The Science of Assessing Critical Thinking

Neil Thomason (The University of Melbourne), Lewis Murray, Ashley Barnett, John Wilkins (University of Melbourne), John Wilkins, John Wilkins (University of Sydney, University of Melbourne)

Abstract
We have been awarded a grant to study how the teaching of critical thinking can be improved using argument mapping techniques developed by Tim van Gelder and colleagues. This talk will consider how this is playing out, and how we will evaluate the effectiveness of these techniques, which prior studies have shown to have a significant impact on the retention of critical thinking not shown by traditional teaching methods. We will also consider the "cheap conditional" as a way to uncover unstated assumptions, and whether or not there is a principled way to produce valuable conditionals that do actual explanatory work in an argument that has been stated in natural language.