Effectiveness of Two Methods for Teaching Critical Thinking to Communication Science and Disorders Undergraduates

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of two methods for teaching critical thinking (CT) skills to communication sciences and disorders students. It was hypothesized that a short course of critical thinking training would result in improved student scores on CT assessments. Also, it was hypothesized that students taught using a mixed instruction method would exhibit more improvement in their CT skills. The research involved a pre- and post-test comparison of students who completed 10 weeks of critical thinking instruction. The students had either a mix of direct instruction of CT concepts with problem-based learning communication sciences and disorders (CSD) examples or infused problem-based learning CT instruction. With CSD based problems. The pre- and post-tests consisted of a general and a content specific CT assessment. All of the students exhibited improved scores on both CT measures. In addition, the students who had the mixed instruction exhibited greater improvements. The greatest improvements for all students occurred for the trained CT skills. These results indicate that both mixed and infused instruction can be effective in teaching students CT skills, however, the mixed instruction was more effective.