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A Study of the Effect of Peer Assessment on Children's Critical Thinking in a Kindergarten Craft Course

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Title: A Study of the Effect of Peer Assessment on Children's Critical Thinking in a Kindergarten Craft Course
Language: English
Authors: Yan Wang (ORCID 0009-0008-0299-3217), Xia Zhang (ORCID 0009-0008-9183-7514)
Source: International Journal of Technology and Design Education. 2025 35(2):431-459.
Availability: Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link.springer.com/
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 29
Publication Date: 2025
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Early Childhood Education
Elementary Education
Kindergarten
Primary Education
Descriptors: Early Childhood Education, Kindergarten, Preschool Children, Critical Thinking, Peer Evaluation, Handicrafts
DOI: 10.1007/s10798-024-09914-5
ISSN: 0957-7572
1573-1804
Abstract: Critical thinking, as one of the core literacies in the twenty-first century, is essentially the thinking process of making reasonable inferences, questioning and analyzing based on factual evidence. In this paper, we first coded the kindergarten manual class group peer evaluation text through the critical thinking framework proposed by Facione, then processed the text using epistemic network analysis techniques to obtain a network model of critical thinking skills, and finally analyzed the effects of peer evaluation on children's critical thinking skills. The results of the study show that (1) there are differences in the effects of peer evaluation on children's critical thinking skills at different stages. The difference was significant in the early and middle stages, and non-significant in the middle to late stages. This change is a non-linear change, but in general, children's critical thinking is progressing, and this progress is slower in the later stages. (2) There are differences in the structural characteristics of children's critical thinking skills by gender, but this difference is not significant.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2025
Accession Number: EJ1485224
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0184039231;ogv01apr.25;2025Mar28.02:58;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0184039231-1">A study of the effect of peer assessment on children's critical thinking in a kindergarten craft course </title> <p>Critical thinking, as one of the core literacies in the twenty-first century, is essentially the thinking process of making reasonable inferences, questioning and analyzing based on factual evidence. In this paper, we first coded the kindergarten manual class group peer evaluation text through the critical thinking framework proposed by Facione, then processed the text using epistemic network analysis techniques to obtain a network model of critical thinking skills, and finally analyzed the effects of peer evaluation on children's critical thinking skills. The results of the study show that (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref1">1</reflink>) there are differences in the effects of peer evaluation on children's critical thinking skills at different stages. The difference was significant in the early and middle stages, and non-significant in the middle to late stages. This change is a non-linear change, but in general, children's critical thinking is progressing, and this progress is slower in the later stages. (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref2">2</reflink>) There are differences in the structural characteristics of children's critical thinking skills by gender, but this difference is not significant.</p> <p>Keywords: Peer assessment; Children; Critical thinking; Kindergarten; Crafts course; Epistemic network analysis</p> <p>Copyright comment Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.</p> <hd id="AN0184039231-2">Introduction</hd> <p>Critical thinking is considered to be one of the skills of the twenty-first century learner, it is an advanced thinking process based on logical inference, judgment and reflection on the true value of things using appropriate criteria, it enables human beings to make considered and informed decisions based on available information, rational and reflective thinking in deciding what to believe or what to do (Elder & Paul, [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref3">13</reflink>]; Paul, [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref4">47</reflink>]; Pithers & Soden, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref5">49</reflink>]). Critical thinking, as an important part of the cognitive domain, is in essence the process of thinking that involves making reasonable inferences, questioning, and discerning based on factual evidence (Alsaleh, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref6">2</reflink>]). In the age of information technology, critical thinking helps individuals to acquire appropriate information dialectically in a complex environment, and is a necessary literacy for their survival and development. As a higher-order thinking ability and quality, it is closely related to acquired learning and professional training, and is one of the most important indicators of the quality of student learning (Flottemesch, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref7">16</reflink>]).</p> <p>Peer assessment is a useful educational strategy that contributes to the overall development of children. Through interactions with their peers, they are able to develop multifaceted skills, increase self-awareness, build friendships, and improve academic and social performance. This process plays an important role in both school and social Settings. With the popularization of multiple assessment, peer assessment has attracted more and more attention in education circles because of its unique assessment design and application value. Peer evaluation can improve students' participation and initiative, and obtain real, comprehensive and objective evaluation data with high credibility and accuracy (Topping, 2009). Peer-reviewed evaluations usually take the form of ratings and headlines. Rating includes evaluation indicators and their corresponding grades and scores, and is a quantitative feedback according to certain evaluation rules. Because the rating evaluation is constrained by the indicators, the evaluation has more freedom and space to play. This is because evaluation can integrate objective and comprehensive understanding of educational goals, evaluation rules and evaluation objects (Liu & Carless, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref8">36</reflink>]).</p> <p>Sloyd was originally proposed by the Swedish educator Otto Salomon in the late nineteenth century as a method of handicraft education. This educational approach makes woodworking and handicrafts through students' ability to understand and use materials and tools. This method promotes the establishment of manual courses in Europe and the United States (Thorsteinsson et al., [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref9">59</reflink>]; Virta et al., [<reflink idref="bib65" id="ref10">65</reflink>]). This craft class is a rewarding and fun one that helps children develop creativity, coordination, problem solving, and self-confidence (Veeber, [<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref11">64</reflink>]; Mayar, [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref12">40</reflink>]; Niiranen, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref13">44</reflink>]). The difference between handicrafts and modern technology is clear, and handicrafts are essentially handmade (Metcalf, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref14">42</reflink>]). Since art is seen as an expression of creativity, originality and innovation. Therefore, crafts that are purely manual skill activities are considered more valuable (Kokko, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref15">31</reflink>]). The purpose of the pure handicraft course in the kindergarten is to let the children experience making various handicrafts, learn new craft skills from it, and master the course of thinking ability. It is a learning style based on doing that has a positive impact on the individual's physical and mental self. A lot of current research is on the exploration of handicraft courses in higher education (Choi & Song, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref16">10</reflink>]; Kokko, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref17">30</reflink>]), especially the study of pre-school teachers' professional handicraft courses for college students (Gatt & Karppinen, [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref18">17</reflink>]; Kokko & Raisanen, [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref19">32</reflink>]). However, there are few studies on handicraft courses for preschool children.</p> <p>Peer evaluation in children's handicraft class is a very useful teaching method. Peer review must be through discussion, questions, reasoning, explanation and other ways to make each other understand their own views. Children not only improve their craft skills, but also develop observational and teamwork skills (Wright, [<reflink idref="bib70" id="ref20">70</reflink>]; Donlin, [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref21">11</reflink>]; Nurcilin, [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref22">45</reflink>]). This type of assessment increases student engagement and initiative, and results in authentic, comprehensive, objective, credible, and accurate assessment data (Topping, 2009). Vygotsky ([<reflink idref="bib66" id="ref23">66</reflink>]) emphasized the importance of language and social interaction in cognitive development, arguing that students can achieve a higher cognitive level in proper social interaction than when they study alone, and children learn and develop cognitive abilities through interaction with others in a social environment. Studies have proved that sharing one's own opinions and improving one's own ideas in peer assessment can improve students' cooperation awareness and social ability (Nurcilin, [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref24">45</reflink>]). But we don't actually know how students' performance changes in the overall handicraft process (Hilmola & Lindfors, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref25">23</reflink>]). Moreover, few studies have revealed how a certain ability (critical thinking ability) of students changes in the process of handicraft education. Moreover, no research has explored the detailed process of changes in children's critical thinking ability in handicraft courses (Kokko, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref26">30</reflink>]).</p> <p>In order to solve these problems, this study decided to use peer evaluation to complete their own works in the creative arts and crafts class. To explore the changes in children's critical thinking ability during this learning process. The evolution of critical thinking skills is tracked using ENA technology, and ENA can visualize this process. As we all know, creative art handicraft is one of the most common courses in kindergarten, peer evaluation is a beneficial teaching method, and critical thinking ability is a competitive core competence. Therefore, this study has important research value, and also makes up for the theoretical and practical content in this field.