King and Kitchener’s Reflective Judgement Model (1994) describes seven stages of reasoning,

culminating in reflective thinking. In working with students, they suggest writing an initial
moral dilemma to determine how students think through it. For example, consider the
following moral dilemma from the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee:
Some say Boo Radley should be brought to trial because he killed Bob Ewell. Others contend
that putting Boo Radley on trial is pointless, sort of like “killing a mockingbird.”
Obviously, this is very open-ended. It is written to suggest two different perspectives to
consider about a major theme in the novel To Kill A Mockingbird. Although it is fairly simple in
its length and sentence construction, it does invite consideration, which is what you want to
elicit from your students to see how they are reasoning through the issue. King and Kitchener
suggest that individuals are in Pre-reflective Thinking if their reasoning about the above
dilemma fits one of the first three stages:
Stage 1: Knowledge is concrete and can be known through direct observation. In this case, I
really cannot comment much about this because I do not know Boo Radley or Bob Ewell. I see
things only as concrete and observational— black and white.
Stage 2: Knowledge is absolute and is available through observation or via authority figures. In
this case, the teacher lectured on this and thought that…(teacher’s perspective). I do not know
as much as my teacher, therefore, I believe what he/she said. I defer to the authority figure.
Stage 3: Knowledge is absolutely certain or temporarily uncertain. Only in the future will we
know for certain what is right. In this case, Who am I to say? Only the end of the novel will tell
for sure what the answer is.
The following two stages are termed Quasi Reflective Judgment Stages, which present
advanced levels of reasoning skills suitable for gifted and talented students ready for the
challenge:
Stage 4: People claim to know what is right for themselves, but are not willing to judge others’
behaviors or ideas. Everyone has a right to his/her own opinion. In this case, how can I judge
you for the way you think about this novel or this situation? You are entitled to your own
opinion just as much as I am entitled to mine.
Stage 5: While people may not know directly or with certainty, they may know within a
context based on subjective interpretations of evidence, a belief called relativism. What is
known is always limited by the perspective of the knower. In this case, we may not know with
certainty exactly what Harper Lee meant by this scenario. I have my own perspective—based
on my world view and what I know. You have your own perspective and your own subjective
interpretation.
While both stage 4 and 5 approach more independence in reasoning, they do not indicate that
the student is reasoning through the information given. Rather, they show reticence to judge,
which holds the student back from considering the entire situation freely. With all of these
thoughts in mind, consider the following two final stages termed Reflective Thinking:
Stage 6: People construct knowledge into individual conclusions about ill-structured problems
on the basis of information from a variety of sources. Interpretations that are based on
evaluations of evidence across contexts and on the evaluated opinions of reputable others can
be known. In this case, students consider the dilemma itself based on a variety of information.
They form conclusions based on what they know and what is evident in the novel about the
situation. They evaluate information independently and move on with their own judgments.
Stage 7: People view knowledge as the outcome of reasonable inquiry in which solutions to ill-
structured problems are constructed. They evaluate the adequacy of those solutions in terms
of what is most reasonable or probable on the basis of the current evidence, and they
reevaluate the evidence when relevant new evidence, perspectives, or tools of inquiry become
available. This is the highest level of thinking and is noted by the ability to add new evidence
when it presents itself. In this case, the more we learn about Boo Radley and Bob Ewell, the
more we can re-evaluate the scenario. Students are able to view both sides equally and find
the most salient idea, and change their thoughts as new evidence presents itself. Few students
can do this.