Improvement in university students’ critical thinking following a strategic thinking training program

Abstract

Today's experts believe that critical thinking is a major output in higher education and teaching thinking is a basic point to learning. The aim of this study was to explore whether a strategic thinking training program could improve student’s scores on a standardized measure of critical thinking. Sixty-six students aged between 20 and 35 were tested at their college on before the program CCTST and CCTDI. Thirty-nine of these students volunteered to be randomly allocated to the strategic thinking or control group. Students in the strategic thinking group received a strategic thinking training program, but not the students in the control group. The experimental and control groups were then re-tested on CCTST and CCTDI at after the intervention. Students in the strategic thinking group significantly improved their critical thinking skill and critical thinking disposition scores compared to the control group. On average, we observed no group differences between the strategic thinking and control groups. These results have important implications for implementing a strategic thinking training program to protect students from a decrease in critical thinking skill and critical thinking disposition during the achievement of educational goals.