</p> <hd id="AN0184039231-3">Literature review</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0184039231-4">Related studies on children's critical thinking</hd> <p>Studies on children's critical thinking are mainly divided into four areas:</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> On the development and characteristics of children's critical thinking (Halpern, 1999). It mainly studies the germination, development and maturation process of children's critical thinking and explores the various factors affecting this development. For example, Kuhn explores the development of children's argumentation skills and their relationship to critical thinking. It discusses how children develop the ability to evaluate and construct arguments (Kuhn, 2003). Halpern ([<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref27">20</reflink>]) explores various aspects of critical thinking, including the development and nurturing of children. The author discusses theories and practices regarding critical thinking in children.</item> <p></p> <item> On the cultivation and training of children's critical thinking. It mainly studies how to cultivate and improve children's critical thinking skills, explores effective educational methods, tools and models, and how to cultivate children's critical thinking skills and habits through classroom teaching, family education and games, and emphasizes the impact of children's critical thinking on cognitive development, social interactions and learning experiences (Kuhn, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref28">33</reflink>]). Researchers (Ashman & Conway, 1997) stated that scaffolding instruction, reciprocal teaching, cooperative learning, peer tutoring, and cognitive apprenticeships should be utilized to develop children's critical thinking in addition to superficial and traditional teaching methods. When children participate in appropriate activities provided by educators, they will begin to understand the existence of topics worth discussing and new situations worth discovering (Kuhn & Dean, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref29">34</reflink>]). Therefore, attention-grabbing and creative practices should be utilized to maintain children's interest and curiosity, especially during their activities. Hirose ([<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref30">24</reflink>]) emphasizes that through open-ended questions, children can be guided to solve problems creatively, questioning and thinking about themselves and others, thus developing their critical thinking skills.</item> <p></p> <item> On the effects of children's critical thinking. It focuses on children's application of critical thinking in various domains and the effects it produces, looking at children's performance in practical problem solving, academic learning, socialization, and decision making, and the effects of critical thinking on these areas (Duckworth & Seligman, [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref31">12</reflink>]). For example, in educational practices, children acquire critical thinking skills during their school years to recognize everyday life situations, assumptions and assertions, and evaluate arguments and results (Özden, 1998). Developing critical thinking through education should allow children to learn to observe and apply critical thinking in the classroom (Karagöl, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref32">29</reflink>]; Akbiyik & Seferoğlu, 2006; Ten Dam & Volman, [<reflink idref="bib58" id="ref33">58</reflink>]). Abrami ([<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref34">1</reflink>]) and others emphasized the research on the effectiveness of different critical thinking teaching strategies on the development of critical thinking in children.</item> <p></p> <item> On the assessment of children's critical thinking. It mainly studies how to assess and measure children's critical thinking skills, explores effective assessment tools and methods, as well as how to accurately and fairly assess children's critical thinking skills, and explores the application value of the assessment results (Paul & Elder, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref35">48</reflink>]). For example, Willingham ([<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref36">68</reflink>]) discuss the challenges of assessing critical thinking and the validity of assessment tools, raising a number of issues relevant to the assessment of children. The article (Stanovich et al., [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref37">56</reflink>]) discuss the psychology of reasoned thinking, which is not captured by IQ tests, and provide some insight into the assessment of children's critical thinking.</item> </ulist> <hd id="AN0184039231-5">Studies related to peer assessment</hd> <p>Relevant research on peer mutual evaluation has addressed the following main areas: 1) Social cognitive and emotional development. Exploring how children understand and interpret peer behavior and how these understandings affect their evaluations of peers. This includes understanding of emotions, empathy, sympathy and emotion regulation (Wootton, [<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref38">69</reflink>]). Van Gennip ([<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref39">61</reflink>]) and others explored the social perspectives of peer-to-peer assessment and examined the effects of interpersonal variables and structural characteristics on peer-to-peer assessment. 2) Criteria and standards for peer assessment. Focuses on the evaluation criteria and norms used by children in peer assessment, which includes evaluation criteria for appearance, behavior, and competence, and how these evaluation criteria are influenced by social and cultural factors (Hattie & Timperley, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref40">22</reflink>]). Falchikov ([<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref41">15</reflink>]) and others compare the effects of peer-rated and instructor-rated ratings, providing empirical research on peer assessment in higher education. 3) Social relationships and group dynamics. Focuses on how peer-to-peer assessment affects social relationships and group dynamics among children, including exploring how assessment affects status in the group, friendships, and group cohesion (Hart, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref42">21</reflink>]). Topping ([<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref43">60</reflink>]) and others explored peer assessment among students at university and at higher secondary levels of education, providing a synthesis of research on peer assessment at different levels of education. 4) Individual differences and social influences. To explore the impact of children's individual differences on peer assessment, including factors such as gender, age, and cultural background, including how peer assessment is influenced by the social and cultural environment (Roseth, [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref44">51</reflink>]).</p> <p>Peer assessment can enhance children's language, expressive and communication skills. It has been well documented that there is a close relationship between language and thinking and that language promotes the development of thinking (Vygotsky, 2012). The PISA project in 2000 examined gender differences in reading literacy, maths and science attainment of pupils in 33 countries and the results showed that girls scored higher than boys in language-based tests. Boys were less proficient in language and there was a significant difference between male and female students' language skills (Halpern, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref45">19</reflink>]). So, is there also a significant difference between the critical thinking skills of male and female students? Literature collection has revealed that the number of studies on gender differences in critical thinking skills is small and the results are not the same. One study investigated the relationship between Iranian English language learners' critical thinking skills and gender, and the results showed that students had lower levels of critical thinking skills and there was no significant difference between male and female students in applying critical thinking skills (Salahshoor & Rafiee, [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref46">52</reflink>]). Hunter et al. ([<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref47">25</reflink>]) revealed that age and gender do not predict students' critical thinking skills. A study on critical thinking skills from the perspective of cognitive style and gender revealed that there was a more significant difference between the critical thinking skills of male and female students in solving algebra problems among students of the Department of Mathematics, Islamic University of Walisongo State (Cahyono, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref48">6</reflink>]). However, there are fewer studies on gender differences in critical thinking among children, and this study takes this issue as one of the main research questions and expects to add to the research in this area.</p> <hd id="AN0184039231-6">Research questions</hd> <p>Finland was the first country in the world to make Sloyd a compulsory subject under the name "Sloyd", the overall goal of which is to educate students to maintain and transform viable living environments (Peltonen, 2003a; 2003b). The central feature is how to create unique productive activities. The primary task of productive activities is to improve students' thinking skills; manual activities, work and skills are secondary. (Peltonen, 1988; Metsärinne & Kallio, 2011; Nygren-Landgards, 2001; Lindfors, 1999). Many countries have used this as a theoretical basis for handicraft courses.</p> <p>Using Sloyd's theory as a theoretical basis for this study, we explored how children's critical thinking develops in kindergarten craft activities using peer assessment. In order to understand the details of the evolution of children's critical thinking in the learning process, the study decided to use ENA technology. Visualizing the learning trajectory of children's critical thinking at each learning stage can clearly represent the process of change of the core elements of critical thinking skills. Before the experiment, we were eager to know whether this process of change was a linear or non-linear change, and whether there were significant differences in children's critical thinking skills at different stages. In reviewing the literature, we found that there are few studies on critical thinking of preschool children of different genders, and most of them are about the differences in critical thinking of students of different genders under higher education (Liu et al., [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref49">37</reflink>]; Marni et al., [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref50">39</reflink>]; Preiss et al., [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref51">50</reflink>]). However, for the study of critical thinking variability among children of different genders, it determines what teachers choose to teach so that students' critical thinking can be developed in a more spacious manner. Therefore, there are three main questions at the center of this study.</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> Is there a difference in children's critical thinking development across the different stages of peer assessment in a kindergarten craft program? If so, is this difference significant?</item> <p></p> <item> How does children's critical thinking change at different stages of peer-to-peer assessment in a kindergarten craft program? What kind of structure and characteristics are there?