4 Critical Thinking Measures

Transcription

1 Critical Thinking Measures Objectives Introduction The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal The Cornell Critical Thinking test At the end of this chapter students should be able to: To understand the critical thinking measures. The New Jersey Test of Reasoning Skills The CAAP Critical Thinking test Summary

2 CREATIVE & CRITICAL THINKING STYLES.1 INTRODUCTION CRITICAL THINKING MEASURES Critical thinking is important in every aspect of living, therefore, the assessment of these skills is important. For some countries and in some learning areas, critical thinking test play an important role. For example, the State Board for Educator Certification of Texas, USA requires all educator preparation programmes to screen for critical thinking skills as a part of admission criteria to be accepted into the educator preparation programme. The University of Texas screens the student candidates for critical thinking skills by administering the Cornell Critical Thinking Test. A student must score above the 20 th percentile to be admitted into the Educator Preparation Program. If the students score below the 20 th percentile, he or she must retake the test. Usually these tests are used to assess student s critical thinking skills. These critical thinking tests consist of short reading passages and multiple choice questions. They ask respondents to perform higher thinking tasks such as making inferences, evaluating arguments and recognizing assumptions. By scoring at least minimum score, a student will be exempted from certain level critical thinking course. Three widely used instruments of critical thinking are The Watson-Glaser Jersey Critical Thinking Appraisal, the Cornell Critical Thinking Test and the New Jersey Test of Reasoning Skills. These instruments are derived from the philosophical perspective of critical thinking..2 THE WATSON-GLASER CRITICAL THINKING APPRAISAL The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WCTGA) is the world s most widely used instruments of critical thinking. There are five subtests in the WCTGA and it consists of a total 80 statements of fact. It requires forty minutes to complete. The sub-test is inference, recognition of assumptions, deduction, interpretation and evaluation of arguments. 76

3 Critical Thinking Measures The first sub-test is inference. It consists of three statements of fact that have to be regarded as true. After each statements of fact there are several possible inferences, the conclusion that some people might draw from the stated facts. The respondent is asked to make a decision to determine the degree of truth or falsity. For each inference the respondents is asked to mark the appropriate answer on the answer sheet. The second sub-test is Recognition of Assumptions which consists of six short statements. Each of the statements is followed by several proposed assumptions. The respondent is asked to make a decision to determine whether a person in making the given statement is really making that assumption that is taking it for granted, justifiably or not. For each assumption, the respondent is asked to choose the appropriate answer. The third sub-test is Deduction, which consist of four statements or premises, followed by several suggested conclusions. The respondents is asked to consider the statements as true without exception, then make a decision to determine whether the suggested conclusion is really a conclusion for the statements given. The Fourth sub-test is Interpretation which consists of six short paragraphs followed by several suggested conclusions. For the purpose of this test, all of the statements in the paragraph have to be regarded as true. The respondent is asked to judge whether or not each of the proposed conclusions logically follows beyond a reasonable doubt from the information given in the paragraph. 77

4 CREATIVE & CRITICAL THINKING STYLES. The fifth sub-test is named Evaluation of Arguments. It consists of five questions. Each question is followed by several arguments. The respondent is asked to determine whether it is strong or a weak argument. The advantage of the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal is its application to measure critical thinking in classroom settings. The actual test items have high face validity in that they draw upon classroom and general life situations. Besides that, various norms are available including the high school, college, university group norms and various occupational norms..3 THE CORNELL CRITICAL THINKING TEST There are three types of Cornell critical thinking test. The Cornell Class Reasoning Test, The Cornell Conditional Reasoning Test and the Cornell Critical Thinking test. The Cornell Critical Thinking Test is a philosophically based critical thinking test. The test was designed to measure the following skills: Deduction Induction Semantics Credibility Prediction in planning experiments Definition Identification of assumptions The test is available in two level, X and Z. Level X is appropriate for secondary school (grade 7) and beyond while Level Z is primarily for college students. Level X has 71 questions while level Z has 52 questions. Both level X and Z have a time limit of 50 minutes. Level X contains four sections. The first section contains items asking for the bearing, if any of information on a hypothesis. The hypothesis is in every case a general statement. Examinees must indicate whether a particular hypothesis is warranted by the data. The second section measures the ability to judge the reliability of information on the basis of its source and the conditions under which it is obtained. The third section measures students ability to judge whether a statement follows from its premises and the fourth section involves identification of assumptions. 78

