Oil and Water: Can Integrating Humanities and Management In The Business Classroom Improve Critical Thinking Skills?

Developing critical thinkers is an objective of businesses, higher education, and accrediting institutions. Business educators are challenged with how to teach critical thinking skills and how to evaluate the effectiveness of these methods. This quasi-experimental study used a pretest-posttest design with a control group to assess critical thinking skills in undergraduate business students enrolled in Organizational Behavior classes. The hypothesis was that using the humanities to teach business concepts would improve student critical thinking as assessed by the California Critical Thinking Skills Tests (CCTST). The literature revealed many case studies and how-to articles; however, there was a gap in quantitative analysis. The results of an ANOVA analysis showed a significant effect of teaching method on CCTST scores. This study represented an initial quantitative investigation of a pedagogical intervention aimed at impacting critical thinking in business students.