</item> <p></p> <item> Is there any significant difference in critical thinking among children of different genders at different stages of peer-to-peer assessment in the kindergarten handicraft program? What are the structures and characteristics of critical thinking of children of different genders?</item> </ulist> <hd id="AN0184039231-7">Methodology</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0184039231-8">Participants</hd> <p>In this study, 41 children aged 5 to 6 years old, including 24 boys and 17 girls, participated in the course of artistic creative handmade works in a kindergarten in China. The children all participated in craft lessons two to three times a month, starting with small classes. They have mastered a lot of knowledge about handicrafts, and teachers often let children freely choose the materials they need to make works. Children have been quite familiar with handicraft production, strong sense of autonomy, under the guidance of teachers can independently complete the production of simple works. A total of 41 children were divided into six groups of six to seven children each. Each group had a teacher and an assistant teacher to manage the activities. Collaborative groups were formed by children who wanted to complete the same work, and once the groups were finalized, they could not be changed at a later stage. Demographic statistics of children (Table 1).</p> <p>Table 1 Demographic data</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left"><p>Group</p></th><th align="left"><p>Students</p></th><th align="left"><p>Average age</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>Male</p></td><td align="left"><p>24</p></td><td align="left"><p>5.6 years</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Female</p></td><td align="left"><p>17</p></td><td align="left"><p>5.7 years</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <hd id="AN0184039231-9">Design of research activities and Implementation steps</hd> <p>The study lasted for 12 weeks and could be divided into three teaching stages: early, intermediate and late. Each teaching stage had a theme, and the theme was open. For example, the theme of the first phase is delicious food. Fruits, ice cream, dumplings, buns, etc. are for reference only. Students can come up with their own topics. The theme of the second stage is Animal House. Teachers provide crabs, turtles, seven-star ladybugs and so on. The theme of the third teaching stage is the world in the eyes. After the first two stages, children have not only mastered some skills, but may also think critically and reflect on problems in peer assessment. From there, they will be able to determine what the world looks like in their own eyes and create their own work. The themes of the children's craft work at each stage and the works produced (in part) are shown in Table 2 below.</p> <p>Graph</p> <p>The study was conducted for 12 weeks and was divided into three phases of iterative manual group courses, each consisting of four lessons. In each stage of the teaching activities, the groups can discuss and exchange around the handmade theme, and each group determines the products made. Then, the group discussed which materials to choose, designed the shape of the work, and decided on the layout of the picture. Finally, members of the group evaluate each other's works, reflect on their own works, and constantly improve their works. The specific implementation steps of each stage of teaching activities.</p> <p>The main task of the first class is to discuss the materials needed for the theme, the size, style and shape of the design work. And discuss and evaluate this, express their opinions, and finally reach a satisfactory result for the group members. The main task of the second class is to complete the handmade works. The focus is that each member participates in the creation of handmade works, and peers evaluate each other and put forward their own views and opinions. In the third lesson, children who have not finished their work continue to finish their own work. For the revision suggestions put forward by the partner, they can modify and improve the work according to the opinions. The main task of the fourth lesson is to evaluate the works of other groups by each group member. The focus is on what parts of the review work have done well, where there are problems, and how this problem should be modified. Which works have room for improvement. When evaluating the works of peers, children conduct self-thinking, reasoning and reflection. In this process, the focus is not to master the skills of making handmade works, but to cultivate students' thinking ability, which conforms to the educational concept of Sloyd's handmade production. The teaching activities in the second and third stages are similar to those in the first stage, with the flow chart of specific implementation steps (Fig. 1). The whole teaching process was recorded. Finally, the teaching assistant converted the comments of the children's mutual evaluation into text and sorted out and analyzed them.</p> <p>Graph: Fig. 1 Flowchart of manual course design based on critical thinking</p> <hd id="AN0184039231-10">Coding frameworks</hd> <p>Children's peer assessment can project the improvement of children's perspectives and development of their thinking in the process of knowledge construction, and the development of critical thinking is very important for children's thinking skills to improve. The critical thinking framework used in this study adopts the 6 core elements of critical thinking proposed by Peter Facione ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref52">14</reflink>]) are: interpretation, analysis, evaluation, reference, explanation, and self-regulation, which contains 16 sub-elements (Table 3). Short title for critical thinking skills are used in the epistemic network model in this study.</p> <p>Table 3 Critical thinking skills coding framework</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left"><p>Skill</p></th><th align="left"><p>Sub-skill</p></th><th align="left"><p>Short title</p></th><th align="left"><p>Definition</p></th><th align="left"><p>Example</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>Interpretation</p></td><td align="left"><p>Categorization</p></td><td align="left"><p>I.C</p></td><td align="left"><p>To apprehend or appropriately formulate categories, distinctions, or frameworks for understanding, describing or characterizing information</p></td><td align="left"><p>To recognize a problem and define its character without prejudice to inquiry; to determine a useful way of sorting and sub-classifying information</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Decoding</p><p>significance</p></td><td align="left"><p>I.DS</p></td><td align="left"><p>To detect, attend to, and describe the informational content, affective purport, directive functions, intentions, or inferential relationships, such as in language, social behaviors</p></td><td align="left"><p>To detect and describe a person's purposes in asking a given question</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Clarifying</p><p>meaning</p></td><td align="left"><p>C.M</p></td><td align="left"><p>To paraphrase or make explicit, through stipulation, description, analogy or figurative expression, the contextual, conventional or intended meanings of words, ideas, concepts</p></td><td align="left"><p>To find an example which helps explain something to someone</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>Analysis</p></td><td align="left"><p>Examining</p><p>ideas</p></td><td align="left"><p>A.EI</p></td><td align="left"><p>To compare or contrast ideas, concepts, or statements</p></td><td align="left"><p>Given a complicated assignment, to determine how it might be broken up into smaller, more manageable tasks; to define an abstract concept</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Identifying</p><p>arguments</p></td><td align="left"><p>A.IA</p></td><td align="left"><p>Given a set of statements, descriptions, questions or graphic representations, to determine whether or not the set expresses, or is intended to express, a reason or reasons in support of or contesting some claim</p></td><td align="left"><p>Given a passage from a newspaper editorial, determine if the author of that passage intended it as an expression of reasons for or against a given claim</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Analyzing</p><p>arguments</p></td><td align="left"><p>A.AA</p></td><td align="left"><p>Given the expression of a reason or reasons intended to support or contest some claim, opinion or point of view, to identify and differentiate</p></td><td align="left"><p>Give one or more reasons for or against a claim, opinion or opinion</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>Evaluation</p></td><td align="left"><p>Assessing</p><p>claims</p></td><td align="left"><p>E.AC</p></td><td align="left"><p>To assess the contextual relevance of questions, information, principles, rules or procedural directions</p></td><td align="left"><p>To determine if a given principle of conduct is applicable to deciding what to do in a given situation</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Assessing</p><p>arguments</p></td><td align="left"><p>E.AA</p></td><td align="left"><p>To Anticipate or raise questions or objections and assess whether they point to significant weaknesses in the arguments being evaluated</p></td><td align="left"><p>To judge the logical strength of an argument based on hypothetical circumstances or causal reasoning</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>Inference</p></td><td align="left"><p>Querying</p><p>Evidence</p></td><td align="left"><p>I.QE</p></td><td align="left"><p>In general, to judge that information relevant to deciding the acceptability, plausibility or relative merits of a given alternative, question, issue, theory, hypothesis, or statement is required, and to determine plausible investigatory strategies for acquiring that information</p></td><td align="left"><p>When attempting to develop a persuasive argument in support of one's opinion, to judge what background information it would be useful to have and to develop a plan which will yield a clear answer as to whether or not such information is available</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Conjecturing</p><p>alternatives</p></td><td align="left"><p>I.CA</p></td><td align="left"><p>To formulate multiple alternatives for resolving a problem, to postulate a series of suppositions regarding a question, to project alternative hypotheses regarding an event, to develop a variety of different plans to achieve some goal</p></td><td align="left"><p>Given a set of priorities that people may or may not agree on, predict the difficulties and benefits that are likely to arise if those priorities are adopted in decision-making</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Drawing</p><p>conclusions</p></td><td align="left"><p>I.DC</p></td><td align="left"><p>To give a set of statements, descriptions, problems, or other forms of representations, deriving, with appropriate logical strength, their inferential relationships and the consequences or premises that they support, warrant, imply, or lead to</p></td><td align="left"><p>Given a controversial issue to examine informed opinions, consider various opposing views and the reasons advanced for them, gather relevant</p><p>information, and formulate one's own considered opinion regarding that issue</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" rowspan="3"><p>Explanation</p></td><td