ASSESSMENT OF CRITICAL THINKING AND CIVIC THINKING IN INTRODUCTORY SCIENCE CLASSES USING A COMMON APPROACH AT MULTIPLE INSTITUTIONS

The development of critical thinking and civic thinking skills in undergraduate students are often cited as educational goals of colleges and universities. However, instructors struggle with the challenge of assessing these skills in their classes. We have used a common suite of exercises, termed (CT)2 exercises to assess these complimentary skills with two similar assessment tools that can be readily used to assess almost any written response.

A dozen instructors incorporated a series of assignments that foster the development of critical thinking and civic thinking skills in their classes. These (CT)2 exercises were embedded in ten introductory science courses (geology, biology, environmental science) serving primarily first-year students, typically non-majors. Each exercise presented a scenario of a realistic community situation, followed by one question that required critical thinking and one that required civic thinking. For example, after reading a scenario describing the potential contamination of a town's drinking water source, students were asked: 1. As a scientifically literate citizen, what conclusion(s) can you draw from the information provided, and why? 2. As a responsible citizen, what would you do or not do with the information provided, and why? The scenarios are purposely ambiguous and aim to present moral dilemmas that cannot be considered to have a particular ideological perspective. Participating faculty used the same assessment tools: two five-part rubrics based on the SOLO (Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes) taxonomy to assess student responses. Student improvement was greatest in classes that included a thorough deconstruction of student answers following each exercise.