A study of critical thinking skills and writing ability among Indiana students

Does an arts-based supplemental resource increase student achievement scores? This study evaluated a business and patron sponsored supplemental resource that emerged to answer the state department of education's call for programs to increase student achievement. The resource was designed to improve critical thinking skills and writing ability. Indiana ranked thirty-seventh in SAT scores and education research suggested that immersion in the arts lifted student achievement.;The results of the study revealed that all treatment and control teacher groups had a majority of class wide losses in critical thinking skills over the semester. Classes displaying most effective usage had fewer classes with losses in critical thinking skills. Classes that revealed less effective usage of the resource had the greatest losses in class wide critical thinking skills among all groups.;The difference between classes with most effective usage and the blind control group was significant at the.01 level. The difference between the classes with most effective and least effective usage was also significant at the.01 level.;The Investigator discovered universal losses in class wide critical thinking skills and concluded that the supplemental resource program could cause a majority of classes to actually have gains if a covenant emerged that required particular methods of usage, intensive training of program teachers, and ongoing evaluation.;The Investigator conducted a two-year qualitative and quantitative study. All program teachers were interviewed and control groups were recruited for a semester-long pretest, posttest writing test. A validated NAEP writing instrument was secured and fourteen-hundred eighty-four students completed the writing tasks.;Additional data revealed that females had higher scores than males on the tests and Asians had the highest pretest and posttest scores; but the sharpest decline in mean scores between the tests. White, Native American, and Black students had the highest, and similar, perceptions about the availability of educational resources. Hispanic and Black students had the least loss in mean score between tests and the lowest posttest scores.;School settings affected test scores and perceptions about resource availability, with advantaged urban classes scoring at the same levels as small city/town classes and rural and disadvantaged urban classes having similar scores.