align="left"><p>Stating</p><p>results</p></td><td align="left"><p>E.SR</p></td><td align="left"><p>To produce accurate statements, descriptions or representations of the results of one's reasoning activities so as to analyze, evaluate, infer from, or monitor those results</p></td><td align="left"><p>To convey one's analysis and</p><p>judgment regarding a work of art</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Justifying</p><p>procedures</p></td><td align="left"><p>E.JP</p></td><td align="left"><p>To present the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological and contextual considerations which one used in forming one's interpretations, analyses, evaluation or inferences, so that one might accurately record, evaluate, describe or justify those processes to one's self or to others, or so as to remedy perceived deficiencies in the general way one executes those processes</p></td><td align="left"><p>To state the standards one used in evaluating a piece of literature</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Presenting</p><p>arguments</p></td><td align="left"><p>E.PA</p></td><td align="left"><p>Give reasons for accepting certain requests</p></td><td align="left"><p>To identify and express evidence and counter-evidence intended as a dialectical contribution to one's own or another person's thinking on a matter of deep personal concern</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>Self-regulation</p></td><td align="left"><p>Self-examination</p></td><td align="left"><p>S.SE</p></td><td align="left"><p>To make an objective and thoughtful meta-cognitive self-assessment of one's opinions and reasons for holding them</p></td><td align="left"><p>To identify and review one's reasons and reasoning processes in coming to a given conclusion</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Self-correction</p></td><td align="left"><p>S.SC</p></td><td align="left"><p>Where self-examination reveals errors or deficiencies, to design reasonable procedures to remedy or correct, if possible, those mistakes and their causes</p></td><td align="left"><p>Given a methodological mistake or factual deficiency in one's work, to revise that work so as to correct the problem and then to determine if the revisions warrant changes in any position, findings, or opinions based thereon</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <hd id="AN0184039231-11">Epistemic network analysis</hd> <p>Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA) is a method of quantitative analysis of qualitative data, a way to study and visualize cognitive processes, knowledge structures, and information processing, often applied in psychology, education, information science, and other fields to help understand how people acquire, store, organize, and apply information (Shaffer & Ruis, [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref53">53</reflink>]). The method constructs visual cognitive networks based on network relationships between learners' cognitive elements by examining the connections of co-occurring or coded data to restore connections between cognitive elements (Ba et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref54">3</reflink>]). ENA is a method that draws on cognitive framing theory to quantitatively encode textual data during learner interactions and employs a dynamic network model for the network between learners' cognitive elements relationships is an important method to characterize and analyze (Shaffer, [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref55">54</reflink>]).</p> <p>ENA is often used in the field of learning analytics to visually analyze models through discourse, and many studies have confirmed its effectiveness (Vandenberg, et al., [<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref56">63</reflink>]; Zhao et al., [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref57">71</reflink>]). One study used ENA techniques to generate and compare models of students' conceptual structural features to investigate students' conceptions of technology learning (Chang & Tsai, [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref58">7</reflink>];). Li ([<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref59">35</reflink>]) used ENA techniques to investigate the dynamics of trust in human and AI teams, capturing the dynamic evolution of multidimensional aspects of trust (analytical and affective). Tang ([<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref60">57</reflink>]) utilized ENA techniques to profile complex learning analytics to comprehensively reveal reflective thinking processes, confirming that reflective thinking helps to inform the design of instructional logic and the design of learning environments.</p> <hd id="AN0184039231-12">Data collection and organization</hd> <p>After collating the texts and eliminating useless information such as thank you, you are welcome, and dialogues that are not relevant to the study, 1968 pieces of data were finally collated. The study used a critical thinking framework to code the peer assessment texts generated in the manualized course using the critical thinking coding framework proposed by Peter Facione. The coding of the text was done collaboratively by three coders, the Kappa value of the coded document was calculated using Python software to be 0.712, the consistency was relatively low, the three coders then negotiated and discussed, and finally for the divergent parts of the unified cognitive, and again tested the Kappa value to be 0.856, the results of the coding analyses of the three coders were basically the same, and the code is reliability. Finally, the epistemic network analysis method was adopted to explore the development path and structural characteristics of critical thinking in the kindergarten class manual group curriculum.</p> <hd id="AN0184039231-13">Results</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0184039231-14">Statistical analysis of children's critical thinking skills under peer assessment</hd> <p>In this study, 12 early childhood craft sessions were conducted to record peer comments on the craft work during the production of the craft work, and a total of 1,968 sentences were compiled, which amounted to 45,656 characters after eliminating useless content. In this study, the Facione Critical Thinking Framework was used to identify the textual content of the mutual evaluations and to count the probability of the occurrence of the critical thinking sub-skill in the content of the children's mutual evaluations in the handicraft course. Among the statistics, the data on the effects of peer assessment on children's critical thinking skills at different stages are shown in Table 4. In the early stages, critical thinking skills interpretation and analysis are developed. In the middle stage, critical thinking skills interpretation, analysis, evaluation and inference have been greatly improved compared with the early stage. In later stages, children develop critical thinking skills interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation and self-regulation skills. In particular, the sub-skill E.RS (explanation-stating results) in explanation develops most prominently.</p> <p>Table 4 Statistical analysis of the influence of peer evaluation on children's critical thinking ability at different stages</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" rowspan="2"><p>Stage</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Interpretation</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Analysis</p></th><th align="left" colspan="2"><p>Evaluation</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Inference</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Explanation</p></th><th align="left" colspan="2"><p>Self-regulation</p></th></tr><tr><th align="left"><p>I.C</p></th><th align="left"><p>I.DS</p></th><th align="left"><p>I.CM</p></th><th align="left"><p>A.EI</p></th><th align="left"><p>A.IA</p></th><th align="left"><p>A.AA</p></th><th align="left"><p>E.AC</p></th><th align="left"><p>E.AA</p></th><th align="left"><p>I.QE</p></th><th align="left"><p>I.CA</p></th><th align="left"><p>I.DC</p></th><th align="left"><p>E.SR</p></th><th align="left"><p>E.JP</p></th><th align="left"><p>E.PA</p></th><th align="left"><p>S.SE</p></th><th align="left"><p>S.SC</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>Early times</p></td><td align="left"><p>157</p></td><td align="left"><p>93</p></td><td align="left"><p>57</p></td><td align="left"><p>26</p></td><td align="left"><p>42</p></td><td align="left"><p>3</p></td><td align="left"><p>0</p></td><td align="left"><p>1</p></td><td align="left"><p>0</p></td><td align="left"><p>1</p></td><td align="left"><p>0</p></td><td align="left"><p>2</p></td><td align="left"><p>0</p></td><td align="left"><p>1</p></td><td align="left"><p>0</p></td><td align="left"><p>0</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Intermediate times</p></td><td align="left"><p>119</p></td><td align="left"><p>88</p></td><td align="left"><p>84</p></td><td align="left"><p>108</p></td><td align="left"><p>168</p></td><td align="left"><p>160</p></td><td align="left"><p>102</p></td><td align="left"><p>70</p></td><td align="left"><p>68</p></td><td align="left"><p>34</p></td><td align="left"><p>34</p></td><td align="left"><p>2</p></td><td align="left"><p>1</p></td><td align="left"><p>0</p></td><td align="left"><p>0</p></td><td align="left"><p>1</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Late times</p></td><td align="left"><p>117</p></td><td align="left"><p>88</p></td><td align="left"><p>84</p></td><td align="left"><p>108</p></td><td align="left"><p>168</p></td><td align="left"><p>157</p></td><td align="left"><p>139</p></td><td align="left"><p>137</p></td><td align="left"><p>135</p></td><td align="left"><p>136</p></td><td align="left"><p>137</p></td><td align="left"><p>149</p></td><td align="left"><p>99</p></td><td align="left"><p>74</p></td><td align="left"><p>27</p></td><td align="left"><p>27</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Early ratio</p></td><td align="left"><p>39.95%</p></td><td align="left"><p>34.57%</p></td><td align="left"><p>25.33%</p></td><td align="left"><p>10.74%</p></td><td align="left"><p>11.11%</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.94%</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.00%</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.48%</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.00%</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.58%</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.00%</p></td><td align="left"><p>1.31%</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.00%</p></td><td align="left"><p>1.33%</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.00%</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.00%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Intermediate ratio</p></td><td align="left"><p>30.28%</p></td><td align="left"><p>32.71%</p></td><td align="left"><p>37.33%</p></td><td align="left"><p>44.63%</p></td><td align="left"><p>44.44%</p></td><td align="left"><p>50.00%</p></td><td align="left"><p>42.32%</p></td><td align="left"><p>33.65%</p></td><td align="left"><p>33.50%</p></td><td align="left"><p>19.88%</p></td><td align="left"><p>19.88%</p></td><td align="left"><p>1.31%</p></td><td align="left"><p>1.00%</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.00%</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.00%</p></td><td align="left"><p>3.57%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Late ratio</p></td><td align="left"><p>29.77%</p></td><td align="left"><p>32.71%</p></td><td align="left"><p>37.33%</p></td><td align="left"><p>44.63%</p></td><td align="left"><p>44.44%</p></td><td align="left"><p>49.06%</p></td><td align="left"><p>57.68%</p></td><td align="left"><p>65.87%</p></td><td align="left"><p>66.50%</p></td><td align="left"><p>79.53%</p></td><td align="left"><p>80.12%</p></td><td align="left"><p>97.39%</p></td><td align="left"><p>99.00%</p></td><td align="left"><p>98.67%</p></td><td align="left"><p>100.00%</p></td><td align="left"><p>96.43%</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>The statistical data on the impact of peer evaluation on critical thinking skills of children of different genders are shown in Table 5. Observational data showed that both boys and girls developed sub-skills under critical thinking skills. There was almost no difference in skill variation among the sub-groups, only in I.C (interpretation-categorization), I.DS (interpretation-decoding significance), I.CM (interpretation-clarifying meaning) and A.EI (analysis-examining ideas) are different, but not obvious.