Exclusive Test Data: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

Wall Street Journal ^ | June 5, 2017 | Douglas Belkin

[C19fan]

Freshmen and seniors at about 200 colleges across the U.S. take a little-known test every year to measure how much better they get at learning to think. The results are discouraging.

At more than half of schools, at least a third of seniors were unable to make a cohesive argument, assess the quality of evidence in a document or interpret data in a table, The Wall Street Journal found after reviewing the latest results from dozens of...

[C19fan]

Not surprising considering the everyone should go to college mentality, elimination of a rigorous common core, and most people going to college for a credential not an education.

[BenLurkin]

Critical thinking is the last thing the Pinkos at the universities want.

[samtheman]

Critical thinking is the last thing the Pinkos at the universities want.

---

They are all handed a left-wing agenda and they all chant vigorously to the appropriate part of that agenda for each occasion, as deemed appropriate by the agenda leaders.

Isn’t that critical thinking?

[rdl6989]

No surprise at all.

[Red Badger]

Improve it?
Hell, their objective is to destroy it!

People who cannot think for themselves and must rely on government to supply them their daily dose of soma are much easier to CONTROL..........................

[Red Badger]

At more than half of schools, at least a third of seniors were unable to make a cohesive argument, assess the quality of evidence in a document or interpret data in a table

They are more than halfway to their goal of making America a nation of total imbeciles...................

[kosciusko51]

Too bad the rest of the story is behind a pay wall...

[bankwalker]

Critical thinking has been methodically destroyed by Critical Theory, a tool of the Frankfurt School.

[ReaganGeneration2]

Behind a pay wall, but anyone able to find a link or search-terms for the actual study paper?

[eyeamok]

They may be dumber than dirt and unable to think for themselves, but they are some of the proudest moron’s I have ever met.

[Presbyterian Reporter]

And the political elite (DEMS and REPS)consider those test results to be a successful outcome of their efforts to dumb down America via the Common Core Curriculum.

[SandRat]

All good Democrats as well I bet.

[Presbyterian Reporter]

Freshmen and seniors at about 200 colleges across the U.S. take a little-known test every year to measure how much better they get at learning to think. The results are discouraging.

At more than half of schools, at least a third of seniors were unable to make a cohesive argument, assess the quality of evidence in a document or interpret data in a table, The Wall Street Journal found after reviewing the latest results from dozens of public colleges and universities that gave the exam between 2013 and 2016. (See full results.)

At some of the most prestigious flagship universities, test results indicate the average graduate shows little or no improvement in critical thinking over four years.

Search how 68 public colleges and universities performed on the CLA+ standardized test.

Some of the biggest gains occur at smaller colleges where students are less accomplished at arrival but soak up a rigorous, interdisciplinary curriculum.

The so-called Ivy League schools are now more about becoming a credentialed member of the elite and not about teaching students to learn. A lot of the so-called best colleges actually aren’t. It’s no surprise these test results aren’t disclosed to the public, since they seem likely to be a fair assessment of a college’s ability to actual teach students; applications to the Ivy League might well dry up if parents came to understand their child would be better-equipped with life skills elsewhere.

In spite of the obvious alarms raised by this test, expect colleges to breezily ignore them until it is too late, similar to how the media has refused to change and is now being tuned out by Americans in the post-2016 world.

Flagship institutions such as the University of Kentucky and the University of Texas at Austin attract some of the brightest students in the country. Their students showed little improvement in CLA+ performance. Their value-added score put their ranking in the bottom third of all schools that gave the test in the same year.

Kentucky and UT Austin officials criticized the test and said they no longer use it.

[kosciusko51]

Thank you.

[kosciusko51]

I found the link to the data: https://graphics.wsj.com/table/THINKTEST_0510

[Rurudyne]

You could just call it cultural Marxism.

[KarlInOhio]

The students had a worse score after 4 years at only 5 of the 68 colleges listed.

I'm trying to remember if I had any classes that taught this legendary "critical thinking" that colleges brag about and use to justify their liberal arts classes. Nope. The liberal arts classes were just as focused on transferring facts as my major's technical classes.

[kosciusko51]

At least math and technical classes teach how to think logically. The best way to learn critical thinking is to think, “Do I believe the bull plop that the teacher has just spouted?”

[Alberta's Child]

Colleges shouldn't be in the business of giving anyone "critical thinking" skills. Anyone who shows up as a college freshman without such skills never should have been admitted in the first place.

Nobody should be surprised at this, since the elimination of independent, critical thought has one of the core objectives of public schools in this country over the last century.

[Steve_Seattle]

After observing the idiocy at Evergreen State this past week, these stats are very easy to believe.