Valerie Thompson
(University of Saskatchewan)
In order to obtain a "pure" measure of reasoning competence devoid
of the
influence of semantics, researchers historically have used abstract
materials about which reasoners had little background knowledge (e.g., If
there is an 'A' on the left, there is a '4' on the right). In recent
years, researchers have come to acknowledge that the process of
interpretation is a large part of what we call reasoning behaviour,
consequently, there has been a movement towards the use of familiar,
pragmatically rich materials. I will argue that a genuine understanding
of reasoning competence requires that we move even further, and
supplement the
use of formal reasoning tasks with tasks that measure the types of complex
processes that characterise informal reasoning.