V11-37

A standard instrument for measuring student 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 as “my instructor” became “I”. Data was collected in a census survey of core courses in the business program. A total of 60 core course sections were surveyed with 689 responses from an enrolled total of 797 students (86.4% response rate). In addition, instructors were surveyed regarding the instructional methods and teaching strategies incorporated in their respective courses. Faculty members were asked to indicate which methods they employed in a class, the relative importance of the method or strategy to the course and an approximate percentage of classroom time allotted to the method.
When examining course level mean scores for student perceptions of critical thinking instruction, we were able to reject the null and find that there are 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 students in junior and senior level courses. We did not find support for an alternative proposition that student perceptions of critical thinking instruction are highly correlated with the instructor’s perception of critical thinking instruction in the course pedagogy. There was statistically significant agreement on only four of twenty items included in the survey of perceptions between instructors and students. This disconnect is most prevalent among the 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 student 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 of the following questions is not expected to have been included in the survey questionnaire as discussed in the passage?

A. Do I encourage participation of the students in class?
B. Does memory play a role in critical thinking?
C. Is critical thinking important in achieving learning objectives?
D. Do I draw links between practical examples with the theory?
E. Does my instructor prefer to assign group activities to individual activities?