Thinking Skills and Work Habits: Contributors to Course Performance

Abstract

Students in required entry-level courses typically vary widely in their work habits and thinking skills, as well as in their course performance (often approximating a normal curve). Two particu larly important issues regarding these variations are (a) the rela tionship between thinking skills and work habits and (b) the relationship of these variables to course performance measures. Minimal research has examined the relationship(s) between think ing skills and work habits, but considerable research has addressed their independent linkage with performance variables. The studies targeting the relationship of specific thinking skills or work habits to academic performance provide little informa tion about their comparative contributions to different performance measures. For example, contributors to a course project may dif fer from contributors to exam performance. Likewise, contribu tors to performance on a multiple-choice exam may differ from contributors to performance on an essay exam. Future research needs to delineate how thinking skills and work habits contribute to performance on a variety of measures (e.g., essay quizzes, mul tiple-choice exams, individual course projects, and group work). Which thinking skills and which work habits best predict which outcome measures? Various labels have been applied to thinking skills: higher order thinking, abstract thinking, problem-solving, and critical think ing. The latter is a particularly popular construct in the general