Critical Thinking Assessments in Three African Countries, 2015-2019

The study adopted a mixed methods design, comprising a longitudinal study of student outcomes and a qualitative investigation of how institutions are able to encourage processes of pedagogical change. The quantitative data are made available here. The study used a quasi-experimental approach, involving naturally occurring cases of novel intervention. In order to assess the impact of these interventions on critical thinking, we compared these interventions to other cases which, as far as possible, differed only in the absence of such intervention (i.e. a prospective cohort design with comparison over time between intervention cases and matched controls). After the second assessment, gains in scores on the critical thinking assessment were compared, in order to investigate whether students enrolled in the ‘intervention’ faculties demonstrated more progress than students enrolled in faculties which had not attempted any pedagogical reform. Additional analysis of the quantitative results helped us to determine which pedagogical practices had the strongest impact on improvements in critical thinking ability and investigate the possibility of differential impact across students.