Teaching Critical Thinking in Psychology: A Handbook of Best Practices

Chapter 7

Programmatic Assessment

of Critical Thinking

Kevin J. Apple, Sherry L. Serdikoff,

Monica J. Reis-Bergan, and Kenneth E. Barron

Assessing critical thinking is a difficult task because the construct is not easy to define.

In our programmatic assessment of critical thinking, we strive to assess different components

of this construct. Our approach is similar to the Indian parable of the Blind Men and the

Elephant (Saxe, 1878). According to this parable, a group of blind men examined an ele-

phant. Each man touched a different part of the elephant’s body and thus had a different

impression about the elephant. For example, one of the men touched the long, sharp tusk.

This person was convinced the elephant was like a spear. The individual who touched the

side of the elephant was convinced that the elephant was like a wall. The individuals who

touched the trunk, leg, ear, or tail insisted that the elephant was similar to a snake, tree, fan,

or rope, respectively. According to the parable, these blind men argued about the true nature

of the elephant. Each man insisted that he was right, without realizing that the other

descriptions of the animal were accurate for a different section of the elephant. If the men

cooperated with each other and pieced together an image of the elephant based on each

other’s experiences, they would have created a more accurate image of the elephant.

One lesson from this parable is that multiple measures of a construct are better than a

single measure (Campbell & Fiske, 1959). Although critical thinking is difficult to define,

we strive to measure it accurately by assessing different components of it. Specifically, we

attempt to get an accurate measure by assessing students’ abilities at different times with

different measures. In this chapter, we will examine how we assess critical thinking at

various points during our students’ education.

The Assessment Culture at James Madison University

James Madison University (JMU) has a unique assessment culture (Stoloff, Apple, Barron,

Reis-Bergan, & Sundre, 2004). As part of University policy, all programs (including non-

academic) assess their effectiveness on a yearly basis. In addition to collecting assessment

Teaching Critical Thinking in Psychology: A Handbook of Best Practices Edited by D. S. Dunn, J. S. Halonen, and R. A. Smith