“It’s all about critical thinking”

...this is a phrase I’ve heard repeatedly from expert big data analysts since we first launched the Oceans of Data Institute in 2013. Indeed, in ODI’s 2014 survey of close to 100 big data analysts, analytical thinking and critical thinking emerged at the top of the list of skills and knowledge essential to working with big-data across a broad spectrum of disciplines. Since then we’ve been trying to get a deeper understanding of these thinking skills— what do they look like when employed in school, work and everyday life? How do we teach them?

The importance of critical thinking has been broadly recognized by both business leaders and academics. A survey by the American Association of Colleges and Universities found that 75% of employers want colleges to place more emphasis on critical thinking, real world problem solving, communication, and creativity¹. Forbes, in a 2012 article, put critical thinking at the top of their list of skills that will get you a job². And the Higher Education Research Institute found that “full-time faculty with undergraduate teaching responsibilities overwhelmingly agree (99.1%) that developing students’ ability to think critically is a ‘very important’ or ‘essential’ goal. In fact, since the HERI Faculty Survey first introduced this question in 2004, nearly all faculty have consistently rated this goal as ‘essential’ or ‘very important’.”³

To gain a better understanding of how critical thinking is defined and how it is recognized in students’ work, I attended an intensive 2-day workshop on the Critical thinking Assessment Test (CAT) earlier this year.  Developed with funding from the National Science Foundation, this assessment of critical thinking skills has been widely used by higher education institutions across the U.S. I was excited to find that the skills assessed by the CAT are the very same skills we consider to be central to data literacy (see Table 1).

[from Stein, Haynes, Redding, Harris, Tylka and Lisic, 2010, Faculty driven assessment of
critical thinking: national dissemination of the CAT instrument, Proceedings of the 2009 International
Joint Conferences on Computer, Innovation, and Systems Sciences and Engineering]

There are two things I especially like about the CAT. First, unlike the more common multiple choice assessments, the CAT test items solicit short answer essay responses that “reveal students’ thought processes and ability to think critically and creatively when confronted with real world problems” (Stein et al, 2010). Second, faculty are trained and directly engaged in scoring their students’ responses. This gives them important feedback on students’ weaknesses and the effectiveness of their instruction, and allows them to hone their teaching of critical thinking skills.

Our experience so far has taught us that students struggle to master these skills, and that it’s important to explicitly guide them as they work to become better critical thinkers.  It can be as simple as asking them questions such as “are there other possible interpretations of these data?” or “what additional data/ information would help me understand this better?”

As we approach national elections in the U.S., we are presented with a bewildering array of claims and counter-claims. Given the formidable challenges we face, and our personal responsibility as citizens to help meet these challenges, it’s especially important that we know how to make wise decisions that move our country toward what we all care about— the ability to support ourselves and our families, live with a sense of security, and leave a better world for our children. Equipping the next generation with strong data literacy skills is one of the most important things we can do to pave the way for this bright future.

¹ AACU (Association of American Colleges and Universities), It Takes More than a Major: Employer Priorities for College Learning and Student Success,” 2013. http://www.aacu.org/

² http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/12/10/the-10-skills-that-will-get-you-a-job-in-2013/#4797d35f664b

³ Eagan, M. K., Stolzenberg, E. B., Berdan Lozano, J., Aragon, M. C., Suchard, M. R. & Hurtado, S. (2014). Undergraduate teaching faculty: The 2013–2014 HERI Faculty Survey. Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA. http://heri.ucla.edu/monographs/HERI-FAC2014-monograph.pdf