V11-35

Question

A standard instrument for measuring students' perceptions of critical thinking instruction was administered to both instructors and students. This instrument contained twenty items addressing the goals and cognitive skills associated with critical thinking. For the instructor survey, the phrasing of each item was slightly modified, replacing "my instructor" with "I." Data were collected through a census survey of core courses in the business program. A total of 60 core course sections were surveyed, resulting in 689 responses from a total enrollment of 797 students, representing an 86.4% response rate. Instructors were also surveyed regarding the instructional methods and teaching strategies they employed in their respective courses. Faculty members were asked to indicate which methods they used, the relative importance of each method or strategy to the course, and the approximate percentage of classroom time dedicated to each method.
 
When analyzing course-level mean scores for students' perceptions of critical thinking instruction, we rejected the null hypothesis and found statistically significant differences between mean scores at different course levels. Specifically, the difference in scores between sophomore and junior-level courses was statistically significant. However, the difference between junior and senior-level courses was not statistically significant. This indicates that students in sophomore-level courses perceive critical thinking instruction differently than those in junior and senior-level courses.
 
We did not find evidence to support the alternative proposition that students' perceptions of critical thinking instruction are highly correlated with instructors' perceptions of critical thinking instruction in course pedagogy. Statistically significant agreement was observed on only four of the twenty survey items comparing perceptions between instructors and students. This disconnect was most pronounced in sophomore-level courses.
 
Similarly, we found limited support for the proposition that an instructor&rsquo;s emphasis on specific instructional methods or teaching strategies is strongly correlated with students' perceptions of critical thinking instruction. Of the twenty direct and indirect instructional methods included in the survey, only four showed statistically significant correlations with students' perceptions.

Which if the following is the most appropriate title for the passage?

A. What students think about instructional methods of critical thinking? 
B. Importance of critical thinking in business programs 
C. Evolution of critical thinking perceptions among teachers and students 
D. Teachers’ role in developing critical thinking 
E. Perceptions of Critical Thinking Instruction

souvik101990 · Answer

Official Solution:

A standard instrument for measuring students' perceptions of critical thinking instruction was administered to both instructors and students. This instrument contained twenty items addressing the goals and cognitive skills associated with critical thinking. For the instructor survey, the phrasing of each item was slightly modified, replacing "my instructor" with "I." Data were collected through a census survey of core courses in the business program. A total of 60 core course sections were surveyed, resulting in 689 responses from a total enrollment of 797 students, representing an 86.4% response rate. Instructors were also surveyed regarding the instructional methods and teaching strategies they employed in their respective courses. Faculty members were asked to indicate which methods they used, the relative importance of each method or strategy to the course, and the approximate percentage of classroom time dedicated to each method.
 
When analyzing course-level mean scores for students' perceptions of critical thinking instruction, we rejected the null hypothesis and found statistically significant differences between mean scores at different course levels. Specifically, the difference in scores between sophomore and junior-level courses was statistically significant. However, the difference between junior and senior-level courses was not statistically significant. This indicates that students in sophomore-level courses perceive critical thinking instruction differently than those in junior and senior-level courses.
 
We did not find evidence to support the alternative proposition that students' perceptions of critical thinking instruction are highly correlated with instructors' perceptions of critical thinking instruction in course pedagogy. Statistically significant agreement was observed on only four of the twenty survey items comparing perceptions between instructors and students. This disconnect was most pronounced in sophomore-level courses.
 
Similarly, we found limited support for the proposition that an instructor&rsquo;s emphasis on specific instructional methods or teaching strategies is strongly correlated with students' perceptions of critical thinking instruction. Of the twenty direct and indirect instructional methods included in the survey, only four showed statistically significant correlations with students' perceptions.
 
 Which if the following is the most appropriate title for the passage?

A. What students think about instructional methods of critical thinking? 
B. Importance of critical thinking in business programs 
C. Evolution of critical thinking perceptions among teachers and students 
D. Teachers’ role in developing critical thinking 
E. Perceptions of Critical Thinking Instruction

(A) Although the passage deals with the students’ perception on critical thinking, the main point is how different these ideas are from the instructors’ ones. 
 
(B )The passage does not discuss the importance of critical thinking in business; we have no references to business programs or any specific programs as a matter of fact. 
 
(C) Incorrect - the passage is not discussing an evolution or progression. It simply discusses one study without reflecting back or projecting forward.
 
