Assessing Change in Student Critical Thinking for Introduction to Sociology Classes

Rickles, Michael L; Schneider, Rachel Zimmer; Slusser, Suzanne R.; Williams, Dana M.; Zipp, John F.

doi:10.1177/0092055x13479128

Cited by 16 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…It is commonly understood that critical thinking involves more than information recall about a body of knowledge. Rickles, Schneider, Slusser, Williams, and Zipp (2013) conceptualize critical thinking as a process that involves critical reasoning which is used to assess "the logical or empirical sufficiency of a statement" and creative reasoning that "defends a logical and empirical statement that has been created" (p. 272). Faculty can improve student critical thinking skills by creating opportunities for students to assess thinking in the discipline (Broadbear, 2003).…”

Section: Critical Thinking and Critical Readingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Text Selection and Course Design: Faculty Perspectives on Critical Reading and Critical Thinking

Collins-Dogrul¹,

Saldaña²

2019

JoSoTL

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This study of sociology faculty in twelve private colleges and universities compares teaching with textbooks and textbook alternatives in undergraduate classes. Faculty explain that textbooks provide a breadth of material that is organized and streamlined in a way that promotes consistency across instructors, facilitates content delivery to students with a range of abilities, and reduces course preparation time. Despite these benefits, faculty have a strong preference for textbook alternatives. Faculty argue that readings, like monographs and journal articles, develop students' critical reading and thinking skills. Additionally, when instructors design courses with alternative readings they engage their own critical reading and thinking, as they critique and synthesize the literature in their discipline in order to curate texts for the syllabus. We argue that teaching courses with alternative readings creates course experiences where students and faculty engage with a discipline together.Texts are essential to course design. They shape how professors organize units, structure lectures, and assess learning. Despite the importance of choosing texts, systematic research concerned with why instructors choose textbooks or choose alternative readings is scarce. We surveyed thirty-six sociology professors at twelve small and medium private institutions to bring the pedagogy of choosing texts to the fore. This research asks, why do instructors choose textbooks, monographs, or other types of readings? How do instructors understand how the choice of one form of text or another shapes teaching and learning?Our inductive qualitative analysis of open-ended survey interview questions, revealed that faculty view textbooks and their alternatives as fundamentally different. Faculty noted that textbooks had particular strengths, like providing a breadth of material that is organized and streamlined in a way that promotes consistency across instructors, ensuring that departmental learning objectives are achieved with a variety of instructors. They explained that the books facilitate content delivery to students with a range of abilities, and that textbooks reduce course preparation time for faculty. Still, the faculty in our study had a strong preference for teaching without textbooks.Instructors saw alternatives to textbooks, like monographs and articles, as time-intensive to teach, but the best way to advance students' critical reading and thinking skills, a finding congruent with the academic literacy literature. In addition, instructors viewed the task of finding textbook alternatives as a way to engage their own critical reading and thinking skills in their teaching, a benefit rarely discussed in the literature. We argue that teaching courses with alternative readings creates a course experience where both students and faculty engage in evaluative reading and creative reasoning. Unfortunately, according to our participants, the conversations regarding course design around textbook alternatives are lacking on campus. The overwh...

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Section: Critical Thinking and Critical Readingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Text Selection and Course Design: Faculty Perspectives on Critical Reading and Critical Thinking

Collins-Dogrul¹,

Saldaña²

2019

JoSoTL

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…We developed our codebooks through many rounds of data analysis, including: an initial phase using a small sample of 18 students' combined pre-and-post test questions with an a priori coding approach, a second phase using a larger sample of 59 participants' pre-and-post surveys with an open coding approach, and multiple phases of iteration and refinement with a focus on achieving interrater reliability and a stable metric. Identifying the Biggs and Collis' (1982) SOLO Taxonomy through research by Rickles, Schneider, Slusser, Williams, and Zipp (2013) represented the crux of refining our complexity codebook and, ultimately, our adaptation and application of the SOLO Taxonomy provided a strong metric to gain insight into the specific aspects of students' questions that make them more or less complex.…”

