Results of the Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP) 
Test of Critical Thinking

A Report Submitted to the Faculty and Staff of St. Ambrose University
by the St. Ambrose University Assessment Committee 

Regular and ad hoc Assessment Committee members: Greg Conderman, Brenda DuBois, Ann Freeberg, Martin Hansen, Paul Koch, Rich Legg,  Ann Preston, Lew Sanborne, and Jim Van Speybroeck   

Developing each student's Critical Thinking abilities is a key goal of SAU's General Education program.  In its formalized Goals and Objectives for General Education, SAU faculty have defined specific critical thinking abilities¹ as target skills both for its General Education Program's courses and for other courses taken within students' major programs.  Other skills associated with critical thinking²  are embedded within many other SAU General Education Goals and Objectives as well.  The purpose of the present study was to gain baseline data about the critical thinking skills of our students at entry and at graduation.

Method: During the spring 2002 semester, ACT's Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP) Test of Critical Thinking  was administered to a total of 241 first-year and graduating students.³   ACT's web pages provide a brief description of the test.  

Results: Results were returned to SAU as summary data for both first-year and graduating student samples.  Additional summary demographic information about the membership of each sample was also returned to SAU.  Data records for each respondent were also provided to SAU.  This report describes only  the results included in the overall summaries.

Results of the CAAP Critcial Thinking Test are reported as scaled scores that range from 40-80.  SAU first-year students had a mean score of 60.3.  The national average for all respondents to the CAAP Critical Thinking Test over the last three years (n = 14,518)⁴ was 62.4.  SAU first-year student scores were not statistically different from the national average.  Cumulative percentiles for both the SAU first-year student and national samples can be examined in Table 1.⁵   SAU graduating students had a mean score of 63.1.  The average score for SAU graduating students also was not significantly different from the national average, nor was it significantly different from the average score obtained by SAU first-year students.  Graduating students who began their studies at SAU (n = 70) and those who transferred into SAU (n = 70) had statistically identical mean scores.  Cumulative percentiles for both the SAU graduating student and national samples can be examined in Table 2.⁶

In general, it appears that SAU students' Critical Thinking abilities are approximately at the national average for both first-year and graduating-student groups.  The lack of a significant difference between beginning and terminal students bears consideration.  The drawing of inferences from these data may be limited by the nature of the test, as well as by characteristics of the samples themselves.  

  Notes

1.  SAU General Education Goals and Objectives for Critical Thinking Skills

"The General Education Program provides students opportunities to develop the following skills:

Critical thinking skills

• recognize, analyze, and evaluate another's argued position, and give reasoned accounts of their own positions
• determine when and how problems can be addressed by means of the analytical methods of the arts, sciences, and other fields
• use analytical methods typical of the arts, sciences, and other fields to work toward the solution of problems"

2.  For other definitions and descriptions of Critical Thinking, see for example the following web-based resources: Center for Critical Thinking, definitions at the National Center for Education Statistics, or the Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum Project at Longview CC.

3.  First-year students (n = 101; 48 male, 53 female) were enrolled in five sections of English 101 and completed the assessment during a regularly scheduled class period.  A sample of graduating students (n = 140; 49 male, 90 female, 1 nr) was constructed by contacting all graduating students by letter and requesting that they complete the assessment during one of several scheduled assessment periods.  Of the 140 graduating students in the sample, one-half (70) had begun their studies at SAU as first-year students.  The instrument took approximately one hour to administer.  

4.  National norms reported represent the mean of all second-year students who have taken CAAP Critical Thinking Test.  Norms for other class years are still in development and will be reported when they are received.

5.  Table 1: Test Score Frequency Distribution for SAU first-year students and a national sample of respondents to the CAAP Critical Thinking Assessment.  National percentiles are based upon the three-year average of all second-year students who took this test.  Percentiles represent the cumulative frequency of respondents scoring at or below each level.  

6. Table 2: Test Score Frequency Distribution for SAU graduating students and national respondents to the CAAP Critical Thinking Assessment.  National percentiles are based upon the three-year average of all second-year students who took this test.  Percentiles represent the cumulative frequency of respondents scoring at or below each level.