Results

The most important finding is that a large majority of students, if prompted to draw on their critical thinking skills, engage higher-order level thinking.  This higher-order level thinking is reflected in the participants’ answers to questions in the writing assignments.  Although I collected a multitude of data, the most useful pieces of evidence for this study come out of these writing assignments as they allowed me to assess the higher-order level thinking skills that I was most interested in. 

 

 

Writing Assignments

Writing Assignment No. 1 was the first writing assignment in the course. As shown by the answers to the assignment, a total of 20 out of 27 participants engaged both their analytical and evaluative thinking skills.  The assignment asked the students to do the following:

 

Drawing on the readings and our study of Britain, distinguish between “Thatcherism” and New Labour’s “Third Way.”  What did each entail in terms of a particular orientation to politics and economics?  What kind of policy direction did they pursue?  In your view, which policy direction was more successful?  In answering this last question, make clear what you mean by “more successful”.

 

A total of 20 out of 27 participant were thus able to distinguish between two political/economic orientations (Thatcherism and New Labour’s Third Way) and evaluate which policy direction pursued was more successful based upon a clear criteria.  The students were told that it was not important which policy direction they considered most successful as long as their arguments were well supported (i.e., by references to the assigned readings, class material/discussions and other material)

 

A total of 4 out of 27 participants were only able to distinguish between the two policy directions pursued by the Conservative and Labour governments but not make a judgment about which was more successful (2 of the 4 participants did not address the judgment part).  Thus, these 4 students only engaged their analytical skills and not the higher-order level skill of evaluating. 

 

A total of 3 out of 27 participants stated that it was impossible to compare the two policy directions and, as expected, did not make judgment about their successfulness.  Consequently, these 3 students did not engage either analytical or evaluative skills; they only utilized the skills of applying and understanding.

 

As evidenced by students’ answers to Writing Assignment No. 1, out of the 27 participants 20 engaged the higher-order level critical thinking skills, 4 utilized only analytical skills, and 3 engaged neither of those skills (only the skills of applying and understanding).

 

Writing Assignment No. 2 offered students a choice between two essay questions.  Only the second essay question tapped into both middle-order and higher-order level thinking skills (analytical and evaluative skills).  Thus, only the students who chose the second essay could be assessed in terms of higher-order level skills. (The first essay question assessed only the two middle-order level thinking skills of applying and analyzing).

 

Of the 22 participants who chose the second essay question, 19 students were able to judge (or evaluate) which country (Britain or France, or both) offers an appealing model of democracy and provide a justification for their choice.  Three out of the 22 participants either gave no reason for why the stated country was an appealing model of democracy, or provided very weak criteria for judgment, or did not address this part of the question.  Consequently, a majority of the participants engaged their critical thinking skills (of evaluating).

 

Of the 4 participants who answered the first essay question, all engaged the middle-order level thinking skills required by the question.  One participant did not complete the writing assignment.

 

Final Exam

The Final Exam had two parts; one part included identification of terms and concepts learned, and the second part comprised of essay questions.  Click here to see the Final Exam, and click here for the Study Guide to the Final Exam.  I only address the second part of the exam here.  Students had the option of answering any 4 out of a total of 6 essay questions.  All 6 essay questions assessed students’ analytical skills, but only one essay question also assessed higher-order level learning outcomes (i.e., evaluative skills) and was stated as follows:

 

1. Compare and contrast the relationship between labor (workers) and capital (employers) in two countries covered in the course.  What are some of the characteristics of this relationship in the two countries?  What existing institutions, if any, support or harm this relationship in the respective countries?  How effective are they (in supporting or harming) this relationship?

 

Out of the 27 participants, only 11 students answered the above question (and sub-questions).  Out of those students, 9 were able to evaluate the effectiveness of the institutions in two countries in supporting or harming the relationship between workers and employers, and 2 did not address this part of the essay question.  Consequently, 9 out of the 11 participants drew on their critical thinking skills.

 

An examination of the answers to the above-mentioned writing assignments, including one question on the Final Exam, indicates that students think critically when prompted to do so.  Indeed, a large majority of the participants engaged higher-order level thinking skills.

 

 

Surveys

 

As revealed in the pre-surveys and post-surveys, almost all students believed that critical thinking was a very important skill in understanding political systems.  Only two out the 27 participants believed critical thinking was “not very important” or “not very relevant because most of what is learned about political systems is fact and there is not much leeway”.  Interestingly, this last comment came from a senior participant.

 

In the pre-survey, most students ranked themselves between 7 and 8 in response to “Rate yourself as a critical thinker on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the worst and 10 being the best”.  The average score was 7.5. 

 

When asked in the pre-survey if they had experienced being challenged to think critically in other courses they had taken, the participants ranked themselves on a scale of 0-10 at an average of 7.4 (with 1 being not challenged at all and 10 challenged a great deal).  The participants ranked themselves lower on the same question in the post-survey, at an average of 6.9 using the same scale.  When asked specifically about being challenged in the Politics of Europe, the score was the same, 6.9.  A possible explanation for this lower score at the end of the semester could be that the participants had had yet another semester worth of course work under their belt and thus, might have become more critical about what they had learned and how they had learned it (including learning in my course).  In other words, the participants might have become more critical thinkers.

 

When asked what the ‘critical’ means in critical thinking, some of the participants answered:

 

• “Critical means thinking outside the box and looking into a question on a deeper level.”

• “It means being able to analyze, criticize, or conclude your own beliefs based on information that is presented to you.”

• “Critical means ‘deeper’ not just the surface. It is usually not an answer one just ‘knows’.”

• “The ability to thoroughly analyze all aspects of an idea.  ‘Critical’ specifically entails taking an objective and unbiased stance.”

• “In depth, analytical.”

• “A complete picture of the problem at hand.”

• “Analyzing and applying information.”

• “Analytical.”

• “Being able to logically analyze an issue/topic with a complexity that goes beyond an opinion or restatement of another's thoughts.”

• “It means thinking and analyzing on more than just a surface level.”

• “Unbiased, objective.”

• “Thinking in terms of a hypothesis, thesis, conclusion.”

As I grappled with the question of what I consider to be critical thinking in the context of my course, I concluded that is it to be thinking as a social scientist.  This entails, among other things, being able to recognize and/or form hypotheses about political phenomena and being able to evaluate the evidence used to support a hypothesis.

 

Conclusion

The study reveals that my students think more critically than I anticipated.  The fact that I had an unusually high number of seniors in the course and in the study (17 out of the 27 participants) may of course have contributed to the results.  The ratio of seniors to other classmen is not normally so high; they often make up less than 1/3rd of the students. The study also shows that what I think of as ‘critical thinking’ differs from what the participants consider it to be.  This is not surprising as few courses in political science teach students to think as social scientists, and discuss how this kind of thinking relates to critical thinking skills.