BEGINNING THE DIALOGUE:

THOUGHTS ON PROMOTING

CRITICAL THINKING

Classroom Assessment for Critical Thinking

Thomas A. Angelo
BostO/1 College
What IS critical thinking? Despite years of debate, no inglt.:
definition is Widely accepted. Noneth less. Kurfiss (19 8)
cast a net wide en ugh to capture many, when he defined
cmical thinking as follows:
an mv~tlgn110n whose purp06e IS co explore a situ, [Ion,
phen men n, question, r problem to arrive at n hYrothc'j"
or conclu: ion ")1Out ir (hm integrates all availablc informa
tion and that can therefore be convincingly jusrified. In
cn[lcal rhll1kll1g, all a umptiol are open t qu .ti n. di
vergent \'\ 'W. arc uggresloively sought, anJ he inquiry I '
nor bia. d in favor of a particular outcome. (p. Z)
M ~L form I deftnitions characterize criLical thinking as
(he intentional applicauon of rauunal, higher order think
ing skills, ,uch ~ analysis, synthe:. is , problem recognitiun
and pr blcm .o!vmg, mferencc, and evaluation. Much eVI
dence indicaLes that these higher order skills are unlikely
to develop simplv ~ a result of matul'"iltion. Equally clear is
the f,let that students typically find these skills difficult to
learn, even when pr vided with direct instruction. AmI,
wi alever th ir personal definitions may be, most college
faculty would probably agree that critical-thinking -kill' are
m totio Iv dlflkult to leach and develop.
Thcy are difficult to teach. but not imp sible. There is
Wide agreement Lhar college student leam more and bener
whcn they (a) are actively engaged and personally ij)\'~teJ,
(b) receive c mprehen'ibte and timely feedback, and (c)
W( rk cooperatively with peers and teachers. McKcachie.
Pintnch. Lin, ~ nd Smith (19 6), in " review of the rc"carch
litcrature n colleg' teaching and learning, con ludeJ that
three Leaching approaches can improve tudentl;' criuc,,1
thinking: student discussion, explicit emphasis on pr blem
. lving, and verbalizati n f metacognitivc strmegi s.
All thi. uggesLs that critical thinking is likely LO improve
when tca heT (a) provlde time for well phmned. focused.
and interactive 'tudent dbcussion: r!\;-Jl connect pri rand
-ub~equent assignments; (b) expliCitly te-<lch pr blern-~tv
ing methods and procedures, provide guided practice, and
then <l.sse studel1ls' ability to solve problems and explain
how they solv pr blcms; and (c) Lalk through and model
v,lri 1I, sLrmegi : LO direct and control attention anti think
ing (metacognition), provide practice in these strategies. and

then assess students' self-a\\rarcness and usc of mctacognitive

strategie .
T help stud nts develop critical-thinking skills, then,
faculty need to monitor IC<lrning continuously throughout
the tenn, nOl ju.~t at midterm and finals. Also, learners need
regular practice in ass . ment to bee me elf-monitoring
and independent. CI<l:isroom assessment is one simple,
stmi 'htforward approach faculty can ~ to find out what
how much, and how well thcir students arc learning (Angelo
& Cross. 1993). Faculty u e simple feedback devices, re
ferred to as c1, il'oom asse menr techniques (CATs), to
collect dam on their students' learning. After a quick. usu
ally informal analysis of the data, faculty u~ Lhe information
gl aned from classroom assessments to infonn and refocus
their teaching an to help students make thei~ learning
more effective. To complete the cla' 'room assessment, fac
ulty give the class as a whole feedback on what they gleaned
from thc cI, room assessment, how they intend to respond
as teachers, and h w they hope students will respond.
Alm:JSt all CATs requirc students to reflect on and ex
plain their !c,lrning, usually by writing brief, anonym us
r po es r imple questions or prompts. This focus on
making ~)ne's own learning explicit can promote metacog
nition :lnd critical thinking. For example, the Minute Paper,
one of the si mplc. tATs, asks studen~ somc variant of
the fI 1I0wing tw que 'lion': Wh t WflS the most important
thing y u learned in toJay's class? What question related
t rhi' se: ion remains uppermc st in y ur mind? In rcsIX>nse
to the Minute Paper, tudenr write .hon, anonymous
answers, USU:1l1y during rhe last few minutes of class. The
teacher collects their r ponsc', looks (or patterns, and
pr~pare' to rc.'p nd. Closing the feedback loor-givmg thc
class limely. focu.sed feedback on their responses--i.- vital
in clasHoom assc -menl. To do [hi. al the beginning f the
nexr cl(1s~ . c~sion, the in [ructer may quickly liSt CI handful
of imporwnt IJeas studenL~ had menti ned that he or he
wanted to reinlor e, then point ut important ,tems thal
students mi:s cd. Next, the instrucLor may brieflv respond
to [he III l commonly raised questions--or ask members
of the cla~ La tecklc Lhem. To s,wc class time, the teacher
may respond with a handouL or "export" the response to "
dl-cussion or review 'ession led hy (I teaching assi.st<lnt-

Teaching of Psychology

NUffiCr( u CAT- have been developed, and mtmy of these

simple l chnlquL's can be adapted to assess analysis, ynth
sis, pr~)blel1l solving, inference, memcognition, and Other
asp cr- of Crltlc,ll thinking (Angelo & Cr ,199,). Walker
(1991) provided a detailed and instructive account of c1ass
ro m as e 'm 'm applied to an mtrcxlucl ry psychology
COUJ"l>C.

