There are six scores reported each time an individual completes the BCTST or the BRT:

• Total Critical Thinking Skills Score
• Analysis
• Evaluation
• Inference
• Deductive Reasoning
• Inductive Reasoning.

The Total Score on both the BCTST and the BRT provides the best overall measure of critical thinking skills when the purpose is to compare job candidates, program applicants or business school students with national performance standards on the instrument. The test taker's Total Score on this family of critical thinking skills tests has been shown to be valuable as a predictor of success in workplace contexts and for the successful completion of educational programs, certification and licensure examinations.

Analysis Scale: Analysis refers to the ability to comprehend and express the meaning or significance of a wide variety of experiences, situations, data, events, judgments, conventions, beliefs, rules, procedures or criteria. Analysis relies on the more basic skills of categorization and clarification of meaning. Analysis on the BCTST and the BRT also entails the ability to identify the intended meanings of, and inferential relationships among, statements, questions, concepts, descriptions or other forms of representation intended to express beliefs, judgments, experiences, reasons, information or opinions.

Inference Scale: Inference refers to the ability to identify and secure elements needed to draw reasonable conclusions; to form conjectures and hypotheses, to consider relevant information and, from this thinking process, to determine the consequences flowing from data, statements, principles, evidence, judgments, beliefs, opinions, concepts, descriptions, questions, or other forms of representation. Inference entails querying evidence, conjecturing alternatives, and drawing conclusions.

Evaluation Scale: Evaluation refers to the ability to assess the credibility and logical strengths of statements or other representations which are accounts or descriptions of a person's perception, experience, situation, judgment, belief or opinion. Evaluation entails the assessment of claims and arguments. Evaluation on the BCTST and the BRT also entails the ability to state the results of one's reasoning; to justify that reasoning in terms of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological and contextual considerations upon which one's results were based; and to present one's reasoning in the form of cogent arguments.

Together, these three scales form a full representation of the core critical thinking skills, understanding, of course, that meta-cognitive self-regulation, while being exercised as one takes the BCTST or the BRT, cannot be readily accessed apart from the operation of the other skills.

The two other scales on the BCTST and the BRT follow the traditional conceptualization of reasoning which divides the realm into inductive and deductive reasoning.

Deductive Reasoning Scale: In deductive reasoning, the assumed truth of the premises purportedly necessitates the truth of the conclusion. Strength in deductive reasoning requires that the reasoner understand when the grammatical, linguistic and conceptual content of the premises require that the conclusion must also be true, and have the ability to use this awareness to make judgments based on the necessity of those grammatical, linguistic and conceptual relationships. This relationship is demonstrated in traditional syllogisms; algebraic, geometric, and set theoretical proofs in mathematics; in identifying a specific instance of a generalization; and in inferences based on the principles of transitivity, reflexivity and identity.

Inductive Reasoning Scale: In inductive reasoning, an argument's conclusion is purportedly warranted or justified, but not necessitated, by the assumed truth of the facts at hand as expressed in its premises. In the case of a strong inductive argument it is unlikely or improbable that the conclusion would turn out to be false and all the premises be true, but it is logically possible that it might. Strength in inductive reasoning requires that the reasoner accurately infer that the relationship between an argument's premises and conclusion is probabilistic, and have the ability to use this awareness to make judgments based on the strength of that probabilistic relationship. Scientific confirmation, experimental disconfirmation, and statistical inferences are examples of inductive reasoning as are the day to day inferences we make in familiar situations about what things are will most likely to occur.

The "Total Score" provides the best measure for determining a minimal competent performance for the purposes of hiring or admission to business education programs. The scales named "analysis," "inference," and "evaluation" correspond to the definitions of these thinking skills as they were described in the APA Delphi research study and validated by employers, educators and community agency leaders in the Penn State study on critical thinking. Together, analysis, inference and evaluation form a full representation of core CT skills.

The fourth and fifth scales (Deductive and inductive reasoning) follow a more traditional conceptualization of reasoning. It is worth noting that the labels "inductive" and "deductive" have become notoriously ambiguous as a result of important differences in what they denote in different disciplines. It is for this reason that we have included a more detailed description of how these cognitive skills are measured here.

The book, Thinking and Reasoning in Human Decision Making, explores the relationship between critical thinking, expertise, and decision making in time-limited contexts of uncertainty and risk.