An Exploratory Study of Critical Thinking in the Workplace

Presenter Information

Erik Jacobson, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Emily Stark, Minnesota State University, MankatoFollow

Location

CSU Ballroom

Start Date

2-4-2019 2:00 PM

End Date

2-4-2019 3:30 PM

Student's Major

Psychology

Student's College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Mentor's Name

Emily Stark

Mentor's Department

Psychology

Mentor's College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Description

Critical thinking has broad implications for success in everyday life. Employers often look for strong critical thinking skills in potential candidates, and many universities are aimed at fostering these skills in their students (Lawson, 2015). Most critical thinking measures and activities used in college classrooms focus on analysis of research articles and findings, but it is not clear whether those skills are relevant to critical thinking in the workplace. The present exploratory study aims to examine participants' abilities to apply critical thinking skills learned in the classroom to specific workplace scenarios where critical thinking is necessary to come to a solution. Workplace critical thinking scenarios were developed and piloted during the fall semester and data collection is ongoing using the final versions of these workplace scenarios. Participants are asked to identify issues in both workplace scenarios as well as summaries of research findings and also complete demographic information. Preliminary results suggest that participants' year in school positively relates to critical thinking about research studies, and further analysis aims to examine whether and how those skills translate to workplace scenarios. The present study is the first to develop and test workplace critical thinking skills among students.