1), 156–173. doi:10.7710/1526-0569
Parker, W. C., & Hess, D. (2001). Teaching with and for discussion. Teaching and Teacher Education,17(3), 273–289.
doi:10.1016/S0742-051X(00)00057-3
Parkinson, M., & Ekachai, D. (2002). The Socratic method in the introductory PR course: An alternative pedagogy. Public
Relations Review,28, 167–174. doi:10.1016/S0363-8111(02)00123-6
Paul, R. (1992). Critical thinking: What, why, and how? New Directions for Community Colleges,1992(77), 3–24.
doi:10.1002/(ISSN)1536-0733
Paul, R. (2008). Thinker’s guide to intellectual standards. Tomales, CA: Foundation Critical Thinking.
Paul, R., & Elder, L. (1996). Universal intellectual standards. Dillon, CA: Foundation for Critical Thinking.
Paul, R., & Elder, L. (2007). Critical thinking: The art of Socratic questioning. Journal of Developmental Education,
31(1), 34–37.
Perkins, C., & Murphy, E. (2006). Identifying and measuring individual engagement in critical thinking in online
discussions: An exploratory case study. Educational Technology & Society,9(1), 298–307.
Phillips, C. (2001). Socrates café: A fresh taste of philosophy. New York, NY: Norton.
Phillips, C. (2011). Six questions of Socrates: A modern-day journey of discovery through world philosophy.NewYork,
NY: WW Norton & Company.
Pihlgren, A. (2008). Socrates in the classroom: Rationales and effects of philosophizing with children (Doctoral
Dissertation). Stockholm University. Retrieved from http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-7392
Plato, Hamilton, E., & Huntington, C. (1961). The collected dialogues of Plato, including the letters (Bollingen series,
71). New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
Salpeter, J. (2003). Web literacy and critical thinking. A teacher’s tool kit. Technology and Learning,23(8), 22–34.
Schön, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Scriven, M., & Paul, R. (1987). Critical thinking as defined by the national council for excellence in critical thinking.
Retrieved from www.criticalthinking.org/aboutct/define_critical_thinking.cfm
Silva, E. (2008). Measuring skills for the 21st century. Education Sector Reports, 11. Retrieved from http://dc2.bernan.
com/KCDLDocs/KCDL29/CI%20K∼%20389.pdf
Sternberg, R. J. (1986). Critical thinking: Its nature, measurement, and improvement. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.
gov/fulltext/ED272882.pdf
Thomas, J. (2002). Smart e-classrooms, traditional classrooms and critical thinking. In G. Richards (Ed.), Proceedings
of world conference on e-learning in corporate, government, healthcare, and higher education (pp. 2288–2291).
Chesapeake, VA: AACE.
Trufant, L. (2003). Move over Socrates: Online discussion is here. Haddam, CT: Northeast Regional Computing Program.
Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/NCP0330.pdf
Van Gelder, T. (2005). Teaching critical thinking: Some lessons from cognitive science. College Teaching,53(1), 41–48.
doi:10.3200/CTCH.53.1.41-48
Vygotsky, L. (2006). Mind in society: Development of higher psychological processes (New ed.). Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Willingham, D. (2007). Critical thinking: Why is it so hard to teach? American Educator,31(2), 8–19.
Wilson, D. G., & Wagner, E. E. (1981). The Watson-Glaser critical thinking appraisal as a predictor of performance in a
critical thinking course. Educational and Psychological Measurement,41(4), 1319–1322.
Yang, Y., Newby, T., & Bill, R. (2005). Using Socratic questioning to promote critical thinking skills through asyn-
chronous discussion forums in distance learning environments. American Journal of Distance Education,19(3),
163–181. doi:10.1207/s15389286ajde1903_4
Yang, Y., Newby, T., & Bill, R. (2008). Facilitating interactions through structured web-based bulletin boards: A quasi-
experimental study on promoting learners’ critical thinking skills. Computers & Education,50(4), 1572–1585.
doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2007.04.006
Downloaded by [Dr Jody Piro] at 12:38 14 August 2015
DISCUSSIONS IN SOCRATES CAFÉ 283
Jody Piro is an Associate Professor in the Doctor of Education in Instructional Leadership
program at Western Connecticut State University. She has been involved in education for over
twenty-five years in K-12 as a social studies teacher and as a dean and principal, and in higher
education as a professor and dissertation director. Dr. Piro’s current scholarly interests focus on
accountability outcomes for educators and problematizing discussion for critical analysis and
civil discourse.
Gina Anderson is an Associate Professor of Teacher Education and the Program Coordinator of
the Curriculum & Instruction program at Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas. Prior
to her work at TWU, Dr. Anderson taught several years of elementary and middle school
in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and served as a student teacher supervisor and teaching and
research assistant at Oklahoma State University. Culturally-responsive teaching strategies and
the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning guide her research and scholarly interests.
Downloaded by [Dr Jody Piro] at 12:38 14 August 2015
