Learning and development of critical thinking (CT) skills in higher education is essential for academic achievement. The following experiment is the first to examine the effect of online student’s perceptions and attitudes towards CT across dimensions of confidence, valuing, misconceptions, cognitive reflection, and authors writing. Furthermore, a CT intervention was developed, and the effects of the intervention examined with an aim to help students improve their grade point average. The analyses demonstrated that student’s confidence and cognitive reflection predict academic achievement. Moreover, the online CT intervention was associated with improved students’ CT attitudes, skills, and academic performance. Significant interactions were observed between time (pre- and post-intervention) and intervention in cognitive reflection, confidence, beliefs, and attitudes related to CT, and student grade point average (GPA, as a measure of student’s performance on online modules). It was concluded that the CT can be taught and that an intervention based on “how to think” rather than a “what to think” mixed approach can help online students develop CT, strengthen their confidence in CT and help students improve their academic performance in an online setting.

The murdering of one’s own infant may be one of the most harrowing crimes imaginable. Despite this and decades of debate over gendered infanticide laws, there exists little empirical work exploring attitudes toward individuals who have committed infant homicide. Such work has focused primarily on depictions of mothers, yet UK government data indicates that the majority of infant homicide cases involve paternal suspects. The present study used a mixed-methods design to explore attitudes toward mothers and fathers who have been accused of murdering their infant child. Vignettes were used to capture whether parental mental health issues impacted judgments. Participants (n = 245) were randomly assigned to one of two conditions, depicting a mother or father who admitted to murdering their infant child. Results indicated that maternal suspects are evaluated more leniently, in line with the chivalry hypothesis. Qualitative analyses uncovered hidden gender expectations: mothers were ascribed blame when the father was accused of infant homicide, a finding that was not present in the reverse scenario. These results suggest that traditional views of motherhood are at odds with a shifting social landscape that is seeing an increase in stay-at-home fathers wherein mothers are still held responsible for the father’s actions.

While the killing of one’s own infant is an undoubtedly harrowing crime, there exists little research exploring attitudes toward these individuals. Such work has focused primarily on depictions of mothers, yet U.K. government data indicate that the majority of infant homicide cases involve paternal suspects. A sample of U.K. residents ( n = 245) participated in a mixed-methods design to explore attitudes toward mothers and fathers who have been accused of murdering their infant child and whether parental mental health issues impacted these judgements. Results aligned with the chivalry hypothesis wherein maternal suspects were evaluated more leniently. Qualitative analyses uncovered hidden gender expectations: mothers were ascribed blame when the father was accused of infant homicide, a finding that was not present in the reverse scenario. This suggests that traditional views of motherhood conflict with a shifting social landscape that is seeing an increase in stay-at-home fathers and working mothers.