A Field Guide to Critical-Thinking Assessment

Which test? Whose scores? Comparing standardized critical thinking tests

“…This is one of the strengths of such multiplechoice exams as the CLZ and CCTST. As Possin (2008) has pointed out in his survey and analysis of CT tests, not all tests allow error analysis. This is a problem if the results from a test are intended to yield serious feedback to teachers for making specifi c changes in their approaches to CT.…”

“…It tests many of the skills normally associated with critical thinking: interpretation, argument analysis and appraisal, deduction, logical puzzles, and induction (Facione and Facione, 1994). According to Possin (2008), the test has become quite popular, even internationally, so it is easy to compare scores with other institutions. Between 1996 and 2005, we recorded 3,234 pretest and posttest scores for 1,617 freshmen.…”

“…If faculty members do not want to go down the laborious paths of collecting and evaluating student portfolios (Possin, 2008), or creating and attempting to validate their own assessment instrument, then they must choose from the numerous standardized critical-thinking tests that are on the market, administer the test, record pretest and posttest scores, and if possible perform an error analysis to determine which areas of student performance were weakest. Finally, after this process, faculty members are challenged to determine the strengths and weaknesses of their attempts to teach CT skills and adjust their pedagogy accordingly.…”

A Serious Flaw in the Collegiate Learning Assessment [CLA] Test

“…This is exactly the kind of instruction and practice students receive in a dedicated critical thinking or informal logic course, in which component critical-thinking skills are studied in multiple contexts and then ultimately applied holistically to multiple topics. Criticalthinking skills are not statistically significantly enhanced by content-specific courses, e.g., introduction to philosophy, or by content-independent courses, e.g., symbolic logic (Possin, 2008). Marcus Gillespie (2012) recently demonstrated this at Sam Houston State University, using the Critical Thinking Test [CAT]: The general education course, Foundations of Science, a critical-thinking course dedicated to the explicit study of inductive and scientific reasoning in the context of various subjectmatter case studies, enhanced the critical-thinking skills of the students more than students on average achieve otherwise after 4 years of university coursework.…”

“…Eager) is being treated as just plain wrong. When I began researching the CLA (Possin, 2008), I was struck by how any answer was accepted so long as the writer offered some reason for it, no matter its justificatory power or lack thereof-students were told to "Address the issue from any perspective-no answer is right." This invited sophistry instead of critical thinking; rationalization instead of justification.…”