Does the Blue Hat Work? The Impact of Using Six-thinking Hats in Online Collective Reflection on Pre-service Teachers Team Cohesion, Critical Thinking, and Creativity

Collective reflection refers to the process by which members of a community reflect through social interaction, as well as to the outcomes of this process. In the field of teacher education, research has shown that collaborative reflection enables teachers to engage in deeper reflection and gain the means to improve their teaching. But it also leads to problems, such as confusion and inefficiency. De Bono’s six-thinking hats refers to a parallel thinking strategy in which six coloured hats represent six different ways of thinking. It is designed to give group members a means to think together more effectively and collaboratively. The blue hat has overall planning and control function, which can make thinking more orderly and logical. The six-thinking hats have been used widely in business, medical care, and other fields but rarely for education. To explore the role of the blue hat, this study applied six-thinking hats as the thinking strategy tool in the collective reflection of pre-service teachers. This study used a quasi-experimental research method in which the control group used the six-thinking hats freely. The experimental group focused on the coordinating role of the blue hat, in the order of blue-green-blue-red-yellow-black-red-blue, etc. The study shows that focusing on using blue hat significantly increased pre-service teachers’ creativity and team cohesion and had insignificant effects on critical thinking during collective reflection by pre-service teachers.