Does Stanford improve critical thinking?

Does Stanford improve critical thinking? - Printable Version

+- The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board)
+-- Forum: C-House! (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-5.html)
+--- Thread: Does Stanford improve critical thinking? (/thread-13858.html)

Does Stanford improve critical thinking? - OutsiderFan - 06-06-2017

Or to get into Stanford, must you already demonstrate superior critical thinking ability?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/exclusive-test-data-many-colleges-fail-to-improve-critical-thinking-skills-1496686662

Based on what I see posted on this board, my assumption is most kids who get admitted to Stanford as undergrads are admitted because they have already demonstrated critical thinking skills.Â But surely there must be Stanford admits who aren't that strong in the critical thinking department, right?

If schools can't develop critical thinking, then what does?Â

"If schools can't improve critical thinking, what does?" - Redrum - 06-06-2017

Oh, despite it's bargain basement tuition,Â real life is pretty good at that.Â Ask those high school students who lost their Harvard athletic scholarships by posting stupid things online where they could be read by a wide group that included their future school's administration. Betcha anything their critical thinking skills improved after that.Â At least they'll remember the lesson long after all the stuff they crammed into their noggins on the economics final.

Re: Does Stanford improve critical thinking? - indiancardinal - 06-06-2017

More than 20 years down the road, when describing my academic experiences/achievements as an undergrad at Stanford - the first thing out of my mouth is that I learned to thinkÂ during my time there.

Perhaps my critical thinking skills were already superior compared to my high school peers but I can definitely say it improved considerably during my time on the Farm.

Perhaps my critical thinking ability would have developed the same or differently at another University.

Who knowsÂ :) I definitely don't want toÂ imagine myself at another school.

Re: Does Stanford improve critical thinking? - Goose - 06-06-2017

(06-06-2017, 05:57 AM)OutsiderFan link Wrote:If schools can't develop critical thinking, then what does?

Re: Does Stanford improve critical thinking? - oldalum - 06-06-2017

(06-06-2017, 03:39 PM)Goose link Wrote:[quote author=OutsiderFan link=topic=16957.msg194479#msg194479 date=1496753826]
If schools can't develop critical thinking, then what does?

Actually, almost all schools do not, IMHO, do much to develop critical thinking. The term "school solution" exists to describe the phenomenon. What the school expects is that the student's regurgitate whatever information the professor/TA of the class has presented. When it comes to "critical thinking", that is allowed if it produces conclusions that match expectations. Otherwise, not so much. While it is certainly true that the exposure to differing points of view and thinking processes may lead to the student's learning to think critically, I argue that this is mostly in spite of the institution, not because of it.Â Besides, it is too hard to grade a midterm that contains much "critical thinking"Â ;D
[/quote]

That's a pretty cynical view of higher education. Maybe it's accurate--I have no way of knowing--but certainly not universally true. Perhaps the main purpose of higher education is to cultivate critical thinking. The best professors try to promote independent thought. I recall a course I took from a popular English professor who wrote on my midterm, "I am so tired of reading my own thoughts. Thank you for yours." (He was kind enough not to comment on how poor my thoughts were, but they were definitely my own, and he gave me a good grade in spite of their vacuous content)

Re: Does Stanford improve critical thinking? - jacketree - 06-06-2017

Stanford taught me not to snarf down a Grand Slam at 7:00 am after studying all night, to make an 8:00 class. If that's not critical thinking, what is?

Re: Does Stanford improve critical thinking? - 2006alum - 06-06-2017

Here's a version of this story that's not behind a paywall.

There's one aspect of this study's methodology I found surprising, and which I think could be potentially problematic:

Quote:At each college, the roughly 90-minute test is given to one group of freshmen in the fall of their freshman year and to a separate group of seniors in the spring of the same academic year. A statistical analysis of the difference between the average scores of the two groups is considered a valid way to reflect the value added during four years of college.

The Journal filed public-records requests with more than 100 public institutions where students took the CLA+ between 2013 and 2016.

What's the problem? College admissions has gotten notoriously more competitive year over year in recent years, as we all know well from Stanford's falling admissions rate, particularly at the nation's most selective colleges. This means that if the number of spots at Stanford remains constant, but the number of qualified applicants increases, the average Stanford admit in in the class of x+3 is likely to be more qualified than the average admit in the class of x, all other things equal. If so, then the average class of x+3 freshman is likely to perform better on this test than the average class of x freshman. It also means that if colleges improve critical reasoning ability at a rate that is roughly comparable to the year-over-year difference in improvement to the applicant pool, you will see absolutely no difference in testing outcomes of class of x seniors and class of x+3 freshmen despite the college actually providing instruction that improves the critical reasoning of students during their time in college.

That isn't to say that colleges can't do a lot more to enhance their students' critical thinking skills. It does, however, suggest that studies that don't circle back to the same students or control for exogenous effects in the pool of students tested over time should be taken with a grain of salt. If applicant pools and admissions rates were staying constant, I would be less skeptical, but the last few years have seen large year-over-year growth in number of applicants, and so I am skeptical that this study is making true apples-to-apples comparisons.

