(19c) What Is Critical Thinking? A Constructivist Approach

Measurement of critical thinking requires a clear understanding of what critical thinking is. Most definitions of critical thinking are based on philosophical or educational beliefs about what critical thinking “should be”. These definitions are often based on a consensus opinion of experts, rather than on empirical evidence of how critical thinking is enacted in practice. This presentation focuses on two studies that shed light on how critical thinking actually occurs. The first was a pilot mixed methods study, which compares the critical thinking skills of undergraduate and graduate materials engineering students using the California Critical Thinking Skills Test. Surprisingly, undergraduates scored higher that graduate students, suggesting they have better critical thinking skills. Examination of the scores and comments from the students revealed that the difference is due to the way each group approached the test. Thus, the results appear to reflect differences in test-taking skills rather than critical thinking skills, and call into question the use of multiple choice instruments to measure critical thinking. The second study was a constructivist qualitative study in which undergraduate civil engineering students were shown problems from the CCTST, both with and without the multiple choice answers, and asked to discuss their approaches to the problems. This then led into a broader discussion of how they viewed critical thinking. The findings illustrate that critical thinking as practiced by students takes a wide variety of forms, and thus how experts view critical thinking may not reflect what actually occurs in the classroom.