09/28/2024

Assessing Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving Skills in the Age of AI

Written by Danielle Andrews-Brown , Marcus Comer

Critical Thinking Skills
(Image: Shutterstock)

Assessing students is how we measure whether students are learning, it helps us gauge their progress and determine if they need further help, it determines the effectiveness of instruction, and the effectiveness of degree programs. In this new age of Artificial Intelligence (AI), many educators are frustrated as it is becoming difficult to tell originality versus AI driven content. While AI tools like ChatGPT offer significant advantages in areas such as writing mechanics and idea generation, they do not replace the need for critical thinking and resource evaluation. By shifting our focus toward assessing students' ability to find, evaluate, and apply valid resources to solve problems, we can ensure that students are not only proficient in using AI but also in discerning its limitations.

Discerning credible resources
One of the main purposes of higher education is to teach students how to find resources and use them to solve problems. That hasn’t changed, however, as educators we must teach students how to discern a good resource from a bad resource. Whether we are talking about research articles, social media posts, or AI, the ability to discern resources is a skill that students and teachers must develop. As instructors this means that we must shift our focus toward assessing students' ability to find, evaluate, and apply valid resources.

In our Agricultural Education courses, when we assign writing tasks, we focus on evaluating the student's ability to solve a problem using valid, credible references. While AI platforms such as ChatGPT can assist students with writing mechanics and help them brainstorm ideas, these tools do not typically provide reliable or verifiable references. This is where critical thinking comes into play.

AI tools like Elicit, which aid in finding academic references, can offer support in the research process, but they still require significant effort on the part of the student. Therefore, we do not accept AI-generated content as a reference in itself, students are responsible for locating valid, peer-reviewed sources to substantiate their claims. This policy not only reinforces the importance of academic integrity but also helps students develop the necessary research skills to distinguish between credible and non-credible sources. This practice also ensures that students engage in deeper learning and do not become overly reliant on AI to do their intellectual work for them.

Shifting focus
For us educators who may have always placed significant weight on writing mechanics in our assessments, we were already behind long before ChatGPT. Tools like Grammarly, which was released over 15 years ago, revolutionized writing by automating grammar checks and improving writing mechanics for students. With AI now being a common tool, the question is no longer about whether students can write mechanically correct sentences. Instead, the focus should shift to what truly matters: the content, critical thinking, and problem-solving demonstrated through their writing.

The author's views are their own.

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