How clear and organized classroom instruction and deep approaches to learning affect growth in critical thinking and need for cognition

Abstract

In this study the authors analyze longitudinal student survey data from the 17-institution Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education (WNS) to determine the extent that the influence of overall exposure to clear and organized instruction on four-year growth in two measures of cognitive development is mediated by student use of deep approaches to learning. The findings suggest that for one cognitive outcome, need for cognition, a substantial part of the effect of clear and organized instruction is significantly transmitted by all three dimensions of deep learning: higher-order learning, reflective learning, and integrative learning. This overall trend was not statistically significant for critical thinking, although the impact of clear and organized instruction on growth in critical thinking skills was significantly mediated through one dimension of deep approaches to learning – reflective learning.

Keywords:

• approach to learning
• university teaching
• undergraduates
• critical thinking
• cognition

Notes

This research was supported by a generous grant from the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College to the Center for Research on Undergraduate Education at the University of Iowa.