Critical Thinking Training for Army Officers Volume One: Overview of Research Program

This report is the first of three volumes describing a multi-year research program to develop and validate web based training in critical thinking for Army officers. This first volume presents an overview of the research efforts that developed and validated a theoretical model for the training, selected and validated eight high impact critical thinking skills for Army officers, and developed and evaluated the training course. The report documents the systematic approach that was used to develop a computer based, on-line,training program designed to promote CT in Army officers. Volume two of this series presents, in more detail, the model and theoretical basis for the training and the experiments that were conducted to validate the model. Volume three describes a prototype training system for two critical thinking skills, including the functional requirements, pedagogical principles, course content, and evaluation of the training. A fourth report describes an expanded version of the system that was developed to train eight critical thinking skills. Prepared in cooperation with U.S. Army Research Institute Fort LEavenworth Rarch Unit, Ft. Leavenworth, KS.