Developing Intellectual Sophistication and Scientific Thinking—The Schemes of William G. Perry and Deanna Kuhn

Abstract

William G. Perry proposed a theory of the stages of intellectual and ethical devel- opment that he identified from work with undergraduate college students. At the time when his work was proposed, it seemed to be most relevant to young adults who would be expected to have successfully passed through the stages of cogni- tive development that had been identified by Jean Piaget in his work with children and adolescents. However, it is now clear that the stages of development discussed by Perry are very relevant to the school science curriculum, and so to the types of thinking often now expected from school students when studying science. Deanna Kuhn has worked with children exploring the development of scientific thinking and developed amodel ofthe development ofcritical thinking that has strong links to the scheme proposed by Perry. One interpretation suggested by comparing their work is that school science now routinely challenges pupils to demonstrate a level of epistemological sophistication that was often still being formed in many undergraduate students in the mid-twentieth century.