Engaging Freshman Engineers Using the Paul-Elder Model of Critical Thinking

Table 3. Faculty impressions of student responses on Analyze the Discipline exercises. 
Student Category 
Course 
Grade 
Faculty Impressions of the Analyze the Discipline Exercise 
1 
HA 
A 
good - thoughtful throughout, more trouble with points of view and assumptions - but 
got better! 
2 
HA 
A 
missed the central questions, some improvement with points of view, missed 
assumptions throughout; 
3 
HA 
A 
clear that student was engaged and listened to presentation; had trouble with points of 
view and assumptions; 
4 
HA 
A 
clear that student was engaged and listened; also had trouble with points of view and 
assumptions; 
5 
HA 
A 
assumptions - ones made about engineers, not assumptions THEY make; but 
IMPROVED drastically by end - very good through ECE; overall very good effort on 
all of these - proficient with elements 
6 
HA 
A 
struggled with points of view for BE onward, but good on first two; actually got worse - 
seemed to take less seriously as progressed 
7 
HA 
A 
had trouble with point of view and assumptions - but went in right direction - just weak 
- and continued with this answer (assumed that their data comes from reliable sources - 
wrote this for all of them!) On both of these, took a simplistic idea and used each time. 
8 
HA 
A 
problems with assumptions and points of view; answers got weaker with progression. 
9 
HA 
A 
same issue with points of view and assumptions; effort seemed to decrease - answers 
improved in some areas, worse in others with progression 
10 
HA 
A 
some improvement in point of view and assumptions - clearly most challenging 
11 
HA 
A 
Probably best effort but still it is clear that more discussion is needed on point of view 
especially more; excellent work throughout on other elements 
12 
I 
A 
good on purpose and questions; same trouble with points of view and assumptions on 
some, not all; poor on CEE - least effort appears to be put in; all others thoughtfully 
done; especially good with ME; 
13 
I 
A 
CECS one best I have seen - even for assumptions and points of view; poor CEE ( I 
think the speaker made a joke about assumptions people made about CEEs - wear 
hardhats- and kids started answering the question about assumptions from that 
perspective) ; pretty good on points of view and assumptions 
14 
I 
A 
struggled with assumptions and points of view; consistent effort, but missed point on 
most of elements only purpose and central question were very good 
15 
I 
B 
both CEE students thought implications were all dire - death, flooding, etc.; weak 
assumptions and points of view; effort appeared consistent 
16 
I 
B 
problems with assumptions and points of view; answers got shorter with progression 
17 
I 
A 
same issues with points of view and assumptions; answers worse with progression 
18 
I 
A 
only 4 assignments; similar issues with point of view and assumptions 
19 
I 
A 
effort and work seemed to decline with progression; took comments of presenter at 
strict face value; unable to integrate the entire content of the presentation; 
20 
LA 
B 
some fairly thoughtful answers, just left a lot of them blank; missing 3 assignments 
21 
LA 
B 
misunderstanding of points of view and assumptions(made about the career itself - good 
job, etc); missing 3 assignments; didn't take it seriously 
22 
LA 
A 
clearly did not understand assumptions or points of view, and wrote nonsense in places, 
general low effort - some fair answers 
23 
LA 
B 
frequently left assumptions and points of view blank; answers indicated some 
engagement but limited; some improvement with progression 
24 
LA 
C 
only three items, some brief, but fair answers, some off base, some good 
25 
LA 
D 
only two items, could barely read this - couldn't read most answers - Tas shouldn't have 
given credit for this work. 
26 
LA 
D 
Only 3 assignments; very poor effort, but some answers pretty good - even for 
assumptions and points of view 
27 
LA 
D 
only 4 assignments; similar issues with point of view and assumptions 

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2. There is a clear need for more and better feedback. This is difficult for any explicit critical thinking 
assignment, and is made more difficult by the large class size. One difficulty in giving a “solution” 
after collecting the assignment is that it can confuse students since their answers might be different 
but still accurate. It is therefore important to indicate to students, in the form of feedback, aspects of 
their response that meet a standard as defined by the instructors in advance. An approach being 
considered for next year is training of the TAs to score all the critical thinking assignments using a 
critical thinking rubric. In many cases, the overall quality of work actually declined from Analyze 
the Discipline exercises one to seven because the students didn’t feel the assignment was valued.
Some of the very high achieving students did extremely well throughout, but in general that was not 
the case; and some even commented that they didn’t think anyone would ever read their assignment.
Also, many errors of understanding the elements were made consistently across many of the 
assignments, punctuating the need to give more and better feedback. Finding an efficient way to 
provide feedback is a high priority for next year. 
3. The elements of purpose, concepts, question at issue, and implications were well understood by all 
of the students, a very encouraging outcome which demonstrated their understanding of these 
elements of thought. These good responses also showed students learned something about the 
engineering disciplines, and they listened well enough to write it down for their assignment. It 
seems reasonable to assume they were engaged well enough to get more information from the 
presentation than they would already possess in most cases.