Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online 2026-1
From Family to Classroom: A Multilevel Analysis of Environmental and Individual Drivers of Scientific Higher-Order Thinking in Urban Junior High Schools
Scientific higher-order thinking (S-HOT) is a key competency for cultivating innovation in science and technology. However, its influencing pathways remain unclear. This study integrates structural equation modeling and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis to explore how individual and environmental factors such as parental engagement, family atmosphere, scientific critical and judgmental ability, learning engagement, extracurricular reading, and teaching methods shape junior high school students’ S-HOT. Based on data from 124 students in Beijing, the findings show that scientific critical and judgmental ability positively affects S-HOT. Extracurricular reading enhances S-HOT indirectly through learning engagement or in combination with scientific critical and judgmental ability. However, excessive learning engagement may have a negative impact. fsQCA reveals six distinct factor combinations that contribute to S-HOT, highlighting the presence of multiple effective pathways. These findings offer both theoretical insight and practical guidance for the targeted development of higher-order thinking in science education.
AbramiP. C.BernardR. M.BorokhovskiE.WaddingtonD. I.WadeC. A.PerssonT. (2015). Strategies for teaching students to think critically: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 85(2), 275–314.
2.
AndersonL. W.KrathwohlD. R. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives (complete ed.). Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.
3.
AndrewsR.BeynonM. J.McDermottA. M. (2016). Organizational capability in the public sector: A configurational approach. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 26(2), 239–258.
4.
ArpaciI.BaloğluM. (2016). The impact of cultural collectivism on knowledge sharing among information technology majoring undergraduates. Computers in Human Behavior, 56, 65–71.
5.
AstinA. W. (1984). Student involvement: A developmental theory for higher education. Journal of College Student Personnel, 25(4), 297–308.
6.
AstinA. W. (2014). Student involvement: A developmental theory for higher education. In College student development and academic life (pp. 251–262). Routledge.
7.
BloomB. S.EngelhartM. D.FurstE. J.HillW. H.KrathwohlD. R. (1956). Handbook I: cognitive domain (pp. 483–498). David McKay.
8.
BoranY. (2024). Research on the establishment of extracurricular reading environments for rural primary school students. Transactions on Comparative Education, 6(1), 37–44.
9.
ChanY. K. (2016). Investigating the relationship among extracurricular activities, learning approach and academic outcomes: A case study. Active Learning in Higher Education, 17(3), 223–233.
10.
ChasanahA. N. (2019). Cognitive growth learning model to improve the students’ critical thinking skills. Journal of Research and Advances in Mathematics Education, 4(2), 112–123.
11.
ChenY.TeradaT. (2021). Development and validation of an observation-based protocol to measure the eight scientific practices of the next generation science standards in K-12 science classrooms. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 58(10), 1489–1526.
12.
CohenF.AndersY. (2020). Family involvement in early childhood education and care and its effects on the social-emotional and language skills of 3-year-old children. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 31(1), 125–142.
13.
FanK.SeeB. H. (2022). How do Chinese students’ critical thinking compare with other students?: A structured review of the existing evidence. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 46, 101145.
14.
FissP. C. (2011). Building better causal theories: A fuzzy set approach to typologies in organization research. Academy of Management Journal, 54(2), 393–420.
15.
FredricksJ. A.BlumenfeldP. C.ParisA. H. (2004). School engagement: Potential of the concept, state of the evidence. Review of Educational Research, 74(1), 59–109.
16.
GreckhamerT.FurnariS.FissP. C.AguileraR. V. (2018). Studying configurations with qualitative comparative analysis: Best practices in strategy and organization research. Strategic Organization, 16(4), 482–495.
17.
GriffithsT. L.LiederF.GoodmanN. D. (2015). Rational use of cognitive resources: Levels of analysis between the computational and the algorithmic. Topics in Cognitive Science, 7(2), 217–229.
18.
HalimL.Abd RahmanN.ZamriR.MohtarL. (2018). The roles of parents in cultivating children's interest towards science learning and careers. Kasetsart Journal of Social Sciences, 39(2), 190–196.
19.
HeijltjesA.van GogT.LeppinkJ.PaasF. (2014). Improving critical thinking: Effects of dispositions and instructions on economics students' reasoning skills. Learning and Instruction, 29, 31–42.
20.
HeX.Kaur Swaran SinghC. (2024). The incorporation of higher order thinking skills in a blended EFL reading classroom. International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development, 13, 83–98.
21.
HuL.BentlerP. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling A Multidisciplinary Journal, 6(1), 1–55.
22.
KhunaifiA. R. (2015). The effects of teaching critical thinking on students’ argumentative essay. Journal on English as a Foreign Language, 5(1), 45–56.
23.
KowalczykN. (2011). Review of teaching methods and critical thinking skills. Radiologic Technology, 83(2), 120–132.
24.
KuhG. D. (2001). Assessing what really matters to student learning inside the national survey of student engagement. Change: The magazine of higher learning, 33(3), 10–17.
25.
