The Monash Critical Thinking Study
3. Reason!able argument mapping
Description
The second hour of each tutorial was spent in a computer lab, working on argument mapping exercises using the Reason!able software. As in semester 2, 2004 Singer's book The President of Good and Evil (Singer 2004) was used as a text for the course. Students were required to read a chapter each week. Arguments from each chapter were discussed in class, then the students moved to a computer lab, to work on constructing Reason!able argument maps of the arguments. Homework consisted of LSAT questions and further passages from Singer's text for analysis and evaluation using Reason!able.
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| An example Reason!able map of an argument from Singer 2001 |
Click here for a sample of the exercises.
Results
Students showed a slight improvement on critical thinking scores on the CCTST.
Effect size: 0.22 standard deviations (n=65). Significant at the 0.1 level.
Students showed no improvement on critical thinking scores on the GSA.
Sample characteristics
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Semester 1, 2005 sample (Reason!able) | |
| Sample size | 41 |
| Sex | Female: 21 Male: 20 |
| Age (Years) | Range: 18 (12) - 24 (1) Median: 20 Mean: 19.7 (SD 1.66) |
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Year level | - |
| Faculty | Arts: 23 (56.1%) Arts + (Law, Commerce): 5 (12.2%) Engineering: 5 (12.2%) Science: 3 (7.3%) IT/Telecommunications: 2 (4.9%) Exchange: 1 (2.4%) Medical science: 1 (2.4%) Commerce : 1 (2.4%) |
Gains on critical thinking tests
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CCTST (Max. score = 34) | |||
| N = 41 | Mean | 95% confidence interval |
Standard deviation |
| Pre-test | 19.146 (56.3%) | [17.48, 20.82] | 5.29 |
| Post-test | 20.122 (59.18%) | [18.57, 21.67] | 4.92 |
| Gain | 0.98 | [-0.17, 2.14] | 3.67 |
| Effect size | 0.22 | [-0.04, 0.48] | |
| Proportional gain | 7.2% |
[0.70, 13.69] |
20.58 |
| GSA (Scaled scores) | |||
| N = 40 | Mean | 95% confidence interval |
Standard deviation |
| Pre-test | 437.30 | [407.14, 467.46] | 94.31 |
| Post-test | 441.53 | [416.44, 466.61] | 78.44 |
| Gain | 4.225 | [-15.29, 23.74] | 61.08 |
| Effect size | 0.04 | [-0.15, 0.23] | |
| Proportional gain | 0.97% |
[-3.07, 4.995] | 12.60 |
Effect sizes calculated using pre-test standard deviation estimates of 4.45 CCTST points and 102.76 GSA (scaled) points.
Proportional gain is the gain score score expressed as a percentage of how many points a student could have gained (or lost) relative to the maximum test score (or pre-test score if gain was negative).
Comparison with other studies
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| Gains for all studies measured using the CCTST. |
| * Two semester course. |