DIFFERENCES IN CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS AMONG STUDENTS EDUCATED IN
PUBLIC SCHOOLS, CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS, AND HOME SCHOOLS
Paulo C. M. de Oliveira, Ed.D.
Bob Jones University Press
Bob Jones University
Greenville, South Carolina 29614
Timothy G. Watson, Ph.D.
Division of Elementary Education
School of Education
Bob Jones University
Joe P. Sutton, Ph.D.
Department of Special Education
School of Education
Bob Jones University
Methodology
Christian Public ACE Home
School School School School
Characteristic Sample Sample Sample Sample
Variable (N=486) (N=195) (N=50) (N=58)
Age (years) 18.06 18.73 18.06 18.00
Gender
Male 229 87 23 32
Female 257 108 27 26
Race
Caucasian 470 179 46 53
Black 3 3 0 0
Asian 3 4 0 0
Other 7 6 3 3
Region/Country
Northcentral 149 58 13 14
Northeast 111 49 16 5
South 183 56 14 21
West 31 22 4 7
U.S. Territories 4 1 0 0
Foreign Countries 4 9 3 10
ACT * 21.54 21.00 20.70 22.17
Table 1. Sample characteristics by groups of freshmen.
* Group means for American College Testing composite scores.
NOTE. Two students did not specify age, nine students did not specify race, and five students did not specify home state (hence, region could not be determined).
(Facione, 1990a, 1990b). According to Carter-Wells (1992), the CCTST has been characterized as the best commercially-produced critical thinking skills assessment instrument available.
Results
The means and standard deviations for each of the four student groups across the six critical thinking scores from the CCTST are provided in Table 2.
The results of the two MANOVA tests (see Table 4) that compared the groups across the three critical thinking scores of analysis, evaluation, and inference produced no significant differences (Wilks’ Lambda=0.988, F=1.026, df=9,1905, p=0.41). Similarly, there were no significant differences among the groups across the deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning mean scores (Wilks’ Lambda =0.989, F=1.428, df=6,1568, p=0.20) in the second MANOVA. Based on these findings, all three null hypotheses formulated for this investigation were retained.
Discussion
This study sought to fill a void in the current critical thinking research base by investigating college students enrolled in a large, private, Christian university and how their critical thinking skills varied based on prior high school educational setting. Our twofold goal in this study was to determine (a) the extent of critical thinking skills among post-secondary students educated in different educational settings and (b) if there were significant differences among the different groups on various critical thinking variables. With regard to our first goal, Facione (1992) advises that in order to determine whether the derived critical thinking scores from the CCTST are at an acceptable level, local norms should be developed in the context of the particular curricula adopted by the individual school system. Nonetheless, he provides suggested corresponding percentile rankings for the overall CCTST score. When applied to the mean overall critical thinking raw scores gathered from the four groups in our study, the respective percentiles are as follows: Home school group (40th percentile), Christian school group (40th percentile), ACE school group (31st percentile), and public school group (31st percentile). It was somewhat disheartening to us that none of the percentiles for any of the four groups were at or above the 50th percentile. One might have expected that the percentiles would have been higher, especially given the academically rigorous reputation of the institution that participated in this study and since the sample of students was both nationally and regionally representative (see Table 1).
Christian Public ACE Home
Critical Thinking School School School School
Subscale Freshmen Freshmen Freshmen Freshmen
Analysis 4.46 4.20 4.18 4.51
(1.77) (1.68) (1.88) (1.67)
Evaluation 5.44 5.01 5.46 5.43
(2.27) (2.27) (2.10) (2.40)
Inference 4.52 4.39 4.22 4.53
(2.06) (2.08) (2.22) (2.29)
Deductive 6.91 6.44 6.24 6.82
Reasoning (2.74) (2.76) (2.93) (2.61)
Inductive 5.61 5.44 5.86 5.75
Reasoning (2.38) (2.20) (2.33) (2.53)
Overall 14.43 13.61 13.86 14.48
(4.69) (4.70) (4.81) (4.79)
Table 2. Means and standard deviations of college freshmen scores on CCTST subscales grouped according to prior high school educational setting.
Note: Numbers in parentheses represent standard deviations.
Table 3. Analysis of variance for CCTST overall score.
