The Monash Critical Thinking Study

Many people reason poorly, by almost any measure of reasoning. Although there is evidence that people can be taught to think critically, educators don’t really know how. They don’t know what works, what doesn’t, or why. This report describes the Monash Critical Thinking Study – a three year project to investigate the effectiveness of a number of teaching methods for improving critical thinking. Monash University students enrolled in a first-year critical thinking course are preand post-tested using the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) and the critical thinking section of the Graduate Skills Assessment (GSA).The course is taught in both semesters and the teaching methodology varied each time, so that the effectiveness of different methods can be compared. In these pages, we give brief descriptions of the teaching methods investigated and report some preliminary results.