Didactic Transposition for Inferential and Analogical Thinking, Reasoning and Transfer of School Knowledge for Societal Context-of-Use

Abstract

This study demonstrates the effectiveness of Klopfer’s taxonomy and a candidate hypothetico-deductive thinking and reasoning theory of didactic transposition, in teaching critical thinking skills, analogies and transferability of knowledge for problem-solving now and for the future in the experimental sciences. It was conducted in four socio-cultural zones of Cameroon involving 307 high school students (166 English-speaking and 141 French-speaking). Four lessons on the human skeleton were used. A researcher-made Likert questionnaire to investigate the level of appropriation of the tool was administered in the pre- and post-intervention treatments. Data was analysed in SPSS v.20.0 and pair-wise t-test analysis revealed a significant difference in mean scores between pre- and post-interventions with a moderate effect size. A two-way factorial ANOVA to determine the main and combined interaction effects of distal variables, further confirmed the results. Within limits, the results led to the conclusion that Klopfer’s taxonomy and the candidate theory enhanced the development of critical thinking skills, analogical reasoning for transferability and problem-solving in novel contexts among high school students. From the results, we recommended the adoption of the candidate theory as framework guide for classroom practice in teaching the experimental sciences.