</p> <p>Table 5 The statistical data on the impact of peer evaluation on critical thinking skills of children of different genders</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" rowspan="2"><p>Stage</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Interpretation</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Analysis</p></th><th align="left" colspan="2"><p>Evaluation</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Inference</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Explanation</p></th><th align="left" colspan="2"><p>Self-regulation</p></th></tr><tr><th align="left"><p>I.C</p></th><th align="left"><p>I.DS</p></th><th align="left"><p>I.CM</p></th><th align="left"><p>A.EI</p></th><th align="left"><p>A.IA</p></th><th align="left"><p>A.AA</p></th><th align="left"><p>E.AC</p></th><th align="left"><p>E.AA</p></th><th align="left"><p>I.QE</p></th><th align="left"><p>I.CA</p></th><th align="left"><p>I.DC</p></th><th align="left"><p>E.SR</p></th><th align="left"><p>E.JP</p></th><th align="left"><p>E.PA</p></th><th align="left"><p>S.SE</p></th><th align="left"><p>S.SC</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>Male times</p></td><td align="left"><p>212</p></td><td align="left"><p>119</p></td><td align="left"><p>125</p></td><td align="left"><p>131</p></td><td align="left"><p>198</p></td><td align="left"><p>159</p></td><td align="left"><p>120</p></td><td align="left"><p>106</p></td><td align="left"><p>101</p></td><td align="left"><p>90</p></td><td align="left"><p>93</p></td><td align="left"><p>78</p></td><td align="left"><p>45</p></td><td align="left"><p>40</p></td><td align="left"><p>19</p></td><td align="left"><p>19</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Female times</p></td><td align="left"><p>181</p></td><td align="left"><p>150</p></td><td align="left"><p>100</p></td><td align="left"><p>112</p></td><td align="left"><p>180</p></td><td align="left"><p>161</p></td><td align="left"><p>121</p></td><td align="left"><p>103</p></td><td align="left"><p>102</p></td><td align="left"><p>81</p></td><td align="left"><p>78</p></td><td align="left"><p>75</p></td><td align="left"><p>55</p></td><td align="left"><p>35</p></td><td align="left"><p>8</p></td><td align="left"><p>9</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Male ratio</p></td><td align="left"><p>53.94%</p></td><td align="left"><p>44.24%</p></td><td align="left"><p>55.56%</p></td><td align="left"><p>53.72%</p></td><td align="left"><p>52.38%</p></td><td align="left"><p>49.69%</p></td><td align="left"><p>49.79%</p></td><td align="left"><p>50.48%</p></td><td align="left"><p>49.75%</p></td><td align="left"><p>52.63%</p></td><td align="left"><p>54.39%</p></td><td align="left"><p>50.98%</p></td><td align="left"><p>45.00%</p></td><td align="left"><p>53.33%</p></td><td align="left"><p>70.37%</p></td><td align="left"><p>67.86%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Female ratio</p></td><td align="left"><p>46.06%</p></td><td align="left"><p>55.76%</p></td><td align="left"><p>44.44%</p></td><td align="left"><p>46.28%</p></td><td align="left"><p>47.62%</p></td><td align="left"><p>50.31%</p></td><td align="left"><p>50.21%</p></td><td align="left"><p>49.52%</p></td><td align="left"><p>50.25%</p></td><td align="left"><p>47.37%</p></td><td align="left"><p>45.61%</p></td><td align="left"><p>49.02%</p></td><td align="left"><p>55.00%</p></td><td align="left"><p>46.67%</p></td><td align="left"><p>29.63%</p></td><td align="left"><p>32.14%</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <hd id="AN0184039231-15">There are differences in critical thinking skills of children in different stages of peer ass...</hd> <p>It can be seen from Fig. 2 that peer evaluation has different effects on children's critical thinking at different stages in the early childhood manual course. The centroid of early critical thinking is located on the left side of the X-axis, the middle centroid is located in the first quadrant of the axis, and the late centroid is located in the fourth quadrant of the axis near the right side of the X-axis. Therefore, there are differences in critical thinking at different stages. This is consistent with the T-test results of the differences in critical thinking of the group children at each stage (Table 6). The early and middle cognitive networks showed significant differences in the X dimension (<emph>P</emph> = 0.00*) and the Y dimension (<emph>P</emph> = 0.04*). There were significant differences between middle and late cognitive networks in X dimension (<emph>P</emph> = 0.00*) and Y dimension (<emph>P</emph> = 0.01*). There were significant differences between late and.</p> <p>Graph: Fig. 2 Distribution of centroids in different stages of critical thinking of group children (Red centroid represent early stage, blue centroid represents intermediate stage, later centroid represent later stage)</p> <p>Table 6 Independent t-test of critical thinking in children at different stages</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" rowspan="2"><p>stages</p></th><th align="left" colspan="6"><p>X dimension</p></th><th align="left" colspan="6"><p>Y dimension</p></th></tr><tr><th align="left"><p>mean</p></th><th align="left"><p>SD</p></th><th align="left"><p>N</p></th><th align="left"><p>t</p></th><th align="left"><p>P</p></th><th align="left"><p>d</p></th><th align="left"><p>mean</p></th><th align="left"><p>SD</p></th><th align="left"><p>N</p></th><th align="left"><p>t</p></th><th align="left"><p>P</p></th><th align="left"><p>d</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>early</p></td><td align="left"><p>-1.56</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.20</p></td><td align="left"><p>41</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>-33.32</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>0.00<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>7.36</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.04</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.37</p></td><td align="left"><p>41</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>-2.05</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>0.04<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>0.45</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>intermediate</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.49</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.34</p></td><td align="left"><p>41</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.24</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.79</p></td><td align="left"><p>41</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>intermediate</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.49</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.34</p></td><td align="left"><p>41</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>-9.07</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>0.00<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>2.00</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.24</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.79</p></td><td align="left"><p>41</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>-2.67</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>0.01<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>0.61</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>later</p></td><td align="left"><p>1.07</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.23</p></td><td align="left"><p>41</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.19</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.60</p></td><td align="left"><p>41</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>early</p></td><td align="left"><p>-1.56</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.20</p></td><td align="left"><p>41</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>-55.16</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>0.00<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>12.18</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.04</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.37</p></td><td align="left"><p>41</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>1.35</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>0.18</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>0.30</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>later</p></td><td align="left"><p>1.07</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.23</p></td><td align="left"><p>41</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.19</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.60</p></td><td align="left"><p>41</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>early cognitive networks on the X dimension (P = 0.00*), but almost no differences on the Y dimension (P = 0.18).</p> <hd id="AN0184039231-16">The structural characteristic model of critical thinking skills of children at different stag...</hd> <p>Peer assessment has different influences on children's critical thinking at different stages, and these differences can be specifically reflected in the behavioral characteristics of critical thinking, which can be studied by studying the development track of children's critical thinking at different stages (Figs. 3, 4 and 5).</p> <p>Graph: Fig. 3 Model diagram of critical thinking behaviors in early stage</p> <p>Graph: Fig. 4 Model diagram of critical thinking behaviors in intermediate stage</p> <p>Graph: Fig. 5 Model diagram of critical thinking behaviors in late stage</p> <p>Early, children's critical thinking features are mainly represented in the I.C, I.DS, I.CM, A.IA and A.EI sub-elements, with the I.C and I.DS sub-elements being the largest, the I.CM and A.IA nodes the next largest, and the A.EI node the smallest. Correspondingly, we can see that the connection between I.C and I.DS is the thickest, the connection between I.CM and IC and I.DS is thicker, and the connection between A.IA and A.EI and I.CM, I.C, and I.DS is thinner. There are six main core elements of children's critical thinking, of which I.C, I.DS, and I.CM are three sub-elements of the core element of interpretation, and A.IA and A.EI are two sub-elements of the core element of analysis. One such excerpt appears in Table 7. Thus, in the early stage, children's critical thinking is mainly reflected in the two core elements of interpretation and analysis, indicating that children have mastered the skills of interpretation and analysis critical thinking.</p> <p>Table 7 Early peer assessment excerpt</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left"><p>Student</p></th><th align="left"><p>Words peer assessment</p></th><th align="left"><p>Co-occurring Code(s)</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>1</p></td><td align="left"><p>The ice cream is made just like the real thing!