Therefore, their list most likely represents subjects’ conceptual groupings
rather than performance factors.
It is not necessarily surprising that conceptually distinct dispositions
would merge into a single factor. The same is true of much of human knowl-
edge and skill, simply because most people learn the same things at about the
same time. Whether or not such lists ultimately prove to reflect distinct fac-
tors based on performance rather than self-rating tasks, they do guide the
construction of studies and can inform instruction designed to cultivate dis-
positions, a matter addressed later.
WHAT KIDS KNOW ABOUT WHEN
As noted earlier, one should not view sensitivity and inclination as mono-
lithic traits. They are better treated as complex processes, with measurements
of sensitivity and inclination only extracting broad trends. They involve the
alert use of knowledge about when—about thinking traps such as neglecting
the other side of the case and thinking opportunities such as looking for tacit
assumptions when a problem proves difficult. To be sure, knowledge is at
best a necessary condition. As noted before, knowing about something does
not guarantee its active use, the problem of inert knowledge. Nonetheless, it
is of some interest to examine youngsters’ knowledge of the traps and oppor-
tunities of thinking.
Accordingly, we interviewed students informally to explore what they
knew about the whens of thinking. The interviews were part of an investiga-
tion into how teachers and schools might best foster thinking dispositions.
The interviewees were students in grades four through eight at schools in
both the United States and in Sweden. The interviews took the form of infor-
mal classroom discussions. They centered on three important areas of think-
ing: seeking truth, evaluating fairness, and directing one’s own thinking.
Three questions organized these discussions. In the case of truth, the inves-
tigator would begin with “Sometimes it’s hard to know whether or not some-
thing is true. When are some times when that happens?” (An equivalent
phrase for fairness was “sometimes it’s hard to know whether something is
fair” and for directing your thinking “sometimes it’s hard to direct your
thinking”). Student wrote responses before sharing them with the class. With
examples shared and captured on the blackboard, the investigator took a fur-
ther step: “When it is hard to know whether or not something is true, what
can you do about it?” Students shared their ideas here as well and the investi-
gator recorded them on the blackboard. The investigator then asked a third
question, sometimes on a later day because of time, following the same proce-
dure: “It’s often hard to investigate the truth of something. When is it worth
the trouble?”
370 PERKINS AND RITCHHART