Critical Thinking Reports

At the end of each semester, in December and May, interim reports were distributed to students whose classes participated in the embedded Critical Thinking Assignment. The purpose was to thank students for their contribution to the assessment inquiry and to give them a glimpse of the context for their effort. For an example, see Interim Spring. These reports also went to all College staff.

The scores from the embedded assignment were analyzed and charted, and the results are available to college staff in the Quantitative Report (by password only.) At the broadest level, the quantitative results indicate that our students’ average scores were lower that we like and that there were too few students with high scores. The report suggests actions for improving students’ critical thinking skills.

Open-ended comments from critical thinking questionnaires and discussions were tabulated and analyzed and are available in the Qualitative Report. Comments were collected from the following:

• Casino Critico scorecards
• Debate
• Fall embedded assignment
• Focus group discussions

At the broadest level, the report indicates that students have opinions about critical thinking and are interested in how it works. This provides an opportunity for focusing pedagogy in new ways. This year’s venture into qualitative assessment was stimulating, and the Team is making efforts to explore further uses of qualitative methods.

The findings of the year’s assessment of Critical Thinking are reported in the Summary and Recommendations. They include:

• Observations of weaknesses in students’ critical thinking processes
• Reflections on students’ attitudes and beliefs about critical thinking
• Recommendations for raising awareness of critical thinking throughout the College
• Suggestions for encouraging teachers to use the rubric in class planning
• Identification of needed interactions with enrollment and placement structures

This year, as in the previous two years, the written and tabulated products of the assessment activities are represented in these pages, but the consequences of the process expand in many directions through the dynamics of observation, reflection, and experimentation.