PROS AND CONS OF USING PAIRED EXERCISES TO PROMOTE CRITICAL THINKING AND CIVIC THINKING IN INTRODUCTORY SCIENCE COURSES 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.

Instructors at four institutions incorporated a series of assignments that foster the development of critical thinking and civic thinking skills in their classes. The (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. The scenarios were purposely ambiguous and aimed to present scientific dilemmas and civic problems. Participating faculty used the same assessment tools: two five-part scoring schemes based on the SOLO (Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes) taxonomy to assess student responses.

Results indicate that students can exhibit improvement in critical and civic thinking skills; however, these improvements are far from universal and often show little correlation with stated course goals, teaching methods, and pedagogical strategies. Pre-test scores were consistent for students in different classes at the same institution and for students among three different institutions. Only two courses showed statistically significant improvements in critical thinking skills and three showed improvements in civic thinking skills. Student improvement was greatest in classes that included a thorough deconstruction of student answers following each exercise. Different faculty can interpret the scoring schemes differently requiring some care in calibrating the use of the taxonomies as assessment tools.