There are six scores reported on all forms of the Health Sciences Reasoning Test:

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

Total Score indicates one's overall reasoning or critical thinking skill level. It provides the best overall measure of critical thinking skills when the purpose is to compare job candidates, program applicants or students with national performance standards on the instrument. Test taker Total Score 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.
Three Delphi Study Scales and Two Traditional Scales

The first three HSRT sub-scales are named "analysis," "inference," and "evaluation," for they draw together the major core skills identified in the theory of critical thinking advanced in The Delphi Report. A more traditional characterization of reasoning as being either inductive or deductive is captured in the pairing of the fourth and fifth HSRT sub-scale.

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 HSRT 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 HSRT 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 HSRT, cannot be readily accessed apart from the operation of the other skills.

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.

Summary: The Total Score provides the best single measure for determining a minimal competent performance for the purposes of hiring or admission to health sciences workplaces or 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 scales named "deductive reasoning" and "inductive reasoning" follow a more traditional conceptualization of reasoning. It is worth noting that the words "inductive" and "deductive" have become notoriously ambiguous as a result of their divergent uses in different disciplines. Concern about this ambiguity explains why the words "deduction" and "induction" appear nowhere in the items of the HSRT. In view of the continued common reference to this distinction, however, the HSRT offer these final two scales.

The book, Critical Thinking and Clinical Reasoning in the Health Sciences, is a valuable resource for proven strategies for teaching clinical judgment in health care and health sciences professional programs and staff development programs.