Critical Thinking Skills: A Comparison of Doctoral- and Master's-Level Students

Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J., College Student Journal

This study compared the critical thinking skills of Masters- and doctoral-level students. Participants were 101 Master's- and 19 doctoral-level students at a southeastern university. These students were administered the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST), a multiple-choice test that targets core critical thinking skills regarded to be essential elements in a college education.

Findings revealed that the doctoral-level students obtained statistically significantly higher overall critical thinking skills than did the Master's-level students (t = -3.54, p < .001). The effect size (d = 0.92) associated with this difference was extremely large. Implications are discussed.

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An important goal of higher education is to develop and to enhance critical thinking skills (McBride & Reed, 1998). Indeed, the Association of American Colleges (1985) advocated strongly that students learn critical analytical skills, abstract logical thinking skills, inquiry skills, and the like. Additionally, the National Institute of Education (1984, p. 43) recommended that university-level curricula promote "the development of capacities of analysis, problem solving, communication, and synthesis."

Despite these objectives, relatively little is known about the critical thinking skills of college students. Moreover, studies that have been undertaken in this area have tended to involve undergraduate students. That is, scant research exists in the area of critical thinking among graduate students. Recently, however, Facione, Facione, Blohm, Howard, and Giancario (1998) found critical thinking skills to …

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Publication information: Article title: Critical Thinking Skills: A Comparison of Doctoral- and Master's-Level Students. Contributors: Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. - Author. Journal title: College Student Journal. Volume: 35. Issue: 3 Publication date: September 2001. Page number: 477+. © 2009 Project Innovation (Alabama). COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group.

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