We found no significant differences among our groups on the different critical thinking skills, including deductive and inductive reasoning skills. This finding may be explained in part by Olsen’s (1990) and Kuhara-Kojima and Hatano’s (1985) studies which concluded that general knowledge is ineffective as opposed to domain-specific knowledge
in the development of thinking skills. It may well be that measuring coverage of material proposed by a curriculum in a general fashion (for which our variable of educational setting served as a proxy measure) without giving proper attention to measuring the mastery of specific subject matter may be why we found no differences. The development of deductive and inductive reasoning may require more than the simple exposure to general knowledge.
Based on the results of our analyses, one may conclude that educational setting as a whole does not account for differences in critical thinking skills of college students. On the acceptance of this finding, however, one also has to consider the limitations of this study. First, the results of the CCTST test administered in this study are limited to the students’ willingness and ability to respond. We assumed that the students in our sample answered the questions on the CCTST truthfully, providing an accurate reflection
Table 4. Multivariate analysis of variance for analysis, evaluation, inference, deductive reasoning, and inductive reasoning CCTST subscales.
of their critical thinking abilities. Second, the focus of this study was on determining differences in selected critical thinking skills among Christian college students who had graduated from one of four types of high school settings. Although it is through the various elements of curriculum that critical thinking skills can be developed (Walsh & Paul, 1989), no attempt was made to control the many variables present in each of these educational settings. Upon the results of this study, future investigators may choose to concentrate on specific instructional elements subsumed within an educational setting such as curricula, textbooks, teacher experience, methodology, and so forth.
That there were no significant differences among the student groups across the various critical thinking skill scores might be troublesome to certain individuals and/or groups of educators. For example, Christian school proponents may be somewhat disappointed, given the claim that they have students who have achieved academically at a level “‘two to four years’ ahead of the public school students” (Stoker & Splawn, 1980, p. 22). But for home educators who “are routinely harassed by their local school district or law enforcement officials” (Klicka, 1993, p. 230) and who continue to be criticized and harangued for their nonconventional approach to education, it is a most encouraging finding. Combined with research that substantiates their above average achievement on standardized tests (Ray, 1993), our finding that home educated students do not differ significantly on critical thinking skills from their conventionally educated counterparts surely offers increasingly strong validation that home education is a viable and effective educational alternative.
References
Adler, M. J. (Ed.). (1984). The Paideia Program – An educational syllabus. New York: MacMillan.
American College Testing. (1992). ACT assessment. Iowa City, IA: American College Testing.
Brabeck, M. M. (1981). The relationship between critical thinking skills and development of reflective judgment among adolescent and adult women. Paper presented at the 39th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles, CA. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 216 259)
Brookhart, S. M., & Loadman, W. E. (1989, March). Work perceptions of university and public school educators. Paper presented at the 73rd Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 309 720)
Carter-Wells, J. (1992). The Carter-Wells matrix. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines, 9(1), 13.
Facione, P. A. (1990a). Critical thinking: A statement of expert consensus for purposes of educational assessment and instruction. Millbrae, CA: California Academic Press.
Facione, P. A. (1990b). The California Critical Thinking Skills Test C College Level, technical report #1: Experimental validation and content validity. Millbrae, CA: California Academic Press. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 327 549)
Facione, P. A. (1992). The California Critical Thinking Skills Test, Form A and Form B. Millbrae, CA: California Academic Press.
Farley, M. J., & Elmore, P. B. (1992). The relationship of reading comprehension to critical thinking skills, cognitive ability and vocabulary for a sample of underachieving college freshmen. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 52, 921-931.
Follert, V. F., & Colbert, K. R. (1983). An analysis of the research concerning debate training and critical thinking improvements. Paper presented at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Speech Communication Association, Washington, DC. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 238 058)
Frost, S. H. (1989). The effects of academic advising and the frequency of faculty contact on the cognitive development of college freshmen (Doctoral dissertation, University of Georgia, 1989). Dissertation Abstracts International, 51, 87A.
Grice, G. L., & Jones, M. A. (1989). Teaching thinking skills: State mandates and K-12 curriculum. The Clearing House, 62, 337-341.
