Learned helplessness: A condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness, arising from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed. It is thought to be one of the underlying causes of depression. Learned helplessness is the belief that our own behaviour does not influence what happens next; that is, behaviour does not […]

Self-efficacy refers to an individual’s belief in his or her capacity to execute behaviors necessary to produce specific performance attainments (Bandura, 1977, 1986, 1997). Self–efficacy reflects confidence in the ability to exert control over one’s own motivation, behavior, and social environment. Why is self efficacy important for students? It reflects confidence in the ability to exert control over […]

Intellectual flexibility is the ability to assess and adapt to changing circumstances rapidly, draw inferences and conclusions, and to utilize multiple creative solutions. Intellectual flexibility, sometimes called cognitive flexibility, is not a skill often named as critical for accomplished, innovative practitioners. Intellectual flexibility, sometimes called cognitive flexibility, is not a skill often named as critical for accomplished, innovative […]

1. Critical Thinking Critical thinking is the practice of solving problems, among other qualities. In addition to working through problems, solving puzzles, and similar activities, critical thinking also includes an element of skepticism. This is important in the 21st Century because it’s harder than ever to verify accurate information (mostly thanks to the Internet). Critical […]

The term “21st–century skills” is generally used to refer to certain core competencies such as collaboration, digital literacy, critical thinking, and problem-solving that advocates believe schools need to teach to help students thrive in today’s world. What are 21st century skills and why are they important? As our world recognizes increased globalization, 21st century learning refers to the skills and technologies […]

Reasoning is the process of thinking about things in a logical, rational way. It is considered an innate human has been formalized by fields such as l ogic, mathematics and artificial intelligence. The process of reasoning is used to make d ecisions, solve problems and evaluate things. It can be formal or down or bottom-up […]

Conceptual generalisation is an investigation whereby the researcher uses other researchers’ empirical findings in conjunction with his or her own process of conceptualisation in order to generalise and identify a pattern Generalization, in psychology, the tendency to respond in the same way to different but similar stimuli. For example, a dog conditioned to salivate to a tone of […]

WHAT IS CONVERGENT THINKING? Convergent thinking is a problem solving technique involving the bringing together different ideas from different participants or fields to determine a single best solution to a lucidly defined problem. In other words, this is a kind of thinking that concentrates on finding out the single best or frequently, correct solution to […]

What is Divergent Reasoning A mode of thinking that seeks to expand the set of possible and relevant answers or solutions to a problem. Its counterpart is convergent reasoning, where the goal is to reduce the space of solutions by applying evaluation and selection criteria to a pool of alternatives. WHAT IS DIVERGENT THINKING? The term “divergent […]

Abductive reasoning Another form of scientific reasoning that doesn’t fit in with inductive or deductive reasoning is abductive. Abductive reasoning usually starts with an incomplete set of observations and proceeds to the likeliest possible explanation for the group of observations, according to Butte College. It is based on making and testing hypotheses using the best […]