Enhancing and Assessing Critical Thinking in a Psychological Research Methods Course

Stark, Emily

doi:10.1177/0098628312437725

Cited by 26 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Similarly, students taking a research methods course showed a 10% reduction in paranormal beliefs following the course (Stark 2012). Specific subjects the belief in which was decreased were the following: psychic ability, witchcraft, spiritualism, and precognition.…”

Section: The Effect Of a Critical Thinking Course On Beliefmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Similarly, students in a course dedicated to skeptical investigation of parapsychology had a 32-45% decrease in paranormal beliefs (McLean and Miller 2010;Manza et al 2010). Students exposed to methods of critical thinking and evaluation of experimental design lowered their paranormal beliefs by 10% (Stark 2012), and the more scientific knowledge students had the more they rejected paranormal subjects (Bensley et al 2014). Many of these studies measured changes in paranormal belief after taking regular courses infused with critical thinking; however, in this study, changes in students' beliefs were investigated following a course specifically designed to teach critical thinking and basic science as well as directly confronting paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reducing Pseudoscientific and Paranormal Beliefs in University Students Through a Course in Science and Critical Thinking

Wilson

2018

Sci & Educ

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This study measured the relationship between student's religion, gender, and propensity for fantasy thinking with the change in belief for paranormal and pseudoscientific subjects following a science and critical thinking course that directly confronted these subjects. Student pre-course endorsement of religious, paranormal, and pseudoscientific beliefs ranged from 21 to 53%, with religion having the highest endorsement rate. Pre-course belief in paranormal and pseudoscientific subjects was correlated with high scores in some fantasy thinking scales and showed a gender and a religion effect with females having an 11.1% higher belief across all paranormal and pseudoscience subcategories. Students' religion, and frequency of religious service attendance, was also important with agnostic or atheist students having lower beliefs in paranormal and pseudoscience subjects compared to religious students. Students with either low religious service attendance or very high attendance had lower paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs. Following the critical thinking course, overall beliefs in paranormal and pseudoscientific subcategories lowered 6.8-28.9%, except for superstition, which did not significantly change. Change in belief had both a gender and religion effect with greater reductions among religious students and females.

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Section: The Effect Of a Critical Thinking Course On Beliefmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reducing Pseudoscientific and Paranormal Beliefs in University Students Through a Course in Science and Critical Thinking

Wilson

2018

Sci & Educ

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“…In previous studies, critical thinking skills have also predicted academic achievement (e.g., Gadzella et al, 1997;Lindblom-Ylänne et al, 1999Stark, 2012Williams et al, 2003), which further suggests that critical thinking skills should be evaluated more explicitly in entrance examinations.…”

Section: Implications Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 85%

“…For example, higher critical thinking skills have been found to be associated with higher academic achievement in some studies (Badcock, Pattison & Harris, 2010;Gadzella, Ginther & Bryant, 1997;Stark, 2012;Stone, Davidson, Evans & Hansen, 2001;Williams, Oliver, Allin, Winn & Booher, 2003), but not all.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

University Applicants’ Critical Thinking Skills: The Case of the Finnish Educational Sciences

