An instructional unit was developed

An instructional unit was developed to enhance the critical thinking skills of middle school and
high school students with learning disabilities by teaching them the principles of scientific
reasoning. Student-teacher dialogues were used to engage the students in an active process of
critical inquiry. Students analyzed everyday information presented in brief magazine articles and
advertisements by applying the principles of the scientific method. The students made statistically
significant improvements in their ability to (a) identify the principal claim made in an article
or advertisement, (b) graph the relevant data, and (c) evaluate the claims made in the article
and explain their support or rejection of the claims based on data. After the instructional
unit, the overall performance of the special education students exceeded that of a control group
composed of regular education students who had not received instruction in critical thinking.