Developing Reflective Judgment in Community College Students 1

Various student development theorists have postulated that the collegiate experience is a strong contributor toward cognitive development in college students. This essay examines Kitchener and King's (1981, 1985) reflective judgment model of cognitive development as both a metacognitive exercise and as a particular skill. The development of reflective judgment, both as a method of examining assumptions about thinking and as a specific skill for justifying one's beliefs, is promoted as a desirable outcome of an enhanced program of general education in a community college curriculum. The author promotes a program of contextual support designed to optimize the development of reflective judgment in selected community college students by employing the skills development ideas of a number of student development theorists (Kitchener, Fischer, Lynch, and Wood). Specifically, the author uses President Woodrow Wilson's ideas about what it means to be an educated person to create the foundation of the proposed Wilson Scholars Program of enhanced general education within a community college transfer degree program. This document offers detail