Abstract

This study focused on finding out the influence of higher order thinking instructional model on grade VIII students’ scientific reasoning. The quasi-experimental nonequivalent control group design was used to conduct this study. Experiment was conducted on 62 grade VIII students from a public higher secondary school of district Lahore, Pakistan. These students were taken as intact groups and were divided into experimental group and control group randomly. Experimental group comprised 30 students while control group comprised 32 students. Both groups were pretested for their scores of scientific reasoning using Lawson’s Classroom Test for Scientific Reasoning (LCTSR). Lesson plans based on higher order thinking instructional model were developed and an intervention of 24 weeks was given to the students. Students were taught using the developed lesson plans based on higher order thinking instructional model. A posttest of scientific reasoning was taken at the end of intervention. Data were analyzed using the independent samples t-test to find the effect of higher order thinking instructional model on scientific reasoning. Results suggest that the students in both experimental and control groups were at the same level of scientific reasoning before the start of intervention. However, students in experimental group, taught by using higher order thinking instructional model, performed better in posttest than those in control group. Overall results revealed that higher order thinking instructional model influenced the scientific reasoning of grade VIII students. It was recommended that there is a need to adopt this higher order thinking instructional model for not only to make students think in higher order domain but to reason scientifically as well.