Critical-Creative Thinking and Behavioral Research Laboratory - Brief History

Brief History

The process of establishment have started in March 2002. A core group of academicians have called for colleagues and students to participate in the new-founding laboratory. Following a number of meetings with the initial respondents, ELYADAL Research Group has started its activities on April 13, 2002. In order to test and form the interaction dynamics of the group, three subgroups have been established to work independently on three topics of interest. These topics were chosen so that no group member had previous in-depth knowledge or formal education about them, enabling equidistant amateurship in the beginning. The topics were the number Pi in mathematics, the microscopic organism Volvox colony in biology, and the black hole in physics. The studies of the groups were disseminated by a then-established popular scientific magazine named PiVOLKA (an anagram name including syllables from the three topics). Mini-group studies on natural scientific issues then become a one-step hurdle for the selection of prospective adjoiners and PiVOLKA became a source of dissemination and open forum to students and academicians in other universities as well.

The on-going studies by members of ELYADAL include critical thinking, political and economical psychology research and publications, convention papers, the PiVOLKA peer-reviewed quarterly scholarly publication, a booklet about research methods-academic writing, a booklet about statistics, seminars and panels on various topics.

ELYADAL has 28 papers that are published in various journals, 33 papers that are presented in various seminars and conferences, 16 talks that are broadcasted in media about psychology, social psychology, critical thinking, creative thinking, science against pseudoscience, etc.