Teaching for Success and not for the Test: An Investigation of the Impact of Critical Thinking Skills on Student Engagement for Ethnic Minority Student

The phenomenon of poor academic performance of African American students is often referred to as the achievement gap. For the last twenty years, African American student's test scores have remained almost stagnant while white student's test scores have increased (Boykin & Noguera, 2011). In order to close the deficit, we examined factors that contribute to academic achievement particularly for minority students. Student engagement and information processing, operationalized as critical thinking, are strong predictors of academic achievement (Boykin & Noguera, 2011; Skinner & Pitzer, 2012). Most educators agree critical thinking is vital to the classroom environment, but few teach critical thinking skills explicitly (Fisher, 2001). This study assesses the impact that direct teaching of critical thinking skills has on students' reports of engagement. Specifically, researchers examined how critical thinking skills could be improved and therefore improve student engagement leading to higher academic achievement (LaPoint, Ellison, & Boykin, 2006). Students were surveyed about their engagement and critical thinking levels across two platforms, classroom practices and student practices. Researchers investigated, with the use of a control group, changes in self-reported critical thinking skills and engagement after repeated exposure to critical thinking lessons. As an exploratory, measure researchers followed up with students four weeks after the intervention to examine any long term changes in critical thinking and engagement. Results showed a positive relationship between critical thinking and engagement after receiving the critical thinking lessons. However, there were minimal changes to critical thinking skills after the lessons and no improvement in engagement scores. Qualitative analysis suggested that students may not be adequately judging their critical thinking skills. There was also no long term impact of the direct teaching of these skills. These results indicate the intervention led to a stronger relationship between critical thinking skills and student engagement.