Section: Instrument Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An acronym for the Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes, Biggs and Collis' (1982) SOLO Taxonomy provides an opportunity to investigate the nuances of thinking and disarticulate aspects that make thinking more or less complex. Initially developed to classify student learning outcomes in terms of quality, Biggs and Collis' (1982) work has been taken up by assessment and curriculum design circles (Biggs & Tang, 2011;Ramsden, 1992), in addition to those interested in evaluating changes in critical thinking (Rickles et al, 2013). Based on research that examined student learning, the taxonomy includes five hierarchical outcomes that indicate the complexity of students' understandings.…”

Section: Instrument Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring Media Literacy Inquiry in Higher Education: Innovation in Assessment

Schilder¹,

Redmond²

2019

JMLE

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The ability to critically access, analyze, evaluate, and create media messages is crucial in the process of becoming an informed and engaged citizen throughout life. Asking critical questions is not only a valuable dimension of media literacy, but also an indispensable aspect of participating in a democracy. Yet, measuring the effectiveness of media literacy is still a major challenge for the field. It is unclear to what extent people of all ages may engage in critical questioning habits with regards to media. To address this gap, we studied the changes in critical questioning habits for college-aged students enrolled in media literacy courses. To measure students' media literacy inquiry, we evaluated the questions they posed in response to viewing an advertisement. We analyzed questions by media literacy concept and by level of complexity before and after their participation in the media literacy courses. Findings revealed that after the media literacy courses, students' inquiries were more complex and involved more attention to key concepts related to production techniques and representations. Our study is significant as it reflects an innovative approach to media literacy assessment and a fresh perspective for examining the impact of media literacy on cultivating complex, critical thinking skills that could be applied with learners of all ages.

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“…Most of these studies focused on assessing critical thinking (Bissell & Lemons, 2006;Ennis, 1993;Gelerstein et al, 2016;Giancarlo, Blohm, & Urdan, 2004;Gorton & Hayes, 2014;Rickles, Schneider, Slusser, Williams, & Zipp, 2013;Saadati, Tarmizi, & Bayat, 2010;Stein, Haynes, Redding, Ennis, & Cecil, 2007), creative thinking (Doppelt, 2009;Kim, 2006;Torrance, 1974) and reflective thinking (van Velzen, 2004;YuekMing & Manaf, 2014). However, as Williams (2008, 2012) noted, none of these assessments integrated all thinking skills within one test.…”

Section: Assessment Of Children's Thinking Skillsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pupils’ Thinking Skills Development across Grade 4 - 6: An Investigation of 2096 Pupils in Mainland China Based on APTS

Zhao¹,

Wang²,

Chen³

et al. 2017

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A variety of thinking skills interventions have been implemented in schools and relative assessments emerged. However, due to inconsistencies of assessment techniques and lack of norms from large-scale samples, it remains problematic to compare the effects of various thinking interventions in general. This study aimed to investigate the current situation of thinking skills of 2096 pupils in 4 th , 5 th , and 6 th grade from six primary schools located in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Xi'an respectively. The "Assessment of Pupils' Thinking Skills (APTS)" measure developed by Burke and Williams (2012) was translated into Chinese and used as the instrument. Results demonstrated that there were significant improvements in the pupils' overall thinking skills from 4 th to 5 th grade and from 5 th to 6 th grade as well. However, the pupils' metacognitive reflection did not improve significantly from 4 th grade to 5 th grade while they increased dramatically from 5 th to 6 th grade. The pupils' definition of thinking skills and application of some thinking skills (i.e., Grouping, Finding Reasons and Conclusions, Decision Making and Problem Solving) showed the same trends as metacognitive reflection. Differentiations in thinking skills development were found when compared among schools. Reasons for these differentiations and implications for teaching thinking in primary schools were discussed.

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Assessing Change in Student Critical Thinking for Introduction to Sociology Classes

Cited by 16 publications

References 25 publications

Text Selection and Course Design: Faculty Perspectives on Critical Reading and Critical Thinking

Text Selection and Course Design: Faculty Perspectives on Critical Reading and Critical Thinking

Measuring Media Literacy Inquiry in Higher Education: Innovation in Assessment

Pupils’ Thinking Skills Development across Grade 4 - 6: An Investigation of 2096 Pupils in Mainland China Based on APTS

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