</p></td><td align="left"><p>E<bold>.</bold>AA</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>2</p></td><td align="left"><p>The straw is sitting here and I want to taste what it tastes like!</p></td><td align="left"><p>I<bold>.</bold>DS, E<bold>.</bold>AA</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>3</p></td><td align="left"><p>This is the same steps as making real ice cream</p></td><td align="left"><p>E<bold>.</bold>SR</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>4</p></td><td align="left"><p>What ingredients do you need to make this ice cream?</p></td><td align="left"><p>I<bold>.</bold>C</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>5</p></td><td align="left"><p>Which of these three ice creams did you make first?</p></td><td align="left"><p>A<bold>.</bold>EI,</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>6</p></td><td align="left"><p>This ice cream has a lot of colored candies that look like they want to be eaten!</p></td><td align="left"><p>I<bold>.</bold>DS, I<bold>.</bold>CM,</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>In the middle period, children's critical thinking characteristics are mainly reflected in I.C, I.CM, I.DS, A.IA, A.EI, E.AA, A.AA, I.CA, I.QE, E.AC and I.DC sub-elements. Of these, the A.AA, A.IA, I.C and E.AC node sub-elements are relatively large, the I.CM, I.DS, A.EI and E.AA node elements are the next largest, and the I.CA, I.QE and I.DC node elements are smaller. Correspondingly, the co-occurrence links between A.AA and A.IA and E.AA are the thickest, and the co-occurrence links between I.C and E.AA and A.IA are thicker. the co-occurrence links between I.DS and A.AA and A.EI and A.AA, A.IA, and I.C are thinner, and the co-occurrence links with the nodal elements I.CA, I.QE and I.DC are thinnest. Sub-elements I.C, I.CM and I.DS belong to interpretation, A.AA, A.IA and I.C belong to analysis, E.AC and E.AA belong to evaluation, I.QE, I.CA and I.DC belong to inference. interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference are the core elements of critical thinking skills, of which Interpretation, analysis, and evaluation are better mastered by children because the nodes following the sub-elements related to the three elements are larger and the connecting lines are thicker. On the contrary, children's mastery of the critical thinking skill of inference needs to be strengthened because the sub-elements related to inference co-occur with a very thin line, and the nodes of the three sub-elements related to inference are relatively small. One such excerpt appears in Table 8.</p> <p>Table 8 Intermediate peer assessment excerpt</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left"><p>Student</p></th><th align="left"><p>Words peer assessment</p></th><th align="left"><p>Co-occurring Code(s)</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>1</p></td><td align="left"><p>This bird's nest one is made to look like the real thing! It's beautiful!</p></td><td align="left"><p>E<bold>.</bold>SR, E<bold>.</bold>PA</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>2</p></td><td align="left"><p>This bird's nest seems a bit damp, has it been rained on? Or is it about to rain?</p></td><td align="left"><p>A<bold>.</bold>EI, E<bold>.</bold>SR, E<bold>.</bold>JP,</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>3</p></td><td align="left"><p>This bird's nest looks so complicated, it should be hard to make, what did you think? Where did you start making it first?</p></td><td align="left"><p>A<bold>.</bold>EI, A<bold>.</bold>IA, S<bold>.</bold>SE</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>4</p></td><td align="left"><p>What are all the materials needed to make this birdhouse? What to do first and what to do second?</p></td><td align="left"><p>A<bold>.</bold>IA, E<bold>.</bold>AA,</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>5</p></td><td align="left"><p>There's four babies in the nest, is there a mother bird? Can you tell me about it?</p></td><td align="left"><p>I<bold>.</bold>C, I<bold>.</bold>QE, I<bold>.</bold>DC</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>6</p></td><td align="left"><p>These baby birds are all the same color, would it not be better to add some other colors to them?</p></td><td align="left"><p>E<bold>.</bold>AA, E<bold>.</bold>JP, E<bold>.</bold>PA</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>In the later stage, the network model diagram of critical thinking of the children's group is compared with the middle stage, the network covers 16 sub-elements, the 6 core elements have been developed stably, the network is more connected, the network is richer and more complex, which indicates that the children's critical thinking has been developed to a greater extent. Critical thinking was mainly expressed in the 6 core elements, 16 sub-elements, and in the later stages, it was observed that the nodes of sub-elements I.C, I.DS, I.CM, A.EI, A.IA, A.AA, E.AC, E.AA, I.QE, I.CA, I.DC, E.SR, E.JP, and E.PA were bigger, and the corresponding co-lines connecting these sub-elements were coarser.S.SE and S.SC have been developed to some extent compared to the middle periods, but the development is not obvious and needs to be strengthened, and the nodes of the S.SE and S.SC sub-elements are relatively small as seen from the diagram of the critical thinking network model. I.C, I.DS, and I.CM belong to interpretation, A.EI, A.IA, and A.AA belong to analysis, E.AC, E.AA belong to evaluation, I.QE, I.CA and I.DC belong to inference, E.SR, E.JP and E.PA belong to explanation, and S.SE and S.SC belong to self-regulation. Thus, at a later stage, children basically mastered interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, and explanation of the 5 core elements of critical thinking, but children need to be strengthened in the critical thinking element of self-regulation. One such excerpt appears in Table 9.</p> <p>Table 9 Later peer assessment excerpt</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left"><p>student</p></th><th align="left"><p>Words peer assessment</p></th><th align="left"><p>Co-occurring Code(s)</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>1</p></td><td align="left"><p>I love this dress so much, this dress has a lot of bows and the color is so pretty, I want a dress like this too</p></td><td align="left"><p>E<bold>.</bold>SR, E<bold>.</bold>JP, E<bold>.</bold>PA</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>2</p></td><td align="left"><p>I feel like the background of the piece is too cluttered and the colors are too light, I think it should be embellished and decorated a bit better</p></td><td align="left"><p>S<bold>.</bold>SE, S<bold>.</bold>SC</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>3</p></td><td align="left"><p>Why is there a red dot on her face? Is it a mistake? Or is this a case of her forgetting to wipe her mouth after eating something delicious?</p></td><td align="left"><p>E<bold>.</bold>PA, I<bold>.</bold>C, I<bold>.</bold>DC</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>4</p></td><td align="left"><p>Her eyes are so big! The eyelashes are long too, so pretty, like my mum's eyelashes or the false ones we stick on when we perform shows. Look at her eyes, they seem to be smiling! It makes me feel so gentle</p></td><td align="left"><p>A<bold>.</bold>EI, I<bold>.</bold>C, I<bold>.</bold>DC</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>5</p></td><td align="left"><p>How did you make this piece? What was the first thing you did? What did you do last? Can you tell me about it?</p></td><td align="left"><p>I<bold>.</bold>C, A<bold>.</bold>EI</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>6</p></td><td align="left"><p>The head is too big for this character piece, the body is small, it feels heavy on the head and light on the body, and the hairbrush is too messy, and the image is a bit dirty</p></td><td align="left"><p>E<bold>.</bold>SR, E<bold>.</bold>PA, S<bold>.</bold>SE, S<bold>.</bold>SC</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <hd id="AN0184039231-17">The structural characteristics of critical thinking in children of different genders under pe...</hd> <p>In order to analysis the developmental characteristics of the children of different genders throughout the experiment, the text was entered into the cognitive web platform web ENAkibt and executed to obtain the plots of the qualitative heart of the children of different genders (Fig. 6). A total of 24 boys (indicated by red dots) and 17 girls (indicated by blue dots) participated in this experiment. From the center of mass plot, it can be seen that girls are located on the right side of the X-axis of the coordinate axis and boys are located on the left side of the X-axis of the coordinate axis, which indicates that there is a difference between boys and girls in the two-dimensional space, the X-axis, and the Y-axis does not have a difference.</p> <p>Graph: Fig. 6 Critical thinking qualitative map for children of different genders</p> <p>This can be done by calculating the results of the two independent t-test values for children of different genders and analyzing the results of the plots similarly, the independent t-test values are shown in Table 10. Table 8 can be seen that there is a significant difference between boys and girls in X dimension (P = 0.00*) and no difference in Y dimension (P = 1.00). Both the plots and the independent t-tests indicate that there is a difference between children of different genders in dimension X and no difference in dimension Y.</p> <p>Table 10 Independent t-test for differences in the structure of critical thinking among children of different genders +</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" rowspan="2"><p>stage</p></th><th align="left" colspan="6"><p>X dimension</p></th><th align="left" colspan="6"><p>Y dimension</p></th></tr><tr><th align="left"><p>mean</p></th><th align="left"><p>SD</p></th><th align="left"><p>N</p></th><th align="left"><p>t</p></th><th align="left"><p>P</p></th><th align="left"><p>d</p></th><th align="left"><p>mean</p></th><th align="left"><p>SD</p></th><th align="left"><p>N</p></th><th align="left"><p>t</p></th><th align="left"><p>P</p></th><th align="left"><p>d</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>Male</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.62</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.82</p></td><td align="left"><p>24</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>-5.85</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>0.00<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>1.85</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.00</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>1.74</p></td><td align="left"><p>24</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>0.00</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>1.00</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>0.00</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Female</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>-0.88</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.80</p></td><td align="left"><p>17</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.00</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.33</p></td><td align="left"><p>17</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>The details of the existence of differences in critical thinking between boys and girls under the peer assessment teaching strategy can be analyzed by means of a diagram of the critical thinking network model for children of different genders (Fig. 7). From Fig. 7 it can be seen that the graph on the left side shows the diagram of the critical thinking skills subtractive network model for boys and girls, on the top right side is the diagram of the critical thinking network model for boys and on the bottom right side is the diagram of the critical thinking network model for girls, and from the right side of the diagram of the critical thinking network model for both boys and girls individually, it can be seen that the boys' nodes for the sub-elements of I.CA, E.SR, E.JP, I.DC and I.QE are relatively large, and the five sub-elements are contained in the elements of inference and inference and explanation, so the main critical thinking skills of boys, inference and explanation, are developed, and the other 4 elements, interpretation、analysis、evaluation and self-regulation, need to be strengthened. The critical thinking network model diagram for girls at the bottom right shows that the I.CA, E.SR, E.JP, I.DC and I.QE sub-element nodes are still relatively large, while the other sub-element stages are relatively small. However, there is also a difference between girls and boys compared to each other, and this difference can be analyzed by the boys' and girls' phase-reduced critical thinking network model diagrams on the left, which shows that boys have more co-occurring links between I.QE-E.AA, I.QE-I.CA, I.QE-A.AA, and E.PA-I.CA than girls, whereas girls have more co-occurring links between I.QE-I.DC than boys.