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Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

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Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#311

Post by Nickersf »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #67
Nickersf wrote: post #59

Every time a college sucks article gets published I think the same things: Look at the college enrollment rates since the 1960's. Look at the tuition rates since the 1960's Look at the distribution of majors since the 1960's Then precede to look at the labor market. It all becomes very clear. There's millions of great young people roaming the halls of colleges who are not engaged in higher learning. Great young peopl…

> Had I gone right out of high school I would have wasted a lot of time and money. Why is that, if I may ask? For me personally, my goal was to graduate with a CS degree as soon as possible right after high school so I could start my much higher paying full time engineering job as quickly as possible. I noticed you also majored in CS, so I wonder what I might have overlooked?

I was totally disengaged from school socially and academically. I went and worked in a kitchen so I could buy a van, guitar and amp at 17. I spent my 20's touring around North America and Europe within the underground crust/punk community. I worked at record stores and DIY labels. All of it has been a great learning opportunity and helped me develop on the fly critical thinking and problem solving skills. It helped me appreciate the value of the dollar and what not having a place to live is like. It also taught me how the private sector works, networking and selling products in a limited market. I learned vast alcohol consumption causes problems when trying to do all those things, and not having your shit together is costly. However, the big thing is I learned all of that without being crippled with student loans, in fact I came out of it with savings, and capital.

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#312

Post by Nickersf »

dhimes wrote: post #280
MaxGabriel wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Side story about the 4/5 recommendation, this one for toothpaste: apparently Colgate would just ask dentists to list every type of toothpaste they recommended, and 80% of those doctors wrote down Colgate as an option, thus the "four out of five dentists recommend Colgate" ads. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1539715/Colgate-gets-...

Now I'm very interested why 20% wouldn't write down Colgate. Did they know something the others didn't?

All I know is that I buy the cheapest multi pack at costco once a year. My teeth are fine. :D

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#313

Post by Hydraulix989 »

Nickersf wrote: post #311
Hydraulix989 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Had I gone right out of high school I would have wasted a lot of time and money. Why is that, if I may ask? For me personally, my goal was to graduate with a CS degree as soon as possible right after high school so I could start my much higher paying full time engineering job as quickly as possible. I noticed you also majored in CS, so I wonder what I might have overlooked?

I was totally disengaged from school socially and academically. I went and worked in a kitchen so I could buy a van, guitar and amp at 17. I spent my 20's touring around North America and Europe within the underground crust/punk community. I worked at record stores and DIY labels. All of it has been a great learning opportunity and helped me develop on the fly critical thinking and problem solving skills. It helped m…

Wow, that's a great story! College definitely isn't for everyone, and I'm hearing more and more of other people with stories just like yours.

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#314

Post by Animats »

davidf18 wrote: post #192
thebspatrol wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd actually be really interested in knowing what percentage of people read opposing rhetoric. I easily spend far more time listening to and reading right-leaning rhetoric, despite being left leaning. I already know "my side". Why would I want to live in an echo chamber?

I have to read NYT, WaPo, WSJ, Economist, The Guardian, Breitbart, TimesofIsrael to get full information. NYT does a lot of censoring/under emphasizing of critical information. Of course there is also general reading that is important.

The South China Morning Post, even though more under mainland control than it was a year ago, is worth reading. For a while, they had a paywall, but it seems now to be inoperative for the "international edition".

The CIA used to have the Foreign Broadcast Monitoring Service, later the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, now the Open Source Center. During the Cold War, they had people listening to most of the national radio stations of the Communist countries and taking notes. Most of this was utter drivel; Radio Albania was mostly long speeches by their dictator. Sometimes something important would be announced, and it was the CIA's job to notice, so somebody had to listen. Must have been an awful job before it was computerized.

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#315

Post by pas »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #286
pas wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collegiate_Learning_Assessment There are a lot of studies about what is critical thinking, how to test and teach it: eg. http://windsor.scholarsportal.info/ojs/leddy/index.php/infor... Here's a PDF about the CLA itself: https://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUSE/SEAL/Reports_Papers/highe... > liberal arts ... Yes, good insight, it'd be good to have access to the data. > employe…

Thanks, I wonder about the nature of the jobs that have a requirement for critical thinking: these might be analysts, or managerial posts, how prevalent is this requirement?

I think it's more dependent on the type of organization and sector.

