A Critical Analysis of Critical Thinking Interventions in Higher Education

Within education broadly conceived, critical thinking (CT) is touted as the hallmark of learning, and much research and practitioner effort is directed toward the promotion of this skill. Yet, the mechanisms by which CT can be improved among students remain largely inconclusive, and the majority of studies yield non-significant changes. This systematic review sought to scrutinize extant interventions and unearth the characteristics of the participants and study, the context of the intervention, and the conditionalities under which CT is positively promoted. Some crucial theoretical and methodological issues are identified in included literature. For one, although some foundational CT research has forwarded consensus conceptualizations (e.g., Facione, 1990), CT interventions seldom forward clear conceptualizations of the very thing they set out to bolster, clouding what the targeted construct in the intervention is. For another, researchers conducting experiments do not operationalize CT in accordance with their (implicit) conceptualization, making for poor construct validity that perhaps explains nonsignificant CT yields. Alternatively, researchers do not have a clear rationale for the mechanism by which their intervention should improve CT. Lastly, few studies employ robust (quasi-)experimental designs. Most CT interventions included suffer from at least one of these issues, and recommendations for robust CT interventions are forwarded.