6533b852fe1ef96bd12ab66c

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Systematic reasoning: Formal or postformal cognition?

subject

description

The focus of this study was to investigate the relationship between formal and postformal systematic metasystematic reasoning. Shayer's (1978) chemicals task and a modified version of Kuhn and Brannock's (1977) plant task were used to measure formal thinking and Commons, Richard, and Kuhn's (1982) multisystem task and balance-beam task to detect postformal reasoning. Subjects were university students from the humanities and social sciences (N=35). For each subject, a composite score was defined by taking into account the highest score in the tasks measuring the same developmental stage. Findings indicated that composite scores of formal and postformal reasoning were significantly correlated. Results also indicated that full formal operations are not a necessary condition for systematic thinking. The developmental status of systematic reasoning should be defined more strictly than has so far been the case. Further studies should focus on metasystematic reasoning as a possible postformal mode of reasoning. Longitudinal designs are also required to assess whether metasystematic reasoning develops in adulthood.