Critical Thinking in Nonprofit Management Education Is an Explicit Emphasis Related to Greater Skill Development?

Abstract

Critical thinking is a core skill for nonprofit managers. Teaching for critical thinking is effective in improving students’ critical thinking; however, the pedagogy must be contextualized to various domains. This quasi-experimental study explored the contextualization of critical thinking skill development in two identical nonprofit management education (NME) courses. The research questions were: a) what is the critical thinking disposition of undergraduate NME students?, and b) does an explicit pedagogical focus on critical thinking in NME lead to increased capacity to exercise critical thinking skills? Findings suggest that an explicit focus on critical thinking was related to improved skill performance. Statistically significant differences were found for four of the six critical thinking skills. The change in skill performance may be a combination of both motivation and skill change, both of which benefit from an explicit focus on critical thinking.