Critical Thinking: The Missing Link in Business Management Education

Phyllis R. Anderson¹, Joanne R. Reid²
(1. College of Business and Public Administration, Governors State University, University Park, IL 60466-0975, USA;
2. Corporate Development Associates, Inc., Suite 6L, Lombard, IL 60148, USA)

Abstract: A pedagogical treatment was developed to teach critical thinking knowledge, skills, and strategies to college students. This treatment was implemented at a Midwestern University for a five-year period. Graduates were surveyed to determine the extent to which the treatment affected their personal, academic, and professional lives. We also identified and quantified evidence of the graduates’ satisfaction with the course of study, and, by inference, the curriculum, the College, and the University. Graduates reported that they had transferred the critical thinking knowledge, skills, and strategies they had acquired into their personal, academic, and professional lives. This transfer was validated using qualitative descriptions provided by the graduates of their use of critical thinking. The graduates also reported extremely high rates of satisfaction with the course in general, and its effects on their personal, academic and professional lives.

Key words: critical thinking; transfer of knowledge; domains of knowledge; summative survey; student satisfaction

JEL codes: C10, C12, C91, I23, M00, M10, M19