Bibliographic record
Abstract
THE DEBATE DEFINING THINKING, critical thinking, and higher-level thinking is expan sive. Geersteen (2003) provides an excellent review of this literature and suggests that one way to distinguish between lowerand higher-level thinking is based on the level of abstraction. In this article, we focus on analysis and synthesis or integration-that is, identifying parts and putting these parts together to form a coherent whole. We offer a simple heuristic device, the evidence ma trix, that helps students recognize the rela tionship between sources of evidence. Although analysis and synthesis are broad intellectual skills that transcend disciplinary boundaries, Grauerholz and Bouma-Holtrop (2003) and Geersteen (2003) argue that dif ferent types of higher-level thinking are more likely to be emphasized by some disci plines than others. Grauerholz and Bouma Holtrop (2003) conclude that there are two general types of higher-level thinking re quired by sociologists, conceptualizing and contextualizing. Contextualizing is most similar to C. Wright Mills's sociological imagination and emphasizes placing specific examples within larger contexts. Conceptu alizing involves the process of breaking concepts into their constituent parts, recog nizing commonalities and differences, and the ability to compare and contrast the com ponents of an argument. The evidence ma trix is a tool that is most helpful in develop ing conceptualizing skills. While the heuris tic device we suggest does tap broad cogni tive skills, these are a subset of skills that are especially relevant for sociologists. Analyzing evidence and recognizing the similarities and dissimilarities between sources is an example of a skill Geertsen (2003) calls referential thinking and Grauer holz and Bouma-Holtrop (2003) include as a part of sociological critical thinking. The evidence matrix is designed to foster critical sociological thinking by helping students integrate data and research findings from different modes of research and synthesize findings across multiple contexts. Using the evidence matrix helps students see the rela tionship among different sources of data and how to organize a more general argument around specific instances of evidence. Finding, reading, and evaluating the va lidity of research studies and synthesizing information from a variety of sources is sometimes referred to as information liter acy (Association of College and Research Libraries 2006; Grafstein 2002). Grafstein (2002:) explains, however, that instructors teach IL [information literacy] skills that are embedded within the research para digms and procedures of their disciplines (p. 202). Therefore, in this paper we con ceptualize certain information literacy skills, particularly synthesizing research evidence from multiple sources, as a component of sociological critical thinking more gener ally. *Please direct all correspondence to Maxine Atkinson, Department of Sociology and Anthro pology, North Carolina State University, Box 8107, Raleigh, NC 27695-8107; e-mail: Maxine_Atkinson@ncsu. edu. Editor's note: The reviewers were, in alpha betical order, Jill Bouma, Theodore D. Fuller, Kathy Rowell, and Stephen Sweet.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.047 | 0.318 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.041 | 0.035 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.016 | 0.012 |
| Open science | 0.005 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.008 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.103 | 0.016 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".