Sara Guaglione and Caroline Houck

Seniors mistake cognitive gains

There is little correlation between college seniors' self-reported gains in critical thinking and self-knowledge and their actual tested gains, according to a paper presented Monday, written by Nicholas Bowman, post-doctoral research associate at the University of Notre Dame. The paper, released at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association, is based on the findings of a study in which the subjects took critical thinking tests during their first years of college and then again during their fourth years.