Et. Pascarella et al., IS DIFFERENTIAL EXPOSURE TO COLLEGE LINKED TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF CRITICAL THINKING, Research in higher education, 37(2), 1996, pp. 159-174
This study investigated the influence on critical thinking of differen
tial exposure to postsecondary education. The sample was 2,076 first-y
ear students attending 13 four-year and 4 two-year institutions from a
round the country. First-year students attending college full-time dev
eloped a higher level of critical thinking skills than those attending
part-time. In the presence of controls for precollege critical thinki
ng and academic motivation, the average critical thinking of first-yea
r students at the institution attended, gender, race, age, and kinds o
f courses taken, the number of semester hours for which the student wa
s enrolled had modest but significant positive effects on end-of-first
-year critical thinking for both the two- and four-year college sample
s. In the two-year, but not the four-year, sample the relationship bet
ween semester hours and critical thinking deviated significantly from
linearity. Students attending a two-year college full-time still deriv
ed the largest critical thinking benefits. However, the lowest levels
of critical thinking accrued to those enrolled between 7 and 20 semest
er hours. Students enrolled for 6 or less hours actually had somewhat
higher end-of-first-year critical thinking.