Satish Nargundkar

Based on Instructional Innovation Grant, Summer 2014.

Robinson College of BusinessGeorgia State University

January 22, 2015

Critical Thinking in Decision Analysis

Critical Thinking

Definitions Philosophical

“disciplined, self-directed thinking that exemplifies the perfections of thinking appropriate to a particular mode or domain of thought” (Paul, 1992, p. 9).

Psychological pragmatic approach to

defining CT in terms of how humans actually behave (Lai, 2011).

Critical Thinking

Pedagogical Bloom’s (1956) Taxonomy and revision by Krathwohl

(2002)

Teaching to think Critically

Van Gelder (2005) - CT is not natural for humans. Shermer (2002) - humans are pattern-seeking, story-

telling animals that prefer simple, familiar patterns over the harder cognitive task of CT.

(Nickerson, 2012) – CT can be achieved by creating a conditions that promote divergence of ideas followed by a convergence towards a solution.

Grading Exercise

Class asked to grade 4 fictitious answers without any guidelines.

Divergence of grades noted and displayed.Rubrics are created in a group exercise.Class reevaluates answers using rubric.Is there less variability in grades?

Results

Max Grade

Min Grade

Difference

Fictitious Student 1 9 0 90%

Fictitious Student 2 8 0 80%

Fictitious Student 3 10 4 60%

Fictitious Student 4 10 1 90%

Table 1: Divergence of student grading decisions

Grading Rubric

Correct Answer 0 1 2 3 4Incorrect Correct

Mathematical Steps

0 1 2 3 4 5None Shown All steps correct

General Logic 0 0.5 1None Demonstrated

Table 2: Rubric developed by a group of students in class

Grading Redone with Rubric

Max Grade

Min Grade

Difference

Fictitious Student1 8 3 50%

Fictitious Student2 9 0 90%

Fictitious Student3 10 5 50%

Fictitious Student4 5 3 20%

Table 3: Divergence of student grading decision with rubric

n=27 No Rubric With Rubric

Stdnt1 Stdnt2 Stdnt3 Stdnt4 Stdnt1 Stdnt2 Stdnt3 Stdnt4

Mean 6.39 4.15 9.02 6.85 5.75 3.79 6.58 4.04

Stdev 2.12 2.42 1.57 2.79 1.43 2.27 1.79 0.34

Grade Distributions

10

5

010

5

010

5

010

5

0

Grades Without Rubric Grades With Rubric

Student 1

Student 2

Student 3

Student 4

Effectiveness Survey

Question Strongly Strongly Disagree Agree

1.Think critically about Decision Analysis

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

2.Improve my ability to evaluate an answer.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

3.Understand the diversity of evaluation criteria used by people.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

4.Understand the role of rubrics to make more consistent valuations

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

5.Evaluate better in other domains (eg. performace evaluation in a workplace).

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Survey Results

n=27 CT in Decision Analysis

Improved Evaluation

Ability

Understand Diversity

of Criteria

Using Rubric for

Consistency

Apply to Other

DomainsMean 6.04 5.96 6.59 6.41 5.93

Std. Dev. 0.71 0.85 0.57 0.69 0.83

Conclusion

Effective in helping students think critically about decision makingSide effect of improving perceptions of instructor’s grading fairnessExercise (modified appropriately) applicable to any area

Thank You!