Reasoning
and Critical Thinking Skills Tests
Insight
Assessment's skills tests target the reasoning skills of analysis-interpretation,
inference, evaluation-explanation, inductive reasoning, and deductive
reasoning. Meta-cognition (self-monitoring and self-correcting one's
own reasoning) is a valuable skill used by all who would be most successful
as test-takers of reasoning and critical thinking skills tests.
All
the tests can be successfully used with subjects of varying ages.
The CCTST, for example, targets college students. But it has been
used well with persons aged 16 through 60. Visit the web pages of
each of the tests, or contact IA to talk about which test may be the
best for the subjects whose critical thinking skills you wish to measure.
Use the TER for high school, community college, and college undergraduates
and adults of all ages. Use the CCTST or the HSRT for undergraduate
and masters students. Or, if you expect that your subjects are on
the higher end of almost any normal curve, use the CRA.
Test
takers find the questions clever and engaging. Using the information
provided in each test item, test takers apply their critical thinking
skills as they reason to the optimal response. Test-retest research
designs work well with these reasoning and critical thinking skills
tests. Test-takers consistently report that they prefer to reason
through the questions again, rather than risk trying to recall what
answer they may have given in the past.
There are no “trick questions.” None of our tests rely on
“special vocabulary” or "insider knowledge." Tests
like Form 2000 of The California Critical Thinking Skills Test, The
Test of Everyday Reasoning, and The Health Sciences Reasoning Test
have introduced the use diagrammatic as well as text-based items.
Different tests focus on problem solving, scientific-quantitative
reasoning, or judgment and decision-making.
Extensive
technical research supports the validity and reliability of these
well-established and widely used thinking skills testing tools. In
English and in authorized translations,
they are used nationally and internationally for a wide variety of
assessment purposes in educational, governmental, health care services,
and business settings including screening, outcomes assessment, program
evaluation, and performance funding.
