Critical thinking tests and higher education research

Critical thinking has become an important objective in higher education. However, educators disagree about how critical thinking should be defined and measured. The Reflective Judgment Interview [RJI] (King & Kitchener, 1994), a measure of adult levels of critical thinking, has received thorough construct validation, but the interview is time-consuming and expensive to administer and its ability to explain other educationally relevant behaviors has not been empirically tested. The Graduate Management Admission Test's [GMAT] Analytical Writing Ability [AWA] essay test is being advertised as a test of critical thinking, but the AWA has not been empirically validated.; The present study asks whether differences in critical thinking, defined as reflective judgment, explain a significant portion of the variance in the Graduate Management Admission Test's [GMAT] Analytical Writing Ability [AWA] essay test, after differences in vocabulary and verbal ability have been partialled out.; The 44 participants were paid volunteers; all were state university students who had recently taken the GMAT. Students completed the vocabulary portion of the Nelson-Denny Reading Test and the RJI. Official GMAT reports supplied GMAT Verbal Scores and AWA essay scores. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that even after differences in vocabulary and verbal ability had been partialled out, RJI scores explained a significant portion of the variance in AWA essay scores (R2 = .08, p = .01). These results confirm that the GMAT essay is a valid measure of reflective judgment and that the RJI does explain other educationally relevant behavior.