Critique of the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Test: The More You Know, the Lower Your Score
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The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Test is one of the oldest, most frequently used, multiple-choice critical-thinking tests on the market in business, government, and legal settings for purposes of hiring and promotion. I demonstrate, however, that the test has serious construct-validity issues, stemming primarily from its ambiguous, unclear, misleading, and sometimes mysterious instructions, which have remained unaltered for decades. Erroneously scored items further diminish the test’s validity. As a result, having enhanced knowledge of formal and informal logic could well result in test subjects receiving lower scores on the test. That’s not how things should work for a CT assessment test.
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The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal has limitations in construct validity.
“Although the Watson–Glaser is one of the oldest and most frequently used assessments internationally for hiring and promotion in professional contexts, its construct validity, like many other measures of this challenging topic, has some limitations (Possin 2014).”
From Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication, and Collaboration: Assessment, Certification, and Promotion of 21st Century Skills for the Future of Work and Education (2023) · cites this paper as Possin 2014
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References 19 · Cited by 24
Research works printed but not linked: 4
- Pearson Education. (2014). Watson-Glaser II Critical Thinking Appraisal Profile Report. Retrieved from http://www.thinkwatson.com/assessments/watson- glaser/profile-report Pearson TalentLens. (2011).
- Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Unsupervised. Pearson TalentLens.
- Pearson TalentLens. (2013). The Bar Course Aptitude Test. Pearson TalentLens.
- Watson, G. & Glaser, E. (2009). Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Forms D and E. Pearson.
- Authors
- Possin, K.
- Affiliations
- Winona State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Possin, Kevin
- Venue
- Informal Logic
- Publisher
- University of Windsor Leddy Library
- Published
- 2014-12-10
- Volume
- 34
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 393
- ISSN
- 0824-2577 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2095690048
- Cited by
- 24
- References
- 19
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 1 · 2016: 2
- FWCI
- 3.43
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Locations
- Informal Logic (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Education and Critical Thinking Development
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
- Social Sciences › Education › Educational Assessment and Pedagogy
- Keywords
- critical thinking assessment, construct validity, test instructions, formal logic, personnel selection, multiple-choice tests
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