Rational Thinking and Argument Evaluation in Higher Education Students

• In Event: Reimagining Epistemic Cognition for a Changing World: Knowing in an Age of Too Much Information

Abstract

Introduction
In higher education, learning is fundamentally an epistemic activity that goes beyond acquiring factual knowledge (Richter & Tiffin-Richards, 2024). Students must evaluate multiple and sometimes conflicting scientific arguments, such as competing theories and findings (Muller Mirza, 2012). A key aspect of epistemic rationality is evaluating informal arguments by examining how well reasons support claims (Münchow et al., 2019). Yet, students often rely on intuition or beliefs rather than argument-based evaluations (Shaw, 1996), and research indicates limited gains in critical and rational thinking throughout university (Arum & Roksa, 2011; Grimm & Richter, 2025). Building on findings that general rational thinking predicts academic success (Grimm & Richter, 2024), we examined how individual differences in rational thinking relate to students’ argument evaluation skills.
Objective
We conducted two pre-registered experiments using a pre-post between-subjects design (one-week interval) to investigate whether a brief computer-based rational thinking training could improve general rational thinking and whether gains would transfer to argument evaluation. The training included an introduction to rational thinking, Type 1 and Type 2 processes (Evans & Stanovich, 2013), common cognitive biases, practical tips on rational decision-making, and eight practice tasks with elaborate feedback. In Experiment 1 (preregistration: https://aspredicted.org/vky3-7hwv.pdf), the control group received a PQ4R reading strategy training (Thomas & Robinson, 1972); in Experiment 2 (preregistration: https://aspredicted.org/j8m6-bf68.pdf), they completed sentence comprehension tasks. We hypothesized that rational thinking and argument evaluation would be positively related and that improvements would occur only in the treatment group.
Experiment 1
A sample of 149 students (112 female, 33 male, 4 diverse) with an average age of 22.3 years (SD = 3.9) completed Experiment 1. Two parallel test versions of general rational thinking skills (Grimm & Richter, 2024) and argument evaluation (Münchow et al., 2019) were counterbalanced as pre- or posttest.
As hypothesized, baseline general rational thinking skills were positively correlated with argument evaluation, r = .30, p < .001. As expected, covariance analyses with treatment (dummy coded; 0 = PQ4R training, 1 = rational thinking training) as predictor and pretest scores as covariates indicated a significant treatment effect on rational thinking skills, β = 0.46, SE = 0.12, ΔR2 = .05, p < .001(one-tailed), with only the treatment group improving significantly from pretest to posttest. However, no treatment effect emerged for argument evaluation, β = 0.00, SE = 0.14, ΔR2 = .00, p = .498 (one-tailed). Both the rational thinking training and PQ4R training group significantly improved in argument evaluation.
Experiment 2
Experiment 2 is ongoing. Preliminary analyses with a sample of 108 students (83 female, 24 male, 1 diverse) replicated the findings of Experiment 1.
Conclusion
A brief targeted training can enhance students’ general rational thinking skills. However, these gains did not transfer to argument evaluation, despite a positive correlation between the two. Improvements in argument evaluation across groups may be due to learning from the test itself. These findings highlight the need for higher education interventions that promote epistemic cognition by combining training in general rational thinking with explicit instruction in argument structure, evaluation, and fallacies.

Authors

• Johanna Grimm, University of Würzburg

• Tobias Richter, University of Würzburg