[C07] Critical thinking assessment

There are different psychological tests that are used to evaluate critical thinking skills. The more popular ones are usually standardized tests that can be benchmarked against a larger sample.

• Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA) - The standard version consists of multiple choice questions for an hour-long test. There are two versions (A & B) that are supposed to be equivalent and so can be used to measure changes in critical thinking over a period of time.
• California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) - A more recent test that can also be completed online, with sub-scores for different categories such as analysis, inference, induction, etc.
• California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI) - Designed to "designed to measure the disposition to engage problems and make decisions using critical thinking."
• The Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment (HCTA) - Focuses on five dimensions of critical thinking: verbal reasoning, argument analysis, thinking as hypothesis testing, likelihood and uncertainty, and decision making and problem solving.
• Cornell Critical Thinking Tests - There are two levels. Assessment topics include: induction, deduction, credibility, identification of assumptions, etc.
• Related to the assessment of critical thinking, there is also the interesting Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT), which consists of only 3 short questions. It provides a measurement of rational and reflective thinking. We have a copy of the CRT test on our web site here.