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representative sample and a targeted sample. We also discuss samples of convenience,
highlighting the amount of research carried out on college students, linking back with
earlier discussions of research methods. One author (SO’D) used to do this exercise
discussing representative samples before targeted samples, but found that students found
this approach more difficult. Our guess is that beginning the discussion with generalizable
research, as is implied by the representative sample, serves to confirm students’ initial bias,
making it more difficult to eventually dislodge from their thinking.
Question #5: Is the Issue Oversimplified?
As students become more experienced in analyzing the data used to support an assertion,
it is also important to encourage them to consider ideas that are “watered down” in order
to make them more accessible to nonscientists. The objective at this stage is to improve
students’ ability to identify alternative explanations or contrasting perspectives on an issue.
Multiple intelligences (Issue #10) provides an opportunity for structured practice related
to this objective. Having heard a simplistic form of the theory of multiple intelligences in
school and other venues (e.g., a warm-fuzzy “we’re all intelligent in different ways” idea),
students frequently indicate their support, thinking they understand it. Reading these
chapters often leads to the discovery that their understanding was superficial at best.
Gardner (2006) presents a strong, multidisciplinary set of scientific criteria by which he
determines whether a characteristic can be considered an intelligence (e.g., specific
structures in the brain or effects of brain damage). Gottfredson (2006) reports equally
scientific findings that support the presence of a generalized factor, or “g,” that underlies
other specific characteristics (e.g., verbal fluency or mathematics). As students are focusing
on attempting to decide which view is correct, we often need to remind them that even the
scientific community is split and perhaps they are not really qualified to draw a conclu-
sion. We can then turn the discussion around to usefulness, considering ways in which
each view of intelligence can help us to understand human behavior. Students resist being
told that they are not qualified to make a judgment on an issue, but learning when it is
appropriate to rely on experts is an important part of critical thinking.
Question #6: Is Propaganda Being Used?
Considering generalization and simplification encourages students to focus on the presen-
tation of information. Questioning the uses of propaganda introduces another dimension
in considering the intent of the presenter or author. By this point, students are well versed
in the idea that, in psychology, facts come from empirical research (which tends to exclude
propaganda, we hope!). Realistically, however, students obtain information from a wide
range of nonacademic publications. The objective is not to encourage students to view all
attempts at persuasion as negative, rather to increase students’ ability to recognize when
propaganda is being used in order to allow them to evaluate an assertion independent of
peripheral attempts to persuade and influence. In other words, the objective is to increase
ability to evaluate the content of the argument rather than, or in spite of, the presentation.