Critical Thinking Ability as a Predictor of Success in a Nontraditional Master's Degree : Program in Adult and Continuing Education

Abstract

This research-in-progress examines the predictive validity of the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA) for forecasting master's degree students' attrition, achievement level, thesis progress, and program completion time in a field-based accelerated program in Adult and Continuing Education (ACE). In the fall of 1986, National College of Education (NCE) changed one of the admission requirements for this program from satisfactory performance on the Miller Analogies Test (MAT) to similar performance on the WGCTA. The appropriateness of the MAT content for NCE's nontraditional students was questioned and the WGCTA was chosen as an alternative. The current issue is the relative forecasting efficacy of the MAT and the WGCTA among predictor variables such as sex, age, race, marital status, geographic area, undergraduate major, time since baccalaureate degree, type of undergraduate institution, and junior-senior GPA. The results of multiple regression analysis and multiple discriminant analysis will be compared for the MAT and WGCTA.