Critical thinking among college and graduate students

John Dewey (1933) argued that reflective thinking, the careful col-lection and evaluation of evidence leading to a conclusion, should be a central aim of education. Recent national reports on the quality of post-secondary education in the United States have affirmed the centrality of teaching critical thinking skills to college students (National Institute of Education 1984; Association of American Colleges 1985; Garrison 1984). Yet the empirical evidence docu-menting progress toward this objective among undergraduate col-lege students is minimal, and among graduate students, is virtu