LinL.ZhouD.HuX.WangJ.WangY. (2024). Multiple factors drive the development of scientific thinking in urban primary school students of China: FsQCA analysis based on the ecological systems theory. Education and Urban Society, 56, 906–927.
26.
ListA.SunY. (2023). To clarity and beyond: Situating higher-order, critical, and critical-analytic thinking in the literature on learning from multiple texts. Educational Psychology Review, 35(2), 40.
27.
LiW. P.ShenH. (2020). Can learning engagement bring added value to critical thinking skills? Evidence from the “2016 National Undergraduate Competency Assessment. Fudan Education Forum, 18(4), 64–71.
28.
LuY.LuoQ. (2023). Parental involvement: A critical key to achieving academic resilience for disadvantaged students—A correlation analysis based on the family education survey of 50,826 junior high school students in Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province and the academic quality monitoring data. Elementary and Middle School Management, 7, 45–49.
29.
LuY.ShenH.ZhangQ. (2023). The cost of thinking when grades are king: Learning engagement and undergraduate students' academic performance and higher-order thinking skills. Fudan Education Forum, 21(4), 78–86.
30.
LvS.ChenC.ZhengW.ZhuY. (2022). The relationship between study engagement and critical thinking among higher vocational college students in China: a longitudinal study. Psychology Research and Behavior Management, 2989–3002.
31.
MarksH. M. (2000). Student engagement in instructional activity: Patterns in the elementary, middle, and high school years. American Educational Research Journal, 37(1), 153–184.
32.
MarzanoR. J.KendallJ. S. (Eds.). (2006). The new taxonomy of educational objectives. Corwin Press.
33.
MihelichJ. A.SarathchandraD.HormelL.StorrsD. A.WiestM. M. (2016). Public understanding of science and K-12 STEM education outcomes: Effects of Idaho parents’ orientation toward science on students’ attitudes toward science. Bulletin of Science Technology & Society, 36(3), 164–178.
34.
Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. (2022). Compulsory education curriculum standards for science (2022 ed.). Beijing Normal University Press.
35.
MohammedH. A.MajeedN. T. (2024). The correlation between EFL university students critical thinking and reading comprehension. Journal of Tikrit University for Humanities, 31(4), 28–52.
36.
MubarokH.AnggrainiD. M. (2020). Literation skill to improve higher-order thinking skills in elementary school students. Al-Bidayah: Jurnal Pendidikan Dasar Islam, 12(1), 31–42.
37.
MunirJ.FaizaM.JamalB.DaudS.IqbalK. (2023). The impact of socio-economic status on academic achievement. Journal of Social Sciences Review, 3(2), 695–705.
38.
National Research Council. (2013). Next generation science standards: For states, by states. National Research Council.
39.
PappasI. O.PapavlasopoulouS.MikalefP.GiannakosM. N. (2020). Identifying the combinations of motivations and emotions for creating satisfied users in SNSs: An fsQCA approach. International Journal of Information Management, 53, 102128.
40.
PaulR.ElderL. (2019). The miniature guide to critical thinking concepts and tools. Rowman & Littlefield.
41.
PuntambekarS. (2022). Distributed scaffolding: Scaffolding students in classroom environments. Educational Psychology Review, 34(1), 451–472.
42.
RaginC. C.FissP. C. (2008). Net effects analysis versus configurational analysis: An empirical demonstration. Redesigning social inquiry: Fuzzy sets and beyond, 240, 190–212.
43.
ResnickL. B. (1987). Education and learning to think (p. 3). National Academy Press.
44.
SiarovaH.SternadelD.SzőnyiE. (2019). Research for CULT committee–Science and scientific literacy as an educational challenge. European Union.
45.
SongL.ZhanQ.CaoL.LuoR. (2024). Parent autonomy support and undergraduates’ academic engagement in online learning: The mediate role of self-regulation. Psicologia: Reflexão e Crítica, 37(1), 45.
46.
SunH.XieY.LavonenJ. (2024). Effects of the use of ICT in schools on students’ science higher-order thinking skills: comparative study of China and finland. Research in Science & Technological Education, 42(2), 276–293.
47.
SunJ. (2023). Exploration on the practice of English reading teaching in junior high school aiming at the cultivation of higher-order thinking. International Journal of New Developments in Education, 5(4), 27–33.
48.
SusantiA.RetnaningdyahP.AyuA. N. P.TrisusanaA. (2020). Improving EFL students’ higher order thinking skills through collaborative strategic reading in Indonesia. International Journal of Asian Education, 1(2), 43–52.
49.
UrueñaA.HidalgoA. (2016). Successful loyalty in e-complaints: FsQCA and structural equation modeling analyses. Journal of Business Research, 69(4), 1384–1389.
50.
VidalS.PereiraA.NúñezJ. C.VallejoG.RosendoD.MirandaS.TortellaJ.RosárioP. (2023). Critical thinking predictors: The role of family-related and motivational variables. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 49, 101348.
51.
WangY. J.ZhouD. H.YangY. (2023). Scientific higher-order thinking: Connotation, value, structure, function, and practical approaches. Modern Distance Education, 2023(2), 11–18.
