Improving Economics and Business Students’ Critical Thinking: Empirical Support for Explicit Instructions

• In Event: Teaching Innovations in the Education of Professionals

Abstract

Although critical thinking is considered to be a central goal in economics education, it is rarely explicitly taught. An experimental study is presented investigating the impact of dispositions and instructions on economics students’ gains in critical thinking. Participants (N=84) were exposed to one of three conditions: implicit instruction, implicit + explicit instruction + practising, and implicit instruction + practising. Results showed that participants exposed to explicit instructions + practise had higher pre-test to post-test gains in critical thinking than participants in the other conditions. Regarding dispositions, participants with lower scores on actively open-minded thinking also had lower pre-test scores compared to participants with higher scores, but this did not interact with how much they gained from instructions.

Authors

• Anita Heijltjes, Avans University of Applied Sciences

• Tamara Van Gog, Erasmus University

• Fred Paas, Erasmus University