Thus, it also doesn't surprise me that a conclusion drawn from this study was:

Quote:Some of the biggest gains occur at smaller colleges where students are less accomplished at arrival but soak up a rigorous, interdisciplinary curriculum.

The less accomplished colleges probably see negligible year-over-year improvement in applicant and matriculant populations. If so, then their sample populations at year x and year x+3 are closer to apples-to-apples.

Sorry to harp. Once a social scientist, always a social scientist...

Re: Does Stanford improve critical thinking? - Mick - 06-07-2017

Do colleges improve critical thinking?Â The consensus among these articles seems to be that they encourage critical thinking, they may even foster an environment in which critical thinking thrives, but they don't improve critical thinking as a direct result from teaching.Â If critical thinking improves, it is a by-product.

https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2016/06/07/can-colleges-truly-teach-critical-thinking-skills-essay

http://journals.sagepub.com/stoken/rbtfl/pQjIrfdSdFNuQ/full

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.3102/0034654315605917

Re: Does Stanford improve critical thinking? - CTcard - 06-07-2017

(06-06-2017, 07:20 PM)2006alum link Wrote:Here's a version of this story that's not behind a paywall.

Thanks for the link. I wasn't able to read this before.
Apparently that's a copy of the WSJ article, though unfortunately the links seem to be deactivated, so there is no link in the parentheses that say "See full results".

A few thoughts.

Many of the comments in the thread refer to original thinking, which isn't really what the test was trying to measure. Apparently the critical thinking that the test claims to measure is whether students can "make a cohesive argument, assess the quality of evidence in a document or interpret data in a table".

While I am also suspicious of the method of testing different groups of frosh and seniors at approximately the same time, it's not really the changing abilities of the student body overall over the course of three years. Rather, unless every student in the class is tested (which apparently is not the case), that would leave open opportunities for student selection bias - either consciously (which presumably would tend to inflate improvements) or unconsciously (which might go either way).

Trying to use my own powers of critical thinking, I would say this quality of evidence in this particular document is not very good. The overall tone of the article is that colleges overall are not doing a good job improving critical thinking skills, but it never gives any overall scores, score changes frosh to seniors, or any reference as to what kind of scores and score improvement ought to be expected. However, what bothers me the most is how the article treats objections to the test. The article suggests that anyobody's comments on the test are merely self-interested spin, "Colleges where students perform poorly say it is unfair to draw sweeping conclusions from a single test. ... Colleges where students perform well on the test say it is an accurate gauge of their academic programs." There are a few quotations from people who fall into the second category, mostly from Plymouth State College, though those are mainly from particular professors bragging about their own courses rather than any analysis of the test itself. There is nothing from those in the first category, with comments like "Kentucky and UT Austin officials criticized the test and said they no longer use it." Well, what exactly were the criticisms of the test and is there any evidence those are valid or not?

I am personally biased that many majors at many colleges don't actually teach their students very much but this article doesn't really give me further information on the matter. Perhaps the poor critical writing skills displayed in this article by (presumably) college educated writers at the WSJ is evidence itself.Â

Re: Does Stanford improve critical thinking? - CTcard - 06-07-2017

(06-07-2017, 06:11 AM)Mick link Wrote:Do colleges improve critical thinking?Â The consensus among these articles seems to be that they encourage critical thinking, they may even foster an environment in which critical thinking thrives, but they don't improve critical thinking as a direct result from teaching.Â If critical thinking improves, it is a by-product.

Thanks for the links Mick.

Those are obviously much more carefully considered, reasoned, and argued explorations of the issue than the WSJ article.
The latter two links are the same article, one in html format the other pdf. It's a research article, so of course has a very different tone and aimed for a different audience. It does have an interesting quotation, from the abstract,

Quote:The results suggest that both critical thinking skills and dispositions improve substantially over a normal college experience. Furthermore, analysis of curriculum-wide efforts to improve critical thinking indicates that they do not necessarily produce incremental long-term gains.

I take that to indicate that critical thinking skills are learned primarily by analyzing something specific in a particular discipline rather than some some kind of generalized critical thinking that crosses all subjects. That would support the "specificists" over the "generalists" in the Chronicle of Higher Ed article.

Re: Does Stanford improve critical thinking? - Hulk01 - 06-07-2017

Stanford--my teachers and fellow students--significantly improved my critical thinking skills, but I was an unusual case: a pathological underachiever and virtual non-reader from an inferior school system.Â My skills needed work, and responded well to that work.Â But does Stanford still accept students like me?Â My guess is that very rarely did back then (the 70's) and never do now.

Re: Does Stanford improve critical thinking? - fullmetal - 06-07-2017

It was good teachers and a healthy dose of policy debate that started me on critical thinking.Â Stanford definitely helped, and Stanford would have helped more had I paid more attention in class... ;)