4
Martin Davies and Ronald Barnett
educational development of a range of skills of 2322 American college students
from 2005 until 2009. It established that 45% of students made
no significant
improvement
in their critical thinking or reasoning skills during the first two
years of college and 36% made no significant improvement after an
entire
four-
year college degree (Arum and Roska 2011). Students tested could not, after
completing a university course, sift fact from opinion, nor could they clearly
present an objective review of two or more conflicting reports or determine a
cause of an imaginary problemwithout being influenced by persuasive rhetoric
and emotional blackmailing. This was a disturbing set of findings, and placed
in serious doubt the assumption that critical thinking was being adequately
taught, at least on American college campuses.
Further, in a major report by a consortium of US organizations in 2006
(Casner-Lotto and Benner 2006), the employers surveyed articulated the skill
set that was needed in the workplace in the new century. The highest ranked
skill as rated by employers was “critical thinking,” surpassing “innovation”
and “application of information technology.” The employers were invited to
consider recently hired graduates from three types of institutions: high school,
two-year colleges, and four-year colleges and made clear their views regarding
the skill deficiencies in the new graduates. The proportions of employers evinc-
ing such concerns were 57.5, 72.7, and 92.1% respectively (Casner-Lotto and
Benner 2006). That is,
92.1% of the employers surveyed regarded graduates from
four-year colleges as being “deficient” in critical thinking
. The US business commu-
nity, it seems, is well appraised of the importance of critical thinking, even if
its perceived value may be languishing in the academy.
In the United Kingdom, higher education institutions have now largely
“abandoned critical thinking,” and turned to “vaguely defined” skills such as
“teamwork,” “communication” and “leadership.” It is these “skills” sets that
“lecturers have to tick off as they incorporate them into their lessons . . . stu-
dents [become] commodities [which] transforms education into a ‘big busi-
ness’ rather than education for education’s sake” (
Education News
2013). There
appears something of a paradox in the modern academy. Industry wants more
critical thinking, but increasingly—at least in some countries—universities
have little interest in providing it, even if they continue to proclaim its value.
We may at least conjecture that it is not coincidence that the United States
and the United Kingdom are among the countries that have seen the most
marked moves in the marketization of higher education, and driving forward
its demonstrable economic value, while it is just such countries in which the
place of critical thinking appears to be in jeopardy.
All this comes at a time when, globally, universities are more associated than
ever before with the business world. In short, universities have never been
more aligned with the business sector, and yet (ironically) never less capable of
meeting its needs. Critical thinking skills development, among other things,
9781137378033_02_int.indd 4
3/3/2015 5:02:09 PM