Holmes, A. R. (1975). The idea of a Christian college (Rev. ed.). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
Howe, R. W., & Disinger, J. F. (1988). Teaching environment education using out-of-school settings and mass media. Columbus, OH: ERIC Clearinghouse for Science, Mathematics, and Environment Education. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 309 720)
Jones, P. K. (1988). The effect of computer programming instruction on the development of generalized problem solving skills in high school students. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 302 221)
Keeley, S. M. (1992). Are college students learning the critical thinking skill of finding assumptions? College Student Journal, 26, 316-322.
Keeley, S. M., Browne, M. N., Kreutzer, J. S. (1982). A comparison of freshmen and seniors on general and specific essay tests of critical thinking. Research in Higher Education, 26, 3-29.
Kleinfield, J. (1991). The Alaska statewide student testing program: Are the tests biased? Anchorage, AK: Alaska Educational Research Association. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 335 183)
Klicka, C. (1993). The right choice: The incredible failure of public education and the rising hope of home schooling – An academic, historical, practical, and legal perspective. Gresham, OR: Noble Publishing.
Kuhara-Kojima, K., & Hatano, G. (1985, March). Domain-specific knowledge and general skills in reading comprehension. Paper presented at the 69th Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 266 419)
MacPhail-Wilcox, B., Deyden, J., & Eason, E. (1990). An investigation of the paideia program effects on students’ critical thinking skills. Educational Considerations, 17(2), 61-67.
Marzano, R. J., & Arredondo, D. E. (1986). Restructuring schools through the teaching of thinking skills. Educational Leadership, 43(8), 20-26.
Newmann, F. M. (1988). Higher order thinking in the high school curriculum. NASSP Bulletin, 72(508), 58-64.
Norris, S. P. (1985). Synthesis of research on critical thinking. Educational Leadership, 42(8), 40-45.
Olsen, S. A. (1990, October). Examining the relationship between college core course areas and sophomore critical thinking test scores. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the American Evaluation Association, Washington, DC. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 328 145)
Outz, K. M. (1992). A causal inference model of critical thinking ability of college students (Doctoral Dissertation, Georgia State University, 1992). Dissertation Abstracts International, 53, 2747A.
Pascarella, E. T. (1987, November). The development of critical thinking: Does college make a difference? Baltimore, MD: Association for the Study of Higher Education. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 292 417)
Paul, R. W. (1990). Critical thinking: What every person needs to survive in a rapidly changing world. Rohnert Park, CA: Center for Critical Thinking and Moral Critique.
Raburn, J., & Van-Schuyver, B. (1984). The relationship of reading and writing to thinking among university students taking English composition. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 273 978)
Rankin, J. (1991, August 4). A call for higher order thinking. The Washington Post, p. 19-22.
Ray, B. D. (1993). Practices and effects of home education in the United States of America: A synthesis of recent research. Journal of Research on Christian Education, 2(1), 135-154.
Smith, R. A., & Cranton, P. A. (1992). Students’ perceptions of teaching skills and overall effectiveness across instructional settings. Research in Higher Education, 33, 747-764.
Spaulding, S. C., & Kleiner, K. A. (1992). The relationship of college and critical thinking: Are critical thinkers attracted or created by college disciplines? College Student Journal, 26(2), 162-166.
Stewart, R. J., & Al-Abdulla, Y. (1989). An examination of the relationship between critical thinking and academic success on a university campus. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 318 936)
Stoker, W. M., & Splawn, R. (1980). A study of Accelerated Christian Education schools in Northwest Texas. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 206 095)
Sutton, J. P., McKinney, J. D., & Hallahan, D. P. (1992). Effects of grade level and educational settings on behaviors of beginning learning disabilities teachers. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 7, 16-24.
Trotter, G. (1986). I thought what? The Clearing House, 60(2), 76-78.
Walsh, D., & Paul, R. W. (1989). The goal of critical thinking: From educational ideal to educational reality. Washington, DC: American Federation of Teachers.
Wells, K. M. (1983, April). The development of a critical thinking skills performance assessment: An interdisciplinary approach to validating achievement of school goals. Paper presented at the 67th Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, Quebec. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 229 424)
Wilkinson, L. (1987). SYSTAT: The system for statistics. Evanston, IL: SYSTAT.
Wright, P. S. (1989). Selected correlates of intellectual development of college freshmen (Doctoral dissertation, University of Connecticut, 1989). Dissertation Abstracts International, 50, 3498A.