Abstract:
Recent debate stimulated by competency standards and the Finn / Mayer key competencies has directed attention to the series of higher order competencies that are claimed to be the hallmark of a university education. Critical thinking is a central example of these higher order competencies. If the Finn/Mayer Reports are implemented, critical thinking will be but one of a series of such competencies that Australian education at all levels will attempt to address more systematically. So far there appears to have been little research on the critical thinking capacities of Australian higher education students. This paper continues an initial exploratory study in this field. Following earlier investigations of the critical thinking capacities of vocational teachers using the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level X (Kaye and Hager, 1991; Hager and Kaye, 1991), the authors hypothesised that there should be significant connections between a student's critical thinking capacities and their study processes. This paper reports on and discusses a test of the hypothesis. The view that there should be significant connections between students' critical thinking capacities and their study processes has prima facie plausibility because many of the common components postulated of critical thinking are clearly conducive to effective study processes as they are typically conceived.