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Critical and Creative Thinking
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All UCORE-designated courses are required to advance Critical & Creative Thinking, totaling 34 credit hours in UCORE-designated courses that include instruction and/or engagement with Critical & Creative Thinking. As such, the required first-year experience course [ROOT], other first-year foundational requirements, and the senior capstone experience course [CAPS] are required to advance Critical & Creative Thinking.
WSU Learning Goal: Graduates will use reason, evidence, and context to increase knowledge, to reason ethically, and to innovate in imaginative ways. Graduates may demonstrate critical and creative thinking by:
- Defining, analyzing, and solving problems.
- Integrating and synthesizing knowledge from multiple sources.
- Assessing the accuracy and validity of findings and conclusions.
- Examining how one thinks, reasons, and makes value judgments, including ethical and aesthetic judgments.
- Identifying diverse viewpoints, including different philosophical and cultural perspectives.
- Combining and synthesizing existing ideas, images, or expertise in original ways.
- Thinking and working in imaginative ways characterized by innovation, divergent thinking, and risk-taking.
Current Evidence of Student Learning Related to Critical and Creative Thinking
Click on the links for more information about current evidence of student learning from assessments aligned with Critical and Creative Thinking in the context of the UCORE curriculum:
Capstone [CAPS] Assessment for UCORE
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Assessing Student Learning at the Senior Level: AY 2019-20 [CAPS] Course Assessment Results
As reported in the AY 2019-20 [CAPS] Course Assessment Reporting Summary of Key Evidence for UCORE, assessment results indicated that 83% of students met or exceeded expectations at the graduating undergraduate level for Critical & Creative Thinking. Additionally, 81% of students met or exceeded expectations for Written Communication. In courses where faculty members found enough elements to evaluate student learning on additional learning goals, instructors indicated that 88% of the students met or exceeded expectations for Oral Communication, and 88% for Diversity.
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Roots of Contemporary Issues [ROOT] Assessment
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Information Literacy, Integrative Learning, and Critical Thinking Achievement at the First-Year Level: AY 2020-21 Roots of Contemporary Issues [ROOT] Final Papers Assessment Results
As reported in the AY 2020-21 [ROOT] Final Papers Assessment Summary of Key Evidence for UCORE, assessment results indicated that, on average, 78% of first-year students met or exceeded expectations at the first-year undergraduate level at the end of their UCORE first-year experience [ROOT] course on rubric outcomes related to Information Literacy. Additionally, 88% met or exceeded expectations on the outcome related to Integrative Learning and 80% met or exceeded expectations on the outcome related to Critical Thinking.
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National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE)
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Student Learning at the First-Year and Senior Level: 2019 National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) Results
As reported in the 2019 National Survey of Student Engagement – Summary of Key Evidence for UCORE, results from the 2019 National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) indicate that nearly all WSU seniors responding to NSSE have considerable confidence in their ability to complete tasks requiring critical thinking (94%) and creative thinking (93%).
In addition to Critical and Creative Thinking, results from the 2019 NSSE also provide indirect evidence of student learning on Information Literacy, Communication, Quantitative Reasoning, Diversity, and Depth, Breadth & Integration of Learning at the first-year and senior levels for UCORE assessment—see the 2019 NSSE Summary of Key Evidence for UCORE for more information.
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