Critical thinking skills have become an important part of current educational practices. However, there is little empirical evidence comparing the effectiveness of the programs teaching these skills. In addition, there are questions as to whether the skills should be taught within the class content or separate from the class content. This study assigned students attending labs as part of an educational psychology class to two experimental conditions (content-based and content-free) and a control condition. Measures were scores on lab papers and test scores for the class. In addition, an attitude survey was used to assess student attitudes to each condition, and the overall quality of the labs was assessed. An analysis of variance was performed on the data. Results indicated little difference between experimental and control conditions.

The effect of teaching critical thinking as part of a continuous progress packet in American history was studied at Cedar High School during the 1969-70 school year. An experimental group using the critical thinking packet was compared with a control group that used a continuous progress packet that taught only American history. The dependent variables for the study were the STEP (Sequential Test of Educational Progress), Social Studies portion, and the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal. No statistically significant differences were found between the groups in either American history or critical thinking. Differences in critical thinking ability, though not significant statistically, seemed to indicate the desirability of further research in this area. It was also recommended, as a result of this study, that further research be conducted to develop and evaluate new methods of assessing student competence in seminar situations.

Part of the curriculum in many composition classrooms contains a reflection component where students are required to think back over their writing and discuss strengths and weaknesses. Yet many of the reflections that students write fall short of the purpose of reflection when students fail to analyze their writing practices or to make future goals for themselves, a problem that occurs when higher level reflection strategies are not taught and practiced in the classroom. When students are taught to use reflection as a way to critically evaluate their writing, to make connections between class assignments and course objectives, and to make goals for future projects, reflection becomes a more useful tool for the composition student. In my study of two first-year composition classes, I compare the impact of instructing students about reflection and requiring them to practice good reflection against the more common practice of assigning reflection intermittently without formal instruction or feedback about what makes a constructive reflection. Through the results of my study, I confirm my hypothesis that when higher quality reflection is actively taught and promoted by the instructor, reflection helps students to integrate assignments into the course objectives, to extract personal significance from assignments, and to plan for future projects.

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The purpose of this study was to evaluate change in APPE student knowledge and measure student perceptions of an online, multi-institutional debate curriculum as an alternative to a journal club to improve critical thinking skills related to diabetes medications. All APPE students assigned to four faculty (n=37) at three different colleges during the 2020-2021 academic year received instruction on diabetes medication classes and their cardiovascular outcome trials (CVOTs). Students debated via the Lincoln-Douglas format whether glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) or sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) classes are the preferred second-line therapies in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Matched pre and post-knowledge scores were measured using a 7-item assessment tool. A postdebate 22-item survey measured student perceptions of the activity. Pre- and post-knowledge scores were compared in thirty-two students yielding an 86% match rate. Knowledge scores improved 32% (59% pre vs. 87% post). Thirty-three students completed the survey yielding an 89% response rate. Students reported the debate activity was beneficial (100%) and rated it more effective than a journal club at improving critical thinking skills and knowledge retention. Preliminary results suggest the incorporation of an online, multi-institutional debate as an alternative to journal clubs during APPE rotations was well received. Further research is warranted on the impact of the multi-institutional debate and how to best deliver it during the APPEs of a pharmacy curriculum.

In 2016, in the article Global Migration, Diversity, and Civic Education Banks et al. discuss migration flows and the inevitable “ascendency of globalization.” They explain that this globalization trend has taken hold of the entire world because of political, education, economic, and religious reasons that have seen people upend their lives moving across continents. For example, this migratory flow phenomenon has given rise to shifts in the way that education is conducted in different countries as the host countries aim to accommodate foreign students to create a homogenous learning environment conducive for everyone.Zimbabwe, being no stranger to social turmoil, has contributed to the migratory flow trend with the U.S. being one of the target countries for students. This dissertation aims to explore and present students’ experiences as they transition from their Zimbabwean high school writing environments into U.S. writing classes. The three writing environments are: Zimbabwean high school(s), the Gap Year Program, and U.S. writing class(es). These experiences are explored through a collection of documents closely analyzed using the lens of Grounded Theory. Grounded Theory as an analysis tool highlights common and different concepts as they emerge from these documents ultimately allowing room to explore why those similarities and differences exist. These concepts are also compared with students’ responses from interview questions that ask them to express their attitudes towards each writing environment. The study potentially will provide a steppingstone to a higher goal of advocating for writing study programs in Zimbabwe where students will learn skills that will better prepare them for other learning environments and cultures.

Critical thinking is an academically coveted skill important to all areas of education (Halpern, 1998). The ability to think critically requires an individual to question and possibly reject accepted ideals and authorities. A strong self-concept may play an important role in this process. The present study hypothesized a positive relationship between total self-concept and critical thinking ability. An additional purpose of this study was to explore whether self-concept accounted for more of the variance in critical thinking than other correlates of the ability, such as metacognition (Halpern, 1998; Magno, 2010) and openness to experience (Clifford, Boufal, & Kurtz, 2004). The hypothesis was supported; total self-concept significantly and positively correlated with the total score of critical thinking. Regression analyses revealed self-concept was a better predictor of critical thinking, accounting for 19.2% more variance in critical thinking than metacognition and openness to experience. Overall, the results suggest that nourishing students' self-concept may support their ability to think critically.

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