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INQUIRY: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines Vol. 26 No. 2 (Summer 2011)
ISSN 1093-1082
Table of Contents
From The Editor's Desk
Frank Fair
As promised, this issue contains Robert Ennis’s “Critical Thinking: Reflection and Perspective Part II.” Part I appeared in the previous issue of INQUIRY (Vol. 26 No. 1)and covered both the background of Ennis’s involvement in the critical thinking movement and the development of his conceptualization of critical thinking. Part II continues the story and covers Ennis’s perspective on issues involved in the assessment and teaching of critical thinking. Part I and Part II, taken together, form an incredibly rich resource for anyone interested in the evolution of the movement to teach critical thinking.
Then in “Rationale for Considering Typical Critical Thinking Skills” we have an interesting point of view from Gordon Lamb and Cecil Reynolds about what we should try to assess when we assess students’ critical thinking skills. Their argument is that we should try to assess typical performance rather than maximal performance because typical performance is what truly matters in a number of important ways as far as the impact of training in critical thinking skills is concerned.
Following on the previous issue, there is the continuation of a series of articles contributed by faculty members from the Cypress Fairbanks (CyFair) campus of the Lone Star College System. As I noted in that issue, the Lone Star College System, with an enrollment of 85,000 students on its several campuses, is the largest institution of higher education in the Houston area and the fastest growing community college system in Texas. Maria Sanders, a faculty member and administrator from Lone Star College-CyFair, along with a number of other faculty members from diverse disciplines, formed a CTB-FLC, a “Critical Thinking Based Faculty Learning Community.” As a result, we have three pieces from faculty participants in that CTB-FLC.
The first essay by Ann van Heerden “Transforming a Content-driven Chemistry Course to One Focused on Critical Thinking Skills Without Sacrificing Any Content” is one that I find particularly interesting because it addresses head-on the concern that often arises when there is a move to teach critical thinking in subject matter courses, namely that the increased critical thinking emphasis will come at the expense of diminishing coverage of the requisite course content. The second essay “Questions about Critical Thinking: A Survey of Relevant Research,” reports on Lori Richter’s extensive search of the relevant research literature for answers to questions about critical thinking such as “Are Different Tests of Critical Thinking Skills Related?” The third essay “Faculty as Critical Thinkers: Challenging Assumptions” describes a study by Claire Phillips and Susan Green which gives evidence that college faculty members should not be assumed to have coherent and workable conceptions of critical thinking simply because they have advanced training in a specific subject matter area.
The last contribution is a review of 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behaviors by Lilienfeld, Lynn, Ruscio, and Beyerstein. In their favorable review Danielle Sitzman and Matthew Rhodes situate the book as presenting a well-developed response to George Miller’s 1969 APA presidential address which urged the scientific psychology community to “give psychology away” so as to have an impact for the better on popular psychological explanations.
Frank Fair
Professor of Philosophy
Department of Psychology and Philosophy
Sam Houston State University
Huntsville, TX 77341-2447
Phone: 936-294-1059
Email: criticalthinking@shsu.edu