Susan Hippensteele presents on the use of the Critical Thinking Assessment Test at the WASC Resource Fair.

1. Critical Thinking and Science
Literacy Course Impact on
Student Retention and Graduation
Susan K. Hippensteele, Ph.D., J.D.
University of Hawai`i at Manoa

2. What are we doing?
1) developing and evaluating “best practices” pedagogy
for teaching critical thinking and science literacy
through applied multidisciplinary general education
courses,
2) building a broad multidisciplinary community of
faculty with expertise in critical thinking and science
literacy pedagogy that „closes the loop between
teaching, learning, and assessment, and
3) evaluating the impact of freshman completion of a
critical thinking and science literacy course on retention
and progress to degree.

3. 1. SOCS 150: Street Science: Analyzing and
Applying Evidence in Daily Life
 Multi-disciplinary critical thinking and science literacy
course
 Large enrollment (170 max) with Friday tutorial
 Six instructors from psychology, anthropology,
economics, and women‟s studies
 Introduction to logic followed by 2-week problem based
units; final research paper project
 Interactive classroom activities, individual and small
group homework and quizzes, no content
memorization—all skill based and applied problem-
solving

4. 2. Critical Thinking Assessment Test
(CAT) developed by
Tennessee Tech University (TTU)
 Used to assess critical thinking skill acquisition within SOCS
150 and control classes
 Non discipline-specific, tests applied problem-solving skills
similar to those confronted in daily life
 15 question, primarily short answer essay test; 1 hour or less
 Faculty scored on-site using carefully crafted rubric developed
by TTU
 Faculty scoring sessions (7-8 hours) interactive and important
feature of faculty development aspect of project
 http://www.tntech.edu/cat/home/

5. Critical Thinking Assessment Test
(CAT)
 Evaluating Information: Separate factual information from
inferences, interpret numerical relationships in graphs,
understand the limitations of correlational data, evaluate
evidence and identify inappropriate conclusions.
 Creative Thinking: Identify alternative interpretations for
data or observations, identify new information that might
support or contradict a hypothesis, explain how new
information can change a problem.
 Learning and Problem Solving: Separate relevant from
irrelevant information, Integrate information to solve
problems, learn and apply new information, use mathematical
skills to solve real-world problems.
 Communication: Communicate ideas effectively

6. SAMPLE DISCLOSED CAT QUESTION
A scientist working at a government agency believes that an ingredient commonly used in bread
causes criminal behavior. To support his theory the scientist notes the following evidence.
99.9% of the people who committed crimes consumed bread prior to committing crimes
crime rates are extremely low in areas where bread is not consumed
Do the data presented by the scientist strongly support their theory? Yes___ No___
Are there other explanations for the data besides the scientist‟s theory? If so, describe.
_____________________________________________________________________________
What kind of additional information or evidence would support the scientist‟s theory?
_____________________________________________________________________________
Center for Assessment & Improvement of Learning, 2007, 2010

7. 3. Manoa Institutional Research Office
 Our broad hypothesis is that freshman enrolled in a
multidisciplinary general education course that
teaches scientific reasoning and critical thinking
skills to understand and evaluate real-world issues
will be better prepared to succeed in college.
 To test this hypothesis we have written a grant to
conduct a longitudinal study to develop and assess
a student progress to degree model that allows us to
examine the impact of various early academic
experiences, including SOCS 150, on student
academic decision-making and success.

8. Why are we doing it?
 The original motive for developing SOCS 150 was to
better prepare students for upper division coursework in
multiple disciplines, i.e., introduce them to basic
scientific reasoning, problem solving, information
literacy, evidence evaluation, debunking false claims and
misrepresentations of data
 After being trained to score the CAT we realized the
potential of our model for promoting broader
institutional change and decided to use the course as a
laboratory for undergraduate education research at
UHM

9. What do we hope to achieve?
 We expect our multidisciplinary courses to enhance
science literacy and critical thinking skills and improve
retention in multiple disciplines on our campus.
 Both our course and research model are widely
adaptable to any college curriculum.
 The student data tracking system we plan to design can
serve as a model to other campuses seeking to evaluate
the impact of courses or specific student academic
experiences on retention, progress to degree, and
graduation.