David W. Carroll et al.
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Activities that Integrate Critical Thinking with Course Content
In this section, we examine a short list of activities that promote both critical thinking
about and understanding of course content potentially useful in most psychology classes.
These techniques allow instructors to implement critical thinking to enhance and deepen
content learning rather than to interfere with presentation and retention of material. Our
list comprises (a) critical thinking exercises, (b) ignorance questions, (c) debates, (d) self-
assessment assignments, (e) audiovisual media assignments, and (f ) Internet assignments.
Critical Thinking Exercises
Peden and Keniston (1991) developed a series of activities designed to teach students
about observations, inferences, and assumptions. Each exercise was a multiple-choice essay
question with five alternatives. The stem instructed students to identify and label each
alternative as an assumption, inference, or observation and then explain their labels in a
paragraph. Some stems asked “Which of the following is an assumption as opposed to an
inference or an observation?” whereas stems for other questions asked “Which of the
following is an observation as opposed to an assumption or inference?” Here is an example
edited for clarity:
In “Football, Fast Cars, and Cheerleading: Adolescent Gender Norms, 1978–1989,” Suitor
and Reavis (1995) compare college students’ reports about sources of prestige for male and
female high school students across the span of a decade. Which of the following statements
represents an assumption by the authors that makes this work interesting and important to
them? Which of the other statements are inferences the authors make? Which are observa-
tions? Circle the letter of the statement that is the assumption and explain why it is the
assumption; then indicate and explain whether each other statement is an inference or an
observation.
A. Adolescents are the harbingers of gender roles in the coming decades.
B. American adolescents entered the 1980s with relatively traditional gender roles.
C. There were substantial differences in most of the avenues by which boys and girls
acquired prestige in high school in the early 1980s.
D. The overall change in prestige girls acquired through participation in sports was due to
changes in the boys’ perceptions.
E. There was relatively little change in gender norms among high school students between
the early and late 1980s.
Keniston and Peden (1992) used the same format to engage students in other types of
critical thinking as well. An introductory psychology textbook by Wade and Tavris (1987)
provided guidelines for critical thinking that helped Keniston and Peden create critical
thinking exercises. They also used the approach two other ways. On one hand, they devised