Why should we teach critical thinking in our Freshman Seminar / First Year Program?

Knowing that the transition to college life often entails a steep learning curve, many colleges and universities teach a Freshman Studies course in ‘college survival skills.’  Topics often cover communication skills, learning strategies, and critical thinking skills.

Your Freshman Seminars should include critical thinking because:

  1. Strong critical thinking skills and positive critical thinking habits of mind are vital to academic success in every academic discipline and major field of study.
  2. Critical thinking may just be the most important college level student learning outcome. Regional accreditation organizations are looking to First Year Success and Freshman Seminar programs as vehicles through which institutions can deliver and assess their core learning outcomes.

College success is the result of well made decisions that lead to the accomplishment of degree requirements, while staying healthy and managing outside responsibilities. For a further discussion of introducing critical thinking skills to freshman, we recommend Think Critically by Dr. Peter, published by Pearson Education. Dr. Facione is the developer and author of the California Critical Thinking Skills Test family of measurement tools and a senior researcher and with Insight Assessment

Contact Us

Let our team of experts help you select the best assessment instrument for your project. You will hear from us within 1 business day.
    By selecting this box, you are agreeing to receive promotional messages from Insight Assessment. Terms and Privacy policy can be found at insightassessment.com/article/terms. Insight Assessment does not share or sell personal data.
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.