5 Critical Thinking Measures Level Z contains seven sections. It measures the examinees ability to: Indicate whether a statement follows from its premises, Detect equivocal arguments, Evaluate reliability of observations and authenticity of sources, Judge the direction of support, if any, for a given hypothesis, Focus on choosing of useful predictions for the hypothesis testing Define terms Spot gaps in arguments. Norms for both levels of the Cornell Critical Thinking Test are available in various groups. Internal consistency reliabilities for various group appears to centre around.8 level for Level X and around.7 for level Z.. THE NEW JERSEY TEST OF REASONING SKILLS The third philosophically based test is The New Jersey Test of Reasoning Skills. The test was developed by Shipman (1983). This test is a 50 item inventory purporting to measure 22 different skills, converting statements, translating into logical form, inclusionexclusion, recognising improper questions, avoiding jumping to conclusions, analogical reasoning, detecting underlying assumptions, eliminating alternatives, inductive reasoning, reasoning with relationships, detecting ambiguities, discerning causal relationships, identifying good reasons, recognising symmetrical relationships, categorical syllogistic reasoning, distinguish differences of kind and degree, recognising transtative relationship, recognising dubious authority, reasoning with fourpossibilities matrices, contradicting statements, whole-part and part-whole reasoning and conditional syllogistic reasoning. 79

6 CREATIVE & CRITICAL THINKING STYLES The test is highly verbal. Its reliabilities are reported to be in the mid-to-high 80 s and it is reported to correlate at the.6 to.8 level with sub-test of the New Jersey College Basic Skills Placement Test, which is a verbal test that emphasise mathematical skills achievement. However, the weakness of the test is the examinees need to have a fairly high level of verbal comprehension to understand and score high in the test. According to Sternberg, (1986), the test is highly verbal loaded and one might well wonder as to the extent that what they measure is separable from general verbal skills..5 THE CAAP CRITICAL THINKING TEST The CAAP (Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency) Critical Thinking Test is used to measure skills in clarifying, analysing, evaluating and extending arguments. About 60% of this 32 item, 0 minute multiple choice test focuses on the analysis of the elements of an argument, with about 20% covering each of the other two areas (Evaluation of an arguments and extension of an arguments). The CAAP Critical Thinking Test Content Area Number of items Analysis of the Elements of an Arguments 20 Evaluation of an Arguments 6 Extension of an Arguments 6 Total 32 An argument is defined as a sequence of statements that includes a claim that one of the statements, the conclusions follows from the other statements. The test consists of four passages that are representative of the kind of issues commonly found in a college curriculum. A passage typically presents a series of sub-arguments in support of a more arguments and uses a variety of formats including case studies, debates, dialogues, overlapping positions, statistical arguments, experimental results and editorials. The CAAP measures individual and group achievement to provide greater information for institutional use. The CAAP is an assessment of higher order skills which takes students beyond recall of facts. The table present the content areas and number of items of the CAAP Critical Thinking Test. This chapter has discussed several critical thinking instruments from different perspectives which are available for measuring critical thinking skills. All the test provides means for assessing critical thinking without heavy demands upon the student knowledge base. However, one common weakness of these certain verbal skills to understand the test before answering them. 80

7 Critical Thinking Measures.6 SUMMARY Critical thinking is important in every aspect of living, therefore, the assessment of these skills is important. For some countries and in some learning areas, critical thinking test play an important role. In critical thinking measures can be divided into several tests which are: The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal, The Cornell Critical Thinking, The New Jersey Test of Reasoning Skills and The CAAP Critical Thinking Test. The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WCTGA) is the world s most widely used instruments of critical thinking. There are three types of Cornell critical thinking test. The Cornell Class Reasoning Test, The Cornell Conditional Reasoning Test and the Cornell Critical Thinking test. The Cornell Critical Thinking Test is a philosophically based critical thinking test. The third philosophically based test is The New Jersey Test of Reasoning Skills. The test was developed by Shipman (1983). This test is a 50 item inventory purporting to measure 22 different skills, converting statements, translating into logical form, inclusion-exclusion, recognising improper questions and others. Finally, The CAAP (Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency) Critical Thinking Test is used to measure skills in clarifying, analysing, evaluating and extending arguments. 81

8 CREATIVE & CRITICAL THINKING STYLES.7 REVIEW QUESTIONS Section A: Fill in the blanks. 1. There are subtests in the WGCTA and it consists of total 80 statements of fact. 2. The fourth sub-test is named 3. The Cornell Critical Thinking Test is a based critical thinking test.. The is used to measure skills in clarifying, analysing, evaluating and extending arguments. 5. The fourth sub-test for The Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal is 6. The Cornell Critical Thinking Test is available in two levels which are and. Section B: Short Answers Question. 1. List out the four theories involves in Critical Thinking Measure? 2. List and briefly explain the five sub-tests in The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking appraisal. 3. What is the used of The CAAP Critical Thinking Test?. Differentiate the two level usages in The Cornell Critical Thinking Test. 82

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