Grauerholz 2003 Assessing critical thinking sociology.pdf - Oncourse

EXPLORING CRITICAL SOCIOLOGICAL THINKING*Much has been written about enhancing students' critical thinking abilities,but very little empirical research on this important learning outcome existswithin the sociological literature. Indeed, there is little consensus among sociologists(and non-sociologists) about what critical thinking is. In this paper wereview ways in which sociologists have conceptualized and measured criticalthinking and introduce a new concept--critical sociological thinking--that em-bodies the type of higher-level thinking many sociologists want to help studentsattain. Critical sociological thinking refers to the ability to logicaly andreasonably evaluate an argument or problem while maintaining an awarenessof and sensitivity to social forces and contexts. Further, we develop a scalethat can be used to measure critical sociological thinking and demonstrate itsusefulness in the empirical analysis of student writing. Implications for futureresearch and teaching are discussed.LIZ GRAUERHOLZPurdue UniversitySHARON BOUMA-HOLTROPPurdue UniversityONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT and commonlearning goals in sociology is enhancingstudents' critical thinking abilities(Goldsmid and Wilson 1980), yet empiricalresearch and theoretical clarity on this importantlearning outcome is sorely lacking(Baker 1981; Geertsen 2003a). Withoutsuch research, we remain at a loss to determinewhether certain teaching techniqueseffectively enhance such learning, whethersome are more effective than others, or iftheir effectiveness varies by student, group,or institution.In this paper, we explore ways in whichcritical thinking has been used theoreticallyand empirically primarily within the sociologicalliterature and attempt to clarify itsmeanings. Building upon the concepts ofreferential thinking, as introduced by Geert-"*The authors would like to thank Reed Geertsen,Janet Wilmoth, John Bean and the anonymousreviewers for their insightful comments onearlier drafts of this paper. Please address allcorrespondence to Liz Grauerholz, Departmentof Sociology and Anthropology, Purdue University,West Lafayette, IN 47907;e-mail: grauer@sri. soc.purdue.edu.Editor's note: The reviewers were, inalphabetical order, Reed Geertsen, PriscillaReinertsen, and Norma Shepelak.sen (2003a), and discipline-specific criticalthinking, as discussed by McPeck (1985),we introduce the concept of critical sociologicalthinking to describe the type of criticalthinking of particular interest to sociologists-criticalthinking with a sensitivity toand awareness of social and cultural contexts.Data from a study of student writingare presented to demonstrate ways in whichcritical sociological thinking can be measuredempirically and used to assess studentlearning.CONCEPTUALIZINGCRITICAL THINKINGCritical thinking seems to be much likegood art: we know it when we see it, wehave some sense of how we might encourageor even teach it, but we are not surehow to assess or measure it. Certainly, theconcept has been overused and impreciselydefined. Baker's (1981:359) claim morethan 20 years ago that "critical thinking isone of those buzz words which seems tomean just about anything to anybody" stillrings true today. Among those who do attemptdefinitions, there is considerable variability(Geertsen 2003a). For instance, criticalthinking has been defined as:Teaching Sociology, Vol. 31, 2003 (October:485-496) 485