Philosophical dialogue among peers: a study of manifestations of critical thinking in pre-service teachers.

Abstract

In this paper, we study manifestations of critical thinking in pre-service physical education (PE) teachers when exposed to regular practice of philosophical dialogue among peers. A 12-week research project involving 13 pre-service teachers in PE was conducted. Analysis of two (pre- and post-project) transcripts from pre-service teachers' discussions reveals greater use of higher-order thinking (HOT) skills in the post-project transcript than in the pre-project transcript, and reveals that the nature of their exchanges evolved from monologue to dialogue. The latter transcript reveals some characteristics of critical thinking among participants, which thinking appears to be critical, creative and caring; it also reveals that the participants' thinking was oriented toward social and ethical dimensions.