Outcomes Based Technique for Measuring Critical Thinking Ability on Computer Science and Engineering Students

Literature clearly indicates that it is possible to develop quantifiable outcomes, such as critical thinking abilities, measure them and communicate student learning achievement of the outcomes, if the instructional and assessment approaches are organized in an effective way. Critical thinking ability of the Computer Science and Engineering students is an active process of skilfully conceptualizing the domain concept, analyzing and evaluating the information. This paper attempts to measure learning outcomes of ‘critical thinking ability’ which might be obtained by the students of Computer Science and Engineering, through two different instructional perspectives namely, i. the traditional linear time-bound instructions and ii. Outcomes Based instructions. The objective of this exercise is to determine whether Outcomes Based Education (OBE) in its instructional principles would be more suitable over the traditional methods in imbibing ‘Critical thinking ability’ as a learning outcome? Is it possible to classify students who prefer OBE methods of instructions? The paper elaborates an experimental study to compare and correlate the results obtained by these two selected instructional principles. The conclusions drawn out of the experimental studies as well as from the survey results will be of immense use to educational researchers of Computer Science and Engineering.