It often seems that trouble finds me when I am not paying attention. Like many faculty, I am often asked to chair a wide variety of undergraduate theses – often on topics in which I have very little expertise. Several years ago, a bright student wanted to explore the variables that influence assimilation in a group of immigrants that had been largely ignored by psychologists, probably because the group is not large. She did a terrific job getting a subject pool together, especially given that it meant ferreting out participants from around the country. In her first study, she used a scale that was widely used and appeared in many publications; its popularity was probably because the scale had reasonable psychometric properties and there were few alternatives beside writing one’s own scale and then testing its properties – which can be a study in its own right. Encouraged by success in her first study, the undergraduate conducted a follow-up study, this time modifying the scale slightly so that it was more directly related to the specific life experiences of this understudied group. I believed that although the results were not groundbreaking, they would be interesting to scholars in assimilation and cross-cultural adaptation and would extend the psychological knowledge about this small group.

The outstanding student researcher was a senior at the time and wanted to apply to selective graduate programs. Thus, it was important for her personal success that she publish her study. As most readers probably know, graduate admissions committees value publications because they provide evidence that the student applicant can conduct solid research. Of course, the student was first author because it was her idea, and she did all of the real work. I commented on various drafts and made sure that the study conformed to all of the usual ethical requirements of psychological research, including approval from the Institutional Review Board and informed consent from participants.

There is a long history of teaching for creative thinking but, unfortunately, it is not a glorious one; few, if any, studies used rigorous experimental designs, and the inconsistent use of measures of creativity across published studies makes it difficult to compare results from different studies. In this chapter, I consider how the mandate to assess learning outcomes in postsecondary education could have positive effects that help students develop their abilities to think critically and creatively. I discuss the similarities and differences in these two ways of thinking about thinking and provide examples of new ways of teaching that offer the possibility of creating more creative learners. As a way of linking how we could be enhancing creativity in university classrooms with what actually occurs, I describe an informal survey of what is occurring in higher education throughout North America as determined from a sample of exemplary course syllabi. Unfortunately, there appears to be a wide gap between what could be and what is. I end this chapter with a description of a multiyear project that requires a creative product.

THE MANDATE TO ASSESS STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES IS CAUSING COLLEGES TO RETHINK THE “WHY” QUESTION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION

Every college and university in the United States must assess student learning outcomes as part of their periodic review for regional accreditation.

One day, the president of the American Psychological Association (Bob Sternberg), the president-elect of the APA (Diane Halpern), and the president of the American Psychological Society (now the Association for Psychological Science) (Roddy Roediger) got together to discuss ways in which these two large national associations, both concerned with psychology, might collaborate in a joint venture. Partly we wanted to show the ability of our sometimes rival organizations to collaborate, but partly, the three of us, friends of long standing, wanted to work together on a project. Eventually, we found ourselves talking about a topic that was of great interest to all three of us, and that also was, we thought, important for the field – the nature and development of critical thinking in psychology.

Our concern was that, although psychology curricula were pretty consistently strong in teaching students the main facts, theories, and research done in psychology, these curricula were more variable in the extent to which they fostered critical thinking in the discipline. Part of the reason for this variability, we thought, was that although some texts mentioned or even had exercises in critical thinking, the development of critical thinking in psychology was always secondary to their main purpose. Usually, the purpose of the books was primarily to convey subject matter, and only secondarily, at best, to promote critical thinking about this subject matter.

It was during a presentation on ways to enhance critical thinking in college classes that a jaded faculty member shot back at me, “What kind of thinking do you think I teach – noncritical thinking?” I assured this faculty member that no offense had been intended, although certainly it had been taken. In fact, often there is noncritical, or more appropriately labeled, rote memorization or lower level thinking that is taught and tested in many classrooms at all levels of education at the expense of higher order or critical thinking.

NONCRITICAL THINKING

Consider, for example, typical questions that might be found on tests given in developmental psychology classes. There is the ubiquitous question that asks students to list each stage of Piaget's theory of cognitive development, along with the age range for each stage, and an example of a cognitive task that can be accomplished at each stage. This is a basic recall question, even though there is an opportunity to provide an example, which allows for the application of the knowledge of what cognitive abilities become possible at each stage of development. The example given is almost always the same as an example that was presented in class or in the text. If this is the extent of students' knowledge, they are unlikely to be able to use Piaget's conceptualization of cognitive development in any applied setting (such as designing an age-appropriate toy or activity for a preschool) or in a novel or useful way.

I have two reproductions of great art on my desk. One is an inexpensive copy of Auguste Rodin's imponderable masterpiece, the Thinker, hunched over in his familiar pose that portrays ‘every man’ who is ‘lost in thought’. The other ‘objet d'art’ is an inflatable replica of Edvard Munch's depiction of mental anguish in his renowned painting ‘The Scream’. As I think about the task of integrating and classifying the last 50 years of theory and research in critical thinking, these two images come to mind and merge. In my mind's eye, I can see Rodin's inscrutable Thinker contort his face into that of the one depicted in ‘The Scream’ when the thoughtful, and presumably silent, Thinker is faced with organising and evaluating the literature on thinking skills. Fortunately, for those of us who care about improving how students think, we can all save our voices from the possible harm caused by a shrill scream because of the excellent work toward creating an organising taxonomy of thinking skills presented in Frameworks for Thinking : A Handbook for Teaching and Learning.

David Moseley and his able band of co-authors have boldly sorted through a mountain of literature to create a thinking skills taxonomy, so that we can identify what, when, and how well different methods and theories work to develop students' critical thinking abilities.