Teaching inductive reasoning in primary education

Results demonstrated that the teachers were able to apply the programs as intended, although they needed support to shift their attention from the reasoning product to the reasoning process. They also experienced difficulties in implementing the role swap between the teacher and the pupils in the third phase of the teaching procedure. The pupils who were administered the programs significantly outperformed pupils from the control condition on near-transfer tests. Doubly taught pupils (i.e., in Grade 3 and Grade 4) significantly outperformed singly taught pupils on a far-transfer test, and singly taught pupils significantly outperformed pupils from the control condition. The learning effects of both programs indicated that pupils' better performance was due to their increased inductive reasoning ability. Suggestions are provided for improving the teaching programs and for future research on developmentally appropriate and cognitively based change in education.