WSJ Article On Modern Colleges & Critical Thinking

The students need to spend a year or more with me. Then they will have some reasoning abilities and logic skills. And I”m not talking hot air — I’m talking theory and practice, and real results.

The test given is not necessarily the best and does not necessarily measure the essential factors of independent, objective thought, but it’s a start.

In “Exclusive Test Data: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills” (Wall Street Journal, June 5, 2017, 2:17 p.m. ET), Douglas Belkin writes:

Freshmen and seniors at about 200 colleges across the U.S. take a little-known test every year to measure how much better they get at learning to think. The results are discouraging.

At more than half of schools, at least a third of seniors were unable to make a cohesive argument, assess the quality of evidence in a document or interpret data in a table, The Wall Street Journal found after reviewing the latest results from dozens of public colleges and universities that gave the exam between 2013 and 2016. (See full results.)

At some of the most prestigious flagship universities, test results indicate the average graduate shows little or no improvement in critical thinking over four years.
…
Some academic experts, education researchers and employers say the Journal’s findings are a sign of the failure of America’s higher-education system to arm graduates with analytical reasoning and problem-solving skills needed to thrive in a fast-changing, increasingly global job market. In addition, rising tuition, student debt and loan defaults are putting colleges and universities under pressure to prove their value.

A survey by PayScale Inc., an online pay and benefits researcher, showed 50% of employers complain that college graduates they hire aren’t ready for the workplace. Their No. 1 complaint? Poor critical-reasoning skills.

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Those employers need to contact me! I can help their employees have better reasoning ability sand logic skills!