</p> <p>Graph: Fig. 7 Graph of the average network model of critical thinking for children of different genders</p> <hd id="AN0184039231-18">Discussion</hd> <p>Children's cognitive ability and higher order thinking ability are improved by doing while learning in manual classes (Niiranen, [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref61">43</reflink>]). Handicraft education in Finland promotes the development of students' problem-solving, creativity, and critical thinking skills (Niiranen & Rissanen, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref62">44</reflink>]). This study aims to explore the influence of peer assessment on children's critical thinking skills in manual classrooms, and visually present the development of children's critical thinking skills in different learning stages through epistemic network analysis technology. The cognitive network presents the critical thinking network model of children at each stage, which can more intuitively and realistically show the detailed development of children's critical thinking skills. The results reveal that children's critical thinking skills have been significantly improved under the peer assessment teaching strategy. This conclusion complements previous studies (Niiranen, [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref63">43</reflink>]; Niiranen & Rissanen, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref64">44</reflink>]) Lack of research on the influence of peer evaluation on children's critical thinking in handicraft courses. The following further discusses the reasons of peer evaluation's influence on children's critical thinking skills, and the fundamental discussion can provide a detailed reference for peer evaluation to promote children's critical thinking skills.</p> <hd id="AN0184039231-19">The role of peer assessment in enhancing children's critical thinking skills in the craft cou...</hd> <p>The present research experiment lasted a total of 12 weeks, and the children continued to grow and refine their work as they were assessed by their peers. At the same time, children's communication skills, expression skills and self-confidence improved, which is consistent with the findings of previous studies (Kao, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref65">28</reflink>]; Liu et al., [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref66">38</reflink>]; Van Zundert et al., [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref67">62</reflink>]). In this study, epistemic network analysis technique was used to present the changes in children's critical thinking at each stage, through a network model, and this visual presentation made the results more intuitive and visually appealing. It can be clearly seen from the network model diagram which critical thinking skills have improved at each stage, and the changes in the thickness of the nodes and co-occurring lines clearly and effectively express the critical thinking skills of the whole child throughout the learning stages. Throughout most of the previous studies, changes in critical thinking skills have been illustrated through experimental data (Barahona et al., [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref68">4</reflink>]; Jiang et al., 2022; Hwang & Chang, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref69">26</reflink>]). In contrast, this study presents children's critical thinking dynamically and visually through epistemic network technology, which is the innovation of this study.</p> <p>Peer assessment is an effective instructional model, and several studies have shown significant gains in students' critical thinking skills under this instructional model. For example, peer assessment was conceptualized and a dialogue rule for peer assessment was created. Students in the experimental group conducted peer assessment according to this dialogue rule, and the results showed that students in the experimental group made greater gains in critical thinking skills (Cheng et al., [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref70">9</reflink>]). By studying students' VR system design in a peer assessment learning style, the results showed that the critical thinking skills of students using peer assessment learning style were higher than those of students who did not traditionally use assessment learning style (Chang et al., [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref71">8</reflink>]). Peer assessment is also a learning strategy that promotes student discourse (Jiang et al., 2022). Children generate more dialogue with each other by interacting with their peers. These dialogues are often classified (Mercer, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref72">41</reflink>]) into four types of dialogues: exploratory, cumulative, disputatious, and interlocutory, with exploratory dialogue being the most meaningful (Mercer, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref73">41</reflink>]). Exploratory dialogue encourages participants to explore and construct knowledge together. Through the use of Exploratory Dialogue, students not only share information, but also actively participate in thinking, questioning, reasoning, and collaborative problem solving. This form of dialogue promotes deep learning and the development of critical thinking. In particular, exploring the mutual questioning of dialogue may create some conflict. Resolving these conflicting issues stimulates students to analyse, evaluate and examine each other's problems, which can lead to deep discussion and improve students' cognitive abilities and thinking skills (Jeong, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref74">27</reflink>]).</p> <p>In the handicraft class, children are full of expectations and curiosity for making a beautiful handicraft work, and they all hope that their works can be refined and perfect. Peer evaluation makes each other seriously think about the evaluation of their peers, actively take actions to correct their own problems, and constantly improve their handmade works. When evaluating the works of peers, I have thought deeply and analyzed the works of peers. Reflect on the existing problems, and finally put forward their own opinions. At the same time, they can also learn the advantages and experiences of others, and improve their critical thinking skills. In addition, whether children accept the opinions put forward by their peers should also be analyzed, thought and reflected. The final decision on whether to actively take action to improve and perfect also promotes children's critical thinking skills. Therefore, the peer assessment learning mode improves both critical thinking skills. This study reveals details of the evolution of critical thinking in preschoolers when peer assessment strategies are implemented in a kindergarten manual curriculum, adding theoretical content and practical reference cases to this research area.</p> <hd id="AN0184039231-20">Reason for the significant difference in the improvement of children's critical thinking skil...</hd> <p>The experimental results of this study showed that there is a difference in critical thinking skills between male and female children. This result is contrary to some research studies in the literature, researchers studied the level of critical thinking skills of male and female undergraduate students at University Putra Malaysia, and the results of the study showed that there is no significant difference between the critical thinking skills of male and female students (Ghadi et al., [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref75">18</reflink>]). SK and Halder ([<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref76">55</reflink>]) studied the emotional intelligence and critical thinking skills of freshman undergraduate students in terms of gender differences and the results showed that there is no differentiation in critical thinking skills by gender. The reasons why the results of this study contradict the findings of other studies are analyzed below.</p> <p>First, there are gender differences in children's critical thinking skills, which refers to the differences in the distribution of critical thinking skills. Through peer assessment in craft classes, children have the opportunity to look at problems from different perspectives, learn to think rationally and receive constructive feedback from their peers. This cooperative learning style not only improves children's expression and communication skills, but also promotes the improvement of children's critical thinking skills, both boys and girls have been improved (Cheng et al., [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref77">9</reflink>]; Hwang & Chang, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref78">26</reflink>]; Liu et al., [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref79">38</reflink>]). When sorting out the text of children's classroom discourse, it is found that boys have less discourse, while girls have stronger expression ability and more advantages in language, which is the same as the previous research results (Halpern, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref80">19</reflink>]). However, in the handicraft class, there are higher requirements for children's hands-on ability, and boys generally have strong operational ability (Buchholz et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref81">5</reflink>]; Wang & Degol, [<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref82">67</reflink>]). Boys can think seriously about the evaluation of their peers, actively take measures to improve their own handmade works, and constantly improve their critical thinking skills in the process of solving problems. Due to the different advantages of boys and girls, although the critical thinking skills have been improved, there are differences in the distribution of critical thinking skills. This study reveals differences in critical thinking skills among children of different genders, tracing them back to changes in a certain sub-skill of critical thinking, rather than vaguely introducing differences or non-differences in critical thinking among children of different genders, in more detail than previous studies (Oktaviasari & Khotimah, [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref83">46</reflink>]).