Indicator: Higher-order thinking skills

What to know about measurement

Although there is broad consensus on the importance of critical thinking skills, currently there are not any critical thinking assessments that are administered and reported at scale. The Postsecondary Value Commission describes a variety of ways in which “cognitive ability and intellectual dispositions,” a family of skills that includes critical thinking, could be measured. The HEIghten assessment, suggested above as a potential instrument for measuring critical thinking skills in postsecondary contexts, has not been validated in large-scale evaluations, but is currently being evaluated in the Next Generation Undergraduate Success Measurement Project, a rigorous study of various methods to measure undergraduate experiences and outcomes. Given the research evidence, we suggest higher-order thinking skills could be measured starting in middle or high school and have suggested potential performance-based measures that can be used with youth. We propose using a performance-based test to mitigate the risk of bias in self-reported or instructor- or employer-reported measures.

As noted above, we acknowledge that measuring soft skills, including critical thinking and problem-solving skills, carries with it a risk of cultural and racial bias, depending on how they are measured. Data users should examine potential unintended consequences of soft skills assessments and proactively mitigate risks related to bias (see the Data Equity Principles section of this report for further guidance).