In the end, of course, it is n t the dassr m assessment

itself but the tach r's and students' re;,pon es to the ass .-
mem re ult.:. th.lt CLm lead to improved cntical thmking.
If fa ulty rcguLlrly re:opond to the results of classroom as
s mem- by xplicitly mo.:icling the thinking and problem
lving kills lhey are hoping t develop and by engaging
learners in focused, interactive discus 'ions about the assess
m nl results, college students ar m re lilel)' to become
effective critical thinkers. Frequ m use of simple CATs pro
vides tudenr.:. WIth guided practice in -elf-a e',ment and
melacognition within the di ciplinary context. When
link d cl~ly to instruction, classroom assessment am be
a powerful mean f level ping critical thinking.

References
Angelo, T. A.. & lU'>S, K. P. (I 993). Classroom assessment tecJmj(Jltfs:
A 1ul11f1bcxJ< far college reachers. ';m FrancISCO: J . y-lhs.
Kurfiss, J. G. (1988). Critical chinking: Theory, re-~ard1. pmctice. aruI
pos.libilicie~ (ASHE-ERlC Higher EduQuion Report No.2). Wash
ington, CC: Association (or the tudy of Higher Educmion.
McKeachie, W., Pintrich, P., Lm, Y., & Smith, D. (1986). Teaching
aruI learning in rhe ollege d,cs.sroom: A retie~' of rk research
lireraOI1'e. Ann Arbor, MI: National Cc-mer for Research to
Improve Postsecondary Teaching and Learning.
Walker, C. J. (1991). Classroom research in p ychology: Assess
ment techniques [0 enhance rcachmg and learning. In T. A.
Angelo (Ed.). Classroom research: Early lenms fram success (pp.
67-78). 5.ln Franci 0: Jossey-Ba .

Note
Request for reprints should be sent t Thomas A. Angelo, Aca
demiC Devel pmcnt Center, Boston College. Owtnut Hill, MA
02167-3810.

Cooperative Learning and Critical Thinking

James L. Cooper
California State U"iversrty, Domillguez Tlrlls

In many way', 'olleoe teaching ha r mained largely

unchanged m e the days of the medieval university. Thi.
article recommends c rerative learning as one alternative
to the lecture method, which has dominated coll~ge PCU<l
ogy during the Ia.:.t few hundred years, ano suggestS poSSible
reasons why cooperative learning may fosler the critical
thinking skill that appear to be lacking in m ny of our
student. The ,ugge tion are tentative for several reasons.
Fin, there i n generally agreed-on definition of critical
rlunkin (Kunl s. 1988). S cond, the main effect of coopera
tive learning on numerous student outcome me ures has
been replicated in hundreds of studies (D. W. Johnson &
R. T. Johnson. 19 9), bur problem.:. exist in adJres~ ing how
cooperal ive le;lrning may be caus lly linked to increases in
critical thinkinn am,mg college students. At lcast five prop
crtie define cooperative learning, and systematic res arch on
the effic<lCy of each in promoting positive srudent oulcomes
iS,till quite. carel', particularly on college populations. Third,
coop >ralive I arnlOj! is not a unitary rechnique; there arc at

Vol. 22, No.1, February 1995

least 50 different forms of cooperalive lC}1rning, ranging from

rudenr-dir~cted totcflcher- tructured methods (Kagan. 1992).

Cognitive Disequilibrium
In most cooperative-learning stnlCturCS, heterogeneous
teams of students work n a comm n problem. This ap
proach oft~n leae\:; lO cognitive di quilibrium, which may
~ roducc what D. W. Johnson. R, T. J hnson, and Smith
(199Ia) called el>istemic curiOSily, as 'tudents ,-eek out infor
marion t help them rc olve the conflict. The confluence
of diffcring approaches to an issue may lead students to
move fTOm what Perry (1970) called egocen rric, dualiStic
chinking t more matur , rclmivistic thinking. If cooperative
learning i.s pn perly tnlcrurcu, it cfln (0 rer divergent think
ing much rn re than the leclllre technique. In lectures, tu
dents often hear <l highly skilled problem olver res lve
complicated issues withour hearing the diveniity of Ideas
thar went into the lecturer's ultimate resoluti n. Too often,