The Monash Critical Thinking Study
4. Actively-Open Minded Thinking (Aomt)
Description
Actively Open-Minded Thinking (AOMT) is "the willingness to search actively for evidence against one's favoured beliefs, plans or goals and to weigh such evidence fairly when it is available" (Baron 2002). There is a great deal of evidence that AOMT is not widespread in the general population. In particular, people are susceptible to confirmation bias or "myside" bias: people tend to overestimate arguments for claims they already accept and underestimate arguments against claims they accept. (Baron 1994, Nickerson 1998). This cognitive bias is very robust and widespread, even experts are susceptible to it. AOMT is simply the disposition and ability to avoid "myside bias".
What Factors Affect Individual Differences in Aomt?
1. There is some evidence that cognitive ability (general intelligence) is positively correlated with AOMT. (Stanovich and West 1998).
2. There is also evidence that certain attitudes to thinking or thinking dispositions are also positively correlated with AOMT. (Stanovich and West, 1997, 1998).
Thinking Dispositions Questionnaire
Consider the following statements:
1. There is nothing wrong with being undecided about many issues.
2. Difficulties can usually be overcome by thinking about a problem, rather than waiting for good fortune.
3. Changing your mind is a sign of weakness.
4. Intuition is the best guide to making many decisions.
Studies have shown that people who agree with statements like 1-2 and disagree with statements like 3-4 perform much better on a wide variety of reasoning tasks (even statistical reasoning tasks) and are less prone to myside and other biases. (Stanovich and West, 1997, 1998)
Perhaps then, people do not reason well because they are not disposed to do so. Perhaps people are capable of reasoning well, but do not see the value in doing so. If so, then instruction aimed at changing attitudes might lead to improvements in critical thinking ability. This is Baron's Hypothesis.
To investigate this, we attempted to incorporate some AOMT teaching strategies into the course.
Aomt Teaching Strategies
1. Students were taught about some of the empirical evidence for myside bias and the evidence that AOMT reduces bias and improves thinking.
2. Exercises that focus on the ability of students to find alternative explanations or counter-evidence for a given claim.
3. Students taught that good arguments must take into account all the relevant evidence and counter-arguments or possible objections to the reasoning or premises.
4. Exercises in which students must criticise arguments in support of their own position on the topic under discussion and suggest evidence or arguments against their position.
5. Exercises in which students are instructed not just to pick the answer, but to actively look for evidence against their choice, by carefully considering the alternatives.
As in previous semesters, Peter Singer's The President of Good and Evil (2004) was used as a text for the course. Students were required to read a chapter each week. The arguments from each chapter were then discussed and analysed in tutorials and the above AOMT strategies were incorporated into the exercises. Homework exercises consisted of LSAT questions and further passages from Singer's text for analysis and evaluation.
Click here for a sample of exercises.
Procedure
Students were pre- and post-tested using the CCSTS and GSA. Test forms were distributed randomly at the pre test and students were given the opposite form for the post-test. Students were also pre- and post- tested using the Stanovich and West Thinking Dispositions Questionnaire (TDQ) as a measure of open-minded attitudes. (Stanovich and West, 2003).
Results
Students showed no significant improvement on critical thinking tests scores on either the GSA or CCTST.
Students showed a statistically significant improvement in open-minded attitudes, as measured by the TDQ.
Effect size: 0.32 (N=28). Significant at the 0.05 level.
Statistically significant correlations were found between critical thinking scores and open-minded attitudes.
Sample characteristics
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Semester 2, 2005 sample (AOMT) | |
| Sample size | 49 |
| Sex | Male: 27 Female: 22 |
| Age (Years) | Range: 18 (7) - 29 (1) Median: 20 Mode: 19 |
| Year level | 1st Year: 22 (44.9%) 2nd Year: 7 (14.3%) 3rd Year: 5 (10.2%) 4th Year: 2 (4.1%) 5th Year: 4 (8.2%) |
| Faculty | Arts: 28 (57.1%) Business/Economics: 6 (12.2%) Arts + (Commerce, Engineering, Music, Science): 5 (10.2%) Exchange: 4 (8.2%) Science: 4 (8.2%) Engineering: 2 (4.1%) |
Gains on critical thinking tests
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CCTST (Max. score = 34) | |||
| N = 49 | Mean | 95% confidence interval |
Standard deviation |
| Pre-test | 18.86 (55.47%) | [17.45, 20.26] | 4.89 |
| Post-test | 19.47 (57.26%) | [17.89, 21.05] | 5.49 |
| Gain | 0.612 | [-0.47, 1.70] | 3.78 |
| Effect size | 0.14 | [-1.1, 0.38] | |
| Proportional gain | 6.7% |
[-0.30, 13.61] | 24.22 |
| GSA (Scaled scores) | |||
| N = 48 | Mean | 95% confidence interval |
Standard deviation |
| Pre-test | 415.79 | [390.54, 441.04] | 86.96 |
| Post-test | 421.48 | [391.16, 451.80] | 104.43 |
| Gain | 5.69 | [-14.68, 26.06] | 70.25 |
| Effect size | 0.06 | [-0.14, 0.25] | |
| Proportional gain | 1.70% |
[-3.18, 6.59] | 16.82 |
Gains on open-minded attitude scale
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Thinking dispositions questionnaire | |||
| N = 28 | Mean | 95% confidence interval |
Standard deviation |
| Pre-test | 174.4 | [165.4, 183.4] | 23.2 |
| Post-test | 182.0 | [173.6, 190.3] | 21.5 |
| Gain | 7.5 | [1.1, 3.8] | 16.3 |
| Effect size | 0.32 | [0.05, 0.59] | |
| Proportional gain | 14.22% |
[6.09, 22.35] | 20.96 |
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).
Correlations
1. There was a significant correlation between pre-instruction open-minded attitudes and critical thinking test scores.
Pre-test CCTST-TDQ correlation : r = 0.32 , n= 52. Significant at 0.05 level.
Pre-test GSA-TDQ correlation : r = 0.406, n = 52. Significant at 0.01 level.
Post-test CCTST-TDQ correlation: r = 0.489, n= 46. Significant at 0.01 level.
Post-test CCTST-GSA correlation: r = 0.472, n= 46. Significant at 0.01 level.
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| Difference in CCTST pre-test scores for high and low AOMT groups |
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| Difference in CCTST post-test scores for high and low AOMT groups |
(High and Low AOMT groups obtained by median split on TDQ score).
2. There was a significant correlation between pre-instruction open-minded attitudes and improvement in critical thinking scores on the CCSTST.
TDQ-CCTST gain correlation: r = 0.33, n = 46.
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| Difference between CCTST gain scores for high and low AOMT groups |
Comparison with other studies
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| Gains for all studies measured using the CCTST. |
| * Two semester course. |