Teaching critical thinking in undergraduate science courses

This paper reports on the design and evaluation of a project aimed at fosteringthe critical thinking abilities and dispositions of first year students at anAustralian university. Novel paper and pencil problems were designed tofoster the range of critical thinking abilities identified by Ennis (1991). Most ofthese critical thinking tasks relate to applications of chemistry and physics ineveryday life. Some of the tasks were developed from information and/orideas obtained from critical incident interviews with scientists in private andgovernment organisations. The first year university students were required toattempt the tasks in co-operative groups and to interact in these groups in waysaimed at fostering the dispositions of Ennis' ideal critical thinker (Ennis 1996).The project was evaluated from discussions with groups of students, fromcomments of tutors who observed the students working in groups and from aquestionnaire. Evidence obtained from these data indicated that many studentsconsidered their thinking skills were enhanced by their experience of attemptingthe tasks in small co-operative groups.