So if you are in a fast moving sector, you need agile self-aware people. They will think critically about the problems, uncover their basic assumptions, try to challenge them, and so on. It helps if you have open-ended, think outside the box, oh wait, we don't even have a box ... problems.

But it doesn't help if you want to cook your books and your accountant start to ask inconvenient questions.

I'd say product designers/managers are an interesting case, because coming up with a new product (or just new/different/fresh/interesting features for an existing product - for a new version) requires a lot of thinking, yet it requires a certain focus after the spec has been finalized, otherwise the product guy/gal will find itself in constant anxiety worrying about how the basic assumptions are shifting, how things need to be tweaked, and so on.

And of course, the aforementioned is just a very narrow aspect of thinking, and a lot of non-strictly-cognitive psychology.

But as our current state of society shows, critical thinking doesn't really have a super-duper-extra high and obvious utility reward. Otherwise it'd be more prevalent. Aaaand of course you'll get into a loop, trying to questions yourselves, your thoughts, trying to eliminate your biases, correct for others', estimate, forecast, predict, post-process. (And some people do it http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/12/31/2016-predictions-calibr... , some don't.)

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#316

Post by pas »

icelancer wrote: post #267
pas wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He/she can start publishing papers. Basically that's the only important thing to become a researcher/scholar. (You can be an independent scholar, so not associated with any research institute/university/group. But of course being in a group helps a lot.) And then various universities and doctorate schools have various requirements for a PhD. There are doctorate schools that don't require undergrad degrees or anything…

>There are doctorate schools that don't require undergrad degrees or anything. AUT in NZ (as I said in another comment) seems to be one. Do you know of others to investigate? Within 2 years I should have at least 5 peer-reviewed papers published in open journals [PlosONE/PeerJ] (and probably 1-2 in closed, "elite" journals... something I'm opposed to but... business...), and I wouldn't mind looking into it.

It seems that admission requirements are ... very formal nowadays, but also (higher) academia is all about who knows who. So if you have a good reputation "in the field", getting into a PhD program would be a matter of asking.

Also, usually young/child prodigies were able to skip undergrad and go straight to a PhD, but that's a bit different.

See also: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17841/phd-witho...

https://www.quora.com/Can-one-earn-a-Ph-D-without-having-a-B...

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#317

Post by ebfd »

ergothus wrote: post #239
emodendroket wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I don't feel like I get much out of listening to the same talking points trotted out over and over again, personally.

I'm solidly on the liberal side of most issues, and I definitely try to remain informed, which includes exploring conservative viewpoints and media. The problem is that MOST media (of any focus) is shallow. Reading the "opposing" side is just as tiresome as reading points I already know if obvious information is skipped over or not explored (actually, more tiresome). I end up chasing down lots of details myself, whic…

> In general I can expect less denial of well-demonstrated concepts and science.

Would you like to have a discussion about race or the heritability of IQ?

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#318

Post by pmezard »

thebspatrol wrote: post #46
Animats wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Paying for the party" is amusing. "Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities" covers much the same material. The importance of drinking didn't happen by accident. The alcohol industry promoted it heavily.[1] Two out of five students in the colleges studied are now binge drinkers. I got critical thinking early because I was brought up by a lawyer. There were always briefs around the house, and I could read the briefs fo…

I'd actually be really interested in knowing what percentage of people read opposing rhetoric. I easily spend far more time listening to and reading right-leaning rhetoric, despite being left leaning. I already know "my side". Why would I want to live in an echo chamber?

As a French, I read HN in part for this, to be reminded there are educated people out there with vastly different ideas about the world (I just hope they do the same...).

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#319

Post by kakarot »

Fricken wrote: post #234
kakarot wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the problem is indeed critical thinking skills. We must be able to critically identify devices and experiences that emotionally compromise us and lead to illogical action.

I've got social anxieties, I've critically identified the devices and experiences that lead to illogical action. From a distance I can be cold and calculating, once I get close to that situation, though, the only thing going through my mind is 'nope, nope, nope...'

The idea is to recognize emotionally compromising situations and either remove yourself from them until you can think clearly, or to let someone you trust stand between your judgment and action.

This is almost always achievable when there is will to do so, whereas emotionally regulating yourself while making decisions may be too difficult.

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#320

Post by dhimes »

Nickersf wrote: post #312
dhimes wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now I'm very interested why 20% wouldn't write down Colgate. Did they know something the others didn't?

All I know is that I buy the cheapest multi pack at costco once a year. My teeth are fine. :D

Are you a dentist?
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