Critical Thinking

1. Critical Thinking Dr. John Eigenauer Taft College

2. Questions to be Answered • Why should CT be taught? • What will be accomplished by teaching CT as a separate discipline? • How should CT be taught? • How will gains be measured?

3. Why teach critical thinking? • Strong correlation between trained critical thinking skills and GPA. • Critical thinking improves with correct training. • Strong correlation between trained critical thinking and reading skills. • One critical thinking course is roughly equivalent to four years of undergraduate education.

4. CT improves with training.

5. What will be accomplished?

6. The Parts of Critical Thinking • Interpretation • Analysis • Evaluation • Inference • Explanation • Self-regulation

7. The Parts of Critical Thinking 1. Interpretation: Correctly extracting the intended and essential meaning from information.2. Analysis: To assess the parts and relationships of communication.3. Evaluation: To use intellectual standards to judge the truth, credibility, or logical strength of a statement.4. Inference: To draw reasonable meaning, conclusions, or consequences from information, knowledge, or evidence. 5. Explanation: To “attempt to show why or how something happens” (William Hughes).6. Self-regulation: To consistently apply rules of intellectual expertise to one's own arguments. http://www.eigenauer.com/criticalthinking

8. Considerations • Students • Teachers • Methods

9. From Dartmouth • Confuse arguments with opinions. • Do not address complexities of an issue. • Use first legitimate source for their "opinion." • Complex issues incapacitate their ability to take a stand. • Will defend personal opinion despite evidence.

10. Research on the State of Student CT Abilities • “Unfortunately, the results of any number of national and international studies indicate that few high school graduates (or entering college students) are able to apply higher-order thinking skills to problems faced in everyday life (see e.g. NSF, 1996). Controlled studies in psychology and education confirm this finding. They indicate that most students have difficulty in (a) identifying and defining problems from multiple perspectives; (b) detecting gaps in knowledge and information; (c) establishing cause-effect relationships; (d) distinguishing facts from opinions or personal values; (e) accepting unfavorable information; and (f) evaluating costs and benefits of risky decisions (Arons, 1979; Baron, 1988; Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Gigerenzer, 1996; Kahneman & Tversky, 1996; Leshowitz, 1989; Leshowitz & Yoshikawa, 1996; Nisbett & Ross, 1980; Stanovich & West, 1998; Whimbey & Lockhead, 1986). In an exhaustive study evaluating the thinking of students in high school, college, and graduate school and comparison groups of nonstudents, Perkins (1985) has reached similar conclusions. Post-primary education appears to have little impact on students' reasoning about everyday events, and number of years of education is only a borderline significant predictor of reasoning ability.” (Current Issues in Education: http://cie.asu.edu/volume2/number5/)

11. Summary • Identifying and defining problems from multiple perspectives. • Detecting gaps in knowledge and information. • Establishing cause-effect relationships. • Distinguishing facts from opinions or personal values. • Accepting unfavorable information. • Evaluating costs and benefits of risky decisions.

12. What is the state of critical thinking in colleges? • 89% of college instructors said that critical thinking was “a primary object of their instruction”. • 19% “could give a clear explanation of what critical thinking is.” • 8% “could enumerate ANY intellectual criteria or standards they required of students or could give an intelligible explanation of what those criteria and standards were.”

13. Who teaches critical thinking in colleges? • 9% of college instructors teach critical thinking “on a typical class day”. • 77% “had little or no conception of how to reconcile content coverage with the fostering of critical thinking.” • 9% claimed that there is a growing need to teach critical thinking.

14. “Faculty Emphasis on Critical Thinking in Instruction” • inadvertently confuse the active involvement of students in classroom activities with critical thinking in those activities. • are unable to articulate their concept of critical thinking. • cannot provide plausible examples of how they foster critical thinking in the classroom.

15. “Faculty Emphasis on Critical Thinking in Instruction” • are not able to plausibly explain how to reconcile covering content with fostering critical thinking. • do not consider reasoning as a significant focus of critical thinking. • do not think of reasoning within disciplines as a major focus of instruction.

16. Summary • People do not learn to think critically without targeted instruction. • There are strong reasons to teach Critical Thinking. • College and university instructors generally do not know what CT is. • College and university instructors generally do not know how to do so.

17. How should Critical Thinking be taught? By Doing What WORKS

18. What Works?

19. What Works?

20. What Works?

21. “I’ve been skeptical about claims for various approaches to critical thinking, including those for argument maps coming from the University of Melbourne. Indeed, confident in our skepticism, we at Monash Philosophy accepted a challenge to compare our methods with theirs on pre- and post-test gains on the California Critical Thinking Skills Test developed by Peter Facione (1990, 1992). The Monash students did a bit better than theirs on the pre-test, raising our hopes. But when Melbourne University’s post-test results showed far higher performance gains, I thought their method worth a closer look.” Charles Twardy, Monash University Published in Teaching Philosophy

24. This presentation and more information about Critical Thinking can be found at: http://www.eigenauer.com/criticalthinking Phone: 661.763.7722 Email: jeigenauer@yahoo.com Dr. John Eigenauer