Assessment Of Critical Thinking

Norris (1989) argues that the fact that the degree of domain specificity in critical thinking remains unresolved makes assessment of critical thinking difficult. First, the type of inferences one is trying to make remains unclear to the extent that researchers cannot agree whether critical thinking is general or subject-specific. Second, it is difficult to assess critical thinking transfer, because transfer to other contexts is confounded with subject-specific knowledge that is necessary for exercising critical thinking. Thus, a student who fails to transfer to another subject either requires additional instruction in critical thinking or additional instruction in the subject matter. Similarly, the disposition to think critically is confounded