Thoughts About Critical-Analytic Thinking Deficits and Antecedents

Abstract

I am honored to serve as a commentator for this special issue on critical-analytic thinking (CAT). A few years ago, Gregg Schraw and I engaged in a similar effort by editing a book on the assessment of higher order thinking skills (Schraw and Robinson 2011). The present effort updates (Brown et al. 2014) and extends this literature by including research on interventions to enhance CAT (Murphy et al. 2014), relations between CAT and motivation (Miele and Wigfield 2014), developmental trends in CAT (Byrnes and Dunbar 2014), and a neuropsychological perspective on individual differences in CAT (Bolger et al. 2014). Because I do not consider myself an expert in CAT, my comments will focus on my general reaction to the articles. Few will argue that CAT is not an important educational outcome or that it should not be nurtured both at home and in schools. The ability to critically analyze and evaluate evidence sources is something all citizens need and would undoubtedly benefit society. The current revival of childhood diseases such as measles is simply the result of parents who lack CAT. Public opinion has convinced them that vaccines cause autism. In our own field of educational psychology, I have seen a lack of CAT in researchers who have claimed causality based on correlational evidence (e.g., Robinson et al. 2013). The authors in this special issue have done a great job of providing a “state of the field” with regard to CAT and where we should go from here. I wish them and the field of CAT well in finding ways to increase this important skill in our children. Brown et al. (2014) claimed that CAT is an important component of educational reform efforts. This is where my enthusiasm fades. We have seen several reform efforts over the past 50 years ranging from The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to its most recent amendment—No Child Left Behind. They are thematically consistent: both presume to order teachers and schools to overcome the developmental injuries inflicted on children during the 91 % of childhood from ages 0–18 that is spent outside of a K-12 classroom. None of them has significantly reformed education to the point where achievement has increased. We currently live in a world of high-stakes testing and school accountability. I strongly doubt that creating more accurate assessments of CAT will do more for educational reform than simply showing which schools have the highest concentrations of poor children. Educ Psychol Rev (2014) 26:583–585 DOI 10.1007/s10648-014-9292-0