The Intellectual Skill of Suspending Judgement—Do Pupils Possess it?

Abstract

A logical thinking test containing eight categories of logical fallacies in parallel biological and “life” situations was administered to groups of 16–17 year old secondary school pupils in selective schools in Austria, Israel and the Philippines. Half the test-items contained a logically sound option, the rest requiring a logically reasoned suspension of judgment. It was found that only the top quarters of these groups performed in a close to satisfactory manner when required to choose a logically sound option, but suspension of judgment was uniformly weak to very weak. Comparison groups of student-teachers, although scoring somewhat higher, displayed a similar response-pattern. Reasons for this overall unsatisfactory situation and implication for teacher-education were discussed and recommendations for the improvement of the situation suggested.