Development And Application Of Critical Thinking Skills Assessment Tool From The Perspective Of Disciplinary Integration

In today’s information age,knowledge is changing at an increasingly rapid pace,and students need to interpret,judge,reason and summarize information correctly in the face of a large amount of complex information.In order for students to adapt and survive better in the information age,the development of critical thinking skills has become a theme in contemporary education,and many countries have established it as one of the objectives of basic education.At the same time,interdisciplinary learning has become a key word in contemporary educational reform,where the solution of a complex problem requires the use of knowledge from multiple disciplines,or even the breaking down of disciplinary boundaries and the making of meaningful connections between different disciplines of knowledge.In recent years,the requirements for talent in countries around the world have gradually increased,and in addition to solid professional competence,comprehensive quality and scientific spirit are also essential,and interdisciplinary knowledge is gradually becoming a core element and a distinctive feature of top talent.In this context,the integration of disciplines has also become an primary trend in the development of education in China.Educational assessment is an important part of educational practice.In order to develop students’ critical thinking skills,critical thinking assessment tools are particularly important.At present,there are relatively few localized critical thinking tools in China,and most of them are directly adopted from foreign countries.Cultural differences and national contexts make these instruments less relevant to our reality.At the same time,most of the existing instruments are applicable to higher education or a specific subject area and are not effective enough to measure students’ ability to use critical thinking in real-life situations and tasks that go beyond the subject.Based on this,this study develops and applies a discipline-integrated critical thinking assessment tool for primary and secondary school students,incorporating knowledge from a variety of disciplines including language,mathematics,ethics and law,and information technology.Based on the self-administered assessment tool,this study underwent three rounds of experiments,including an expert opinion survey,a pretest and a formal student test,and several rounds of modifications based on the data and suggestions collected.The results of the study showed that: the instrument has good reliability,difficulty,and differentiation,and can basically be used to measure critical thinking of primary and secondary school students;among the four critical thinking skills,students performed better in the two dimensions of examining reasoning and plausibility,and lacked in the dimensions of argumentative analysis and identifying hypotheses;grade level,answer time,and knowledge of critical thinking can affect students’ critical thinking level.Specifically,we found that students’ levels of critical thinking skills were positively related to grade level,time spent answering questions,and students’ knowledge of critical thinking.Finally,this study makes recommendations based on the findings of the study that will provide useful insights into research related to the field of critical thinking assessment.