Utriainen

Marttunen

Kallio

et al. 2016

Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research

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This study investigates the quality of the critical thinking skills of applicants (n=77) seeking entry to the faculty of educational sciences in a Finnish university and how these skills are associated with the applicant's age, previous higher education experience and matriculation and entrance examination scores. The data consist of the applicants' responses to problem-solving tasks and their matriculation and entrance examination scores. Critical thinking skills were measured with comparison and argumentation tasks. The results indicate that comparison of the texts and analysis of the arguments they contained were more difficult tasks than putting forward arguments both for and against of one's personal standpoint. In addition, previous experience of higher education predicted participants' comparison skills and their matriculation examination grades predicted their argumentation skills. The feasibility of using critical comparison tasks in the entrance examination tests is discussed.Keywords: critical thinking, argumentation, entrance examination, academic achievement, higher education 3Critical thinking and well-developed argumentation skills are commonly seen as important from the civic participation perspective (Arum & Roksa, 2011;Kuhn, 2005;Williams, Foster & Krohn, 2008), and are also regarded as key learning outcomes by higher education institutions (Halpern, 2001). Hence it is not surprising that university students' critical thinking skills have been widely studied (e.g., reviews by Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005;Niu, Behar-Horenstein & Garvan, 2013), and also that various definitions of critical thinking have been proposed. For example, Elder and Paul (2010) define critical thinking as a process of assessing and analyzing one's own thinking with the aim of improving it, whereas Ennis (1993) conceptualizes critical thinking as reasonable reflective thinking, aiming at deciding what to believe or not. These definitions highlight the importance of knowledge and its justification in conceptions of critical thinking. Ennis (2008) has labeled views of this kind as epistemic approaches to the conception of critical thinking, since they share the purpose of finding the truth or at least the closest approximation to it. In contrast to this common epistemic element is the claim that there is no unanimous definition of critical thinking (Flores, Matkin, Burbach, Quinn & Harding, 2012). Nevertheless, three common dimensions for critical thinking have been suggested, namely the ability to perform rational and reasonable thinking, the ability to see alternative viewpoints, and the ability to reflect on one's own thinking and its quality (Niu et al., 2013;Flores et al., 2012).Like the definitions of critical thinking, the research results on learning critical thinking skills as an outcome of university studies are also conflicting. In some studies, participation in higher education has been found to develop certain elements of students' critical thinking, that is, the ability to approach problems from various...

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“…Immersion-based instructional interventions that focused on various instructional strategies such as small-group discussion (e.g. Garside, 1996;Stark, 2012), problem-based learning (e.g. Sendag & Odabasi, 2009), repeated practice in higher-order questioning (e.g.…”

Section: Teaching Students To Think Critically: Review Of the Empiricmentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing Learning Environments for Critical Thinking: Examining Effective Instructional Approaches

Tiruneh

Cock

Elen

2017

Int J of Sci and Math Educ

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Fostering the development of students' critical thinking (CT) is regarded as an essential outcome of higher education. However, despite the large body of research on this topic, there has been little consensus on how educators best support the development of CT. In view of some of the controversies surrounding the teaching of CT skills in higher education, this study examined the effects of embedding CT instruction systematically in domain-specific courses (Immersion vs. Infusion) on the acquisition of domain-specific and domain-general CT skills and course achievement. First-year university students (N = 143) enrolled in an introductory physics course were assigned to one of three instructional conditions: Immersion, Infusion, and control. The Immersion and Infusion conditions followed lessons designed systematically based on the First Principles of Instruction model, whereas the control condition followed a regular instruction. Results showed that participants in the Immersion and Infusion conditions significantly outperformed those in the control condition on domain-specific CT proficiency and course achievement. However, neither the Immersion nor the Infusion condition was helpful in fostering the acquisition of domain-general CT skills. The findings generally demonstrated that embedding CT instruction systematically in domain-specific courses requires greater clarity about what set of CT skills could be targeted in domain-specific instruction, how specific subject-matter instruction could be designed considering CT as an integral part of domain-specific instruction, and how best CT outcomes be assessed. Some considerations for the design of CT-supportive learning environments are discussed.

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Enhancing and Assessing Critical Thinking in a Psychological Research Methods Course

Cited by 26 publications

References 15 publications

Reducing Pseudoscientific and Paranormal Beliefs in University Students Through a Course in Science and Critical Thinking

Reducing Pseudoscientific and Paranormal Beliefs in University Students Through a Course in Science and Critical Thinking

University Applicants’ Critical Thinking Skills: The Case of the Finnish Educational Sciences

Designing Learning Environments for Critical Thinking: Examining Effective Instructional Approaches

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