[CTcard]

Do colleges improve critical thinking?  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.  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,

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.

[CTcard]

Do colleges improve critical thinking?  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.  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,

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.