Enhancing Critical Thinking Skills through Decision-Based Learning

One of the major issues related to critical thinking in higher education consists of how educators teach and inspire students to develop greater critical thinking. skills. The current study was conducted to explore whether Decision-based Learning (DBL), an innovative teaching method, can enhance students' critical thinking skills. This mixed methods ex-post facto study aimed to identify the areas of overlap between DBL and critical thinking components based on an empirically tested framework. The study was conducted at a large, private university in the western United States with two instructors and 89 undergraduate students. Data were collected via DBL publications, course midterm exam scores, and instructor interviews. Since this was an ex post facto study, the exam items were not initially written to target critical thinking skills as defined by the critical thinking framework we chose. An analysis was done on the cognitive processes elicited by the exam items after the fact, and it was found that they elicited three of the six skills described in this framework. In addition, participation in DBL activities related to statistically significant higher exam scores on these items after controlling for a standardized pre-test taken by both treatment and control groups prior to beginning the course. The effect size was large in favor of the DBL courses. In addition, two instructors reported their perspectives on the critical thinking skills exhibited by their students using DBL. The evidence collected across these three sources of information supports a connection between DBL and four of the six critical thinking components within the framework we selected.