(D) Incorrect - the passage is focused not only on the teachers but also students as well. This title implies that we are only concerned with the teacher view and ignores the other big aspect. (E) Correct. The topic of the passage focuses on the survey and perceptions. The more complete title would have been Perceptions of Critical Thinking Instruction: Comparing Student and Instructor Views Across Course Levels but the shorter version, while less precise, is still accurte.

Answer: E

pzone123 · Answer

I think this is a  poor-quality  question and I agree with explanation.

PeatearGryffin · Answer

I realize that this forum and this passage was likely written by a volunteer, and I appreciate the hard work. Truly.

But this is a terrible passage. I got it in a GMAT club test and missed 3/4 questions with it. I am a native English speaker, avid reader, and 99%ile V scorer. It took 6 minutes of just trying to read and reread this passage just to parse what it was trying to say, and I still don't really know. I think this passage isn't representative of the complexity of the passages seen even on the highest level of GMAT questions.

levin343 · Answer

i dont know if you agree, i re-read and re-read and I still dont understand what is the main meaning of the passage... sorry to say, this is a 700 level qns but the difficulty is not in the way it should be. the difficulty is the vagueness. I believe this is not a typical GMAT qns..

Arthurito · Answer

Im glad im not the only one to find this passage strange. It's uncommonly difficult for nothing. Appreciate the effort but even on the most difficult RC passages, it's not that hard.

A_Shrivastav · Answer

I think this is a  poor-quality  question and I agree with explanation. Not a GMAT level question

Oppenheimer1945 · Answer

Very Interesting passage on statistics background/research. But question was poorly framed to increase difficultly level

lavanya.18 · Answer

This is not a GMAT question; I got it in GMAT club tests and felt like I wasted my time. It is a poor-quality question.

bb · Answer

Thank you. I believe you mean the answer choices were deficient. I have updated those if you want to take another peek. 
Welcome any further feedback and sorry it's taken a while to revisit this question.

Dbrunik · Answer

I think this is a  poor-quality  question and I agree with explanation. got this right but this is a very poorly written passage.

bb · Answer

Thank you for the feedback, let me see what I can do but will probably take me sometime to work through this passage passage 😬

bb · Answer

I have made some minor but hopefully helpful updates @Debrunik - let me know if any thoughts. Including some structural changes with paragraphs.

Original version for my records:
 
 A standard instrument for measuring students' perception of critical thinking instruction was administered to both instructors and students. This instrument contained twenty items addressing the purposes of and cognitive skills associated with critical thinking. The phrasing of each item was slightly altered for a corresponding survey of instructors, with "my instructor" changed to "I". Data were collected through a census survey of core courses in the business program. A total of 60 core course sections were surveyed, yielding 689 responses from an enrolled total of 797 students, which represents an 86.4% response rate. In addition, instructors were surveyed regarding the instructional methods and teaching strategies they incorporated into their respective courses. Faculty members were asked to indicate which methods they employed in class, the relative importance of each method or strategy to the course, and an approximate percentage of classroom time allotted to each method.

When examining course-level mean scores for students' perceptions of critical thinking instruction, we were able to reject the null hypothesis and found statistically significant differences between mean scores at different course levels. When examined on a course-level basis between sophomore and junior level courses, the difference was statistically significant. However, the difference in scores between junior and senior level courses was not statistically significant. Therefore, students in courses for sophomores view critical thinking instruction differently than those in junior and senior level courses. We did not find support for the alternative proposition that students' perceptions of critical thinking instruction are highly correlated with the instructors' perceptions of critical thinking instruction in the course pedagogy. There was statistically significant agreement on only four of the twenty items included in the survey of perceptions between instructors and students. This disconnect is most prevalent among sophomore level courses. We found limited support for another proposition that an instructor’s emphasis on a selected instructional method or teaching strategy is highly correlated with students' perceptions of critical thinking instruction. Out of twenty direct and indirect instructional methods included in the survey, only four methods exhibited correlations with student perceptions that were statistically significant.

Which if the following is the most appropriate title for the passage?

A. What students think about instructional methods of critical thinking? 
 B. Importance of critical thinking in business programs 
 C. Evolution of critical thinking perceptions among teachers and students 
 D. Teachers’ role in developing critical thinking 
 E. Perceptions of Critical Thinking Instruction

V11-35

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