Current faculty and other stakeholders for higher education have cited a lack of critical thinking within traditional undergraduate students. Some have touted this "soft skill" as a necessary competency for postgraduate employment because others within the private sector have challenged higher education to reconsider how this skill is…

The main aim of the present investigation was to examine conditional reasoning skills in college students whose educational past had emphasized verbatim learning. A successive independent-samples design was utilized to explore the effects of instruction that explicitly targeted critical thinking principles in either freshman students or…

The Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded in 2002 for work on judgment and decision-making tasks that are the operational measures of rational thought in cognitive science. Because assessments of intelligence (and similar tests of cognitive ability) are taken to be the quintessence of good thinking, it might be thought that such measures would…

This article deals with the concept of reflective thought or critical thinking from its initial formulation as an intellectual attitude to its current articulation as a third level of cognitive processing. Issues dealt with include critical thinking as a goal, as a cognitive process, as a part of dual cognitive processes, as a measurable…

The current paper discusses ambiguities in critical thinking assessment. The paper first reviews the components of critical thinking. It then discusses the features and issues of commonly used critical thinking tests and to what extend they are made compatible to the conceptualization of critical thinking. The paper argues that critical thinking…

Replicates and extends Riding and Powells' study of four-year-olds' problem-solving abilities using computer activities. Achieves similar results, namely significantly greater improvement between the pretest and posttest scores for the treatment group. Suggests that computers could aid worthwhile improvement in young children's thinking…

Describes a study that measured the disposition toward critical thinking of freshmen enrolled in California State University's (Northridge) College of Business Administration and Economics. Reports: (1) a positive tendency toward critical thinking for these students; (2) no significant differences in this tendency among ethnic groups; and (3) no…

A historical review of educational literature concerning measurement of cognitive skills is provided, with reference to test construction. Focus is on assessing abilities beyond recall of information. In light of interest in assessing critical thinking in the California Assessment Program, it must be noted that concern with critical thinking is…

In January 1988 the Committee on Pre-College Philosophy of the American Philosophical Association undertook a survey of the state of the art of critical thinking (CT) assessment. Using Delphi research methodology, a panel of 60 scholars and teachers from throughout the United States and Canada, with backgrounds in Philosophy, Psychology,…

Critical thinking can be explained as an effective, organized and functional cognitive process to understand our own thoughts and other people's opinions and to improve our dispositions to express ourselves. Critical thinking is a process and also dispositions about deciding what to do or believe logically. In addition it provides the possibility…

Research has revealed distinct differences in the problem-solving approaches of high- and low-aptitude students. As a consequence, content area teachers can focus on thinking skills by having students describe their mental processes and giving them feedback on erroneous or incomplete reasoning. (TE)

The Springs task, an individually administered measure of ability to criticize and control experiments, is described. The task has characteristics similar to Inhelder and Piaget's Bending Rods task; it yields scores on naming variables, controlling variables, and analyzing experiments. (See also RIE: ED 163 092.) (JKS)

The usefulness of studying thought processes in the construct validation of ability tests was examined using a sample consisting of 343 Canadian senior high school students. Four levels of probing were used by the interviewer to examine the students' thinking processes while taking the Test on Appraising Observations: (1) think aloud; (2)…

This study planned further research aimed at understanding how the current version of the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) analytical measure reflects cognitive skills that are important to success in graduate education. Several activities were completed, including selective literature reviews of: (1) cognitive and psychometric research on…

Adolescents, ages 11-12 and 13-14, were tested for maturity of judgment about stability-change situations and about time perspective. (CP)