</p> <p>Second, language is a communication tool for children, which is internalized into thinking ability in later continuous learning (Vygotsky, [<reflink idref="bib66" id="ref84">66</reflink>]). Language is an important communication tool in early childhood, and with continuous learning and interaction, it is gradually internalized as the basis of children's thinking skills. Peer assessment, as a way of learning, plays a key role in promoting children's ability to express and communicate with each other. Children not only learn to express their own ideas effectively, they also learn to listen and understand the points of view of their peers. This positive learning environment helps the language internalize into more complex and flexible forms of thinking. Studies on the academic performance and cognitive ability of both male and female students have shown that female students score higher in writing and expression tests, while male students perform significantly better in visuospatial tests (Halpem, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref85">19</reflink>]). The cognitive differences of students of different genders affect the distribution of critical thinking skills.</p> <hd id="AN0184039231-21">Limitations and future research</hd> <p>There are some limitations to this study, including two main factors. Firstly, the small size and limited scope of the study was a notable limitation. Data sampling was limited to one class in one kindergarten, resulting in a relatively small sample size. The spread of pandemic viruses during the winter months resulted in high rates of child absenteeism, further limiting data collection. This limited the findings in terms of comprehensiveness and completeness, making it difficult to cover a wider group of kindergartens. Secondly, the short duration of the study was also a limiting factor. The experiment was only conducted for 12 weeks, which only covered data from children's manual lessons for one term. As children are at a stage of rapid development, including rapid changes in cognitive skills, problem solving skills and complex thinking skills, it is difficult for this short-term data collection to fully reflect children's development. In particular, for the development of complex thinking skills, such as critical thinking skills, changes may require longer periods of sampled data and in-depth research analyses. Therefore, the representative the data of this study needs to be further enhanced to provide a more realistic and detailed understanding of the developmental trajectory of children's thinking skills.</p> <p>Future research can further explore the role of peer assessment in the development of critical thinking in children by expanding the sample size, increasing the length of the study, and combining other assessment instruments. This will provide a more solid theoretical foundation and practical guidance for improving the quality of kindergarten education and fostering more future citizens with critical thinking skills. In future studies, enlarging the sample size can improve the representativeness of the study, and expanding the length of the study will help observe whether there are geographical differences in children's critical thinking skills. By extending the length of the study, we can get a clearer picture of the details of the development of students' critical thinking skills under the peer assessment learning approach and observe the long-term evolution of children's critical thinking skills. Meanwhile, combining other assessment tools, such as qualitative analyses or in-depth interviews, can provide a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding. These improvements will help to remedy the shortcomings of the current study and provide a more reliable basis for future research.</p> <hd id="AN0184039231-22">Conclusion and implications</hd> <p>The impact of peer assessment on children's critical thinking in kindergarten craft course has become an area of research that has received much attention. Epistemic network analysis provides a new research method that can help researchers gain insight into the relationship between peer assessment and children's critical thinking. In this study, we used epistemic network analysis to explore the effects of peer assessment on children's critical thinking in a kindergarten handicraft course. By analyzing the structural characteristics of children's critical thinking in peer assessment at different stages and genders, we found some interesting and important trends and differences. These findings emphasize the key role of peer assessment on children's critical thinking in the kindergarten craft course. Critical thinking is a higher-order thinking skill that is important for children's future learning and growth. Peer assessment can provide children with more opportunities to exercise their thinking and promote their critical thinking skills. In the process of peer assessment, children need to learn to listen carefully to the opinions of others, analyze, compare, evaluate and judge the work of their peers, so that children's critical thinking skills can be developed. Educators should make use of the teaching strategy of peer assessment to promote the overall development of children's critical thinking skills, while fully understanding and respecting the individual differences of children of different ages and genders. This will help to provide more targeted educational and support measures for the integrated development of children.</p> <p>Based on this study, the following recommendations are made. Firstly, students can be encouraged to use the teaching strategy of peer assessment in teaching to improve their learning ability and complex thinking skills. Secondly, more relevant manual courses can be offered to children to stimulate their curiosity and make them more interested in teaching the courses. Learning on the basis of interest is usually twice the result with half the effort. Handicraft classes can develop children's hands-on skills and problem-solving abilities. Thirdly, attention to developing children's critical thinking skills, which have a positive impact on their development, is encouraged in daily teaching.</p> <hd id="AN0184039231-23">Data availability</hd> <p>The data generated during the current study are partly available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. Because the class video data included images of students and teachers, we cannot share them with the readers due to the ethical reason.</p> <hd id="AN0184039231-24">Declarations</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0184039231-25">Ethical</hd> <p>All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of national research committee.</p> <hd id="AN0184039231-26">Informed consent</hd> <p>Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.</p> <hd id="AN0184039231-27">Conflict of interest</hd> <p>The authors declare no competing interests.</p> <hd id="AN0184039231-28">Publisher's Note</hd> <p>Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.</p> <ref id="AN0184039231-29"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref1" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Abrami PC, Bernard RM, Borokhovski E, Waddington DI, Wade CA, Persson T. 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  Label: Education Level
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Early+Childhood+Education%22">Early Childhood Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Elementary+Education%22">Elementary Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Kindergarten%22">Kindergarten</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Primary+Education%22">Primary Education</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Early+Childhood+Education%22">Early Childhood Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Kindergarten%22">Kindergarten</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Preschool+Children%22">Preschool Children</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Critical+Thinking%22">Critical Thinking</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Peer+Evaluation%22">Peer Evaluation</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Handicrafts%22">Handicrafts</searchLink>
– Name: DOI
  Label: DOI
  Group: ID
  Data: 10.1007/s10798-024-09914-5
– Name: ISSN
  Label: ISSN
  Group: ISSN
  Data: 0957-7572<br />1573-1804
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: Critical thinking, as one of the core literacies in the twenty-first century, is essentially the thinking process of making reasonable inferences, questioning and analyzing based on factual evidence. In this paper, we first coded the kindergarten manual class group peer evaluation text through the critical thinking framework proposed by Facione, then processed the text using epistemic network analysis techniques to obtain a network model of critical thinking skills, and finally analyzed the effects of peer evaluation on children's critical thinking skills. The results of the study show that (1) there are differences in the effects of peer evaluation on children's critical thinking skills at different stages. The difference was significant in the early and middle stages, and non-significant in the middle to late stages. This change is a non-linear change, but in general, children's critical thinking is progressing, and this progress is slower in the later stages. (2) There are differences in the structural characteristics of children's critical thinking skills by gender, but this difference is not significant.
– Name: AbstractInfo
  Label: Abstractor
  Group: Ab
  Data: As Provided
– Name: DateEntry
  Label: Entry Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2025
– Name: AN
  Label: Accession Number
  Group: ID
  Data: EJ1485224
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1485224
RecordInfo BibRecord:
  BibEntity:
    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1007/s10798-024-09914-5
    Languages:
      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 29
        StartPage: 431
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Early Childhood Education
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Kindergarten
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Preschool Children
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Critical Thinking
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Peer Evaluation
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Handicrafts
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: A Study of the Effect of Peer Assessment on Children's Critical Thinking in a Kindergarten Craft Course
        Type: main
  BibRelationships:
    HasContributorRelationships:
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Yan Wang
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Xia Zhang
    IsPartOfRelationships:
      – BibEntity:
          Dates:
            – D: 01
              M: 04
              Type: published
              Y: 2025
          Identifiers:
            – Type: issn-print
              Value: 0957-7572
            – Type: issn-electronic
              Value: 1573-1804
          Numbering:
            – Type: volume
              Value: 35
            – Type: issue
              Value: 2
          Titles:
            – TitleFull: International Journal of Technology and Design Education
              Type: main
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