Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons^™

Explicit Teaching Of Critical Thinking Skills In Communication Science And Disorders, Dana Battaglia

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

Critical thinking requires one to be abstract, continually raise questions, independently obtain and reviews evidence, and converge these experiences to offer open-minded solutions. These same traits are required for speech-language pathology students to become successful clinicians. This work describes a mixed method investigation of explicit and infused instruction of critical thinking skills in the context of one graduate-level course in a program accredited from the American Speech-Language Hearing Association. While quantitative findings only demonstrate significant positive change on select items using a Likert scale, qualitative data describe deep learning and growth in the areas of broad life-impact, expansion of knowledge, …