When sociologists are asked to rank their instructional goals, they tend to rank the development of critical thinking at the top (Bradshaw and McPherron 1978). Contributors to Teaching Sociology regularly urge colleagues to develop skills in critical evaluation (Mariampolski 1978; Baker and Jones 1981; Adriance 1982; Fredericks and Miller 1985). At the verbal level; teaching students how to be better critical thinkers is clearly a fundamental goal of those who teach sociology. This focus on critical thinking as an educational objective is hardly unique to sociology. A college catalog that failed to praise critical thinking or to pledge that graduates will think more critically when they leave than when they entered would be an anomaly. Increasing the cognitive level of university teaching is an aim to which almost all professors would react with immediate approval (Bowen 1971). Certainly, recent national reports on the quality of higher education place the teaching of critical thinking at the forefront of university objectives. These recommendations include the final report of the National Institute of Education's Study Group on the Conditions of Excellence in American Higher Education (1984) and the report by the Association of American Colleges, Integrity in the College Curriculum (1985). Despite the expressed support for critical thinking as a focal point for teaching, however, little effort is devoted to meeting the goal (Baker 1981). Course goals can be oriented toward diverse domains and levels of learning (Vaughan 1980). The primacy of higher-order cognitive skills tends to be honored at educational