Build success beyond the classroom: Critical thinking and assessment

Christina Cavage
A group of children stood at a table with their teacher watching her write something down on paper
Reading time: 4 minutes

There are some common myths related to critical thinking and assessment. Many people believe that it’s impossible to assess critical thinking, especially in classes where language is limited. However, it can be done! Here, the key to success is crafting tasks and rubrics that allow you to separate language skills and cognitive skills. After all, a low language level doesn’t necessarily reflect your student’s ability to think critically.

So, how can we measure how a student knows rather than just what they know?

How to measure critical thinking

Well, we first have to consider two types of assessment—formal and informal. Formal assessments tend to happen at the end of a task, lesson or skill-building activity and usually focus on the work the student has produced. Then, we have informal assessments. Those are the assessments that involve on-the-spot interactions. These types of assessments play a crucial role in measuring critical thinking.

Tips for teaching and assessing critical thinking
Play
Privacy and cookies

By watching, you agree Pearson can share your viewership data for marketing and analytics for one year, revocable by deleting your cookies.

Formal assessment

There is a common misconception that assessment should only focus on the final work that your students produce. The final ‘product’ is undeniably important and often an ideal measure of linguistic abilities. But the process of producing the final work is where you can see your students’ critical thinking skills in action.

When designing rubrics to measure both language and critical thinking, make sure that you only focus on one at a time—either language or critical thinking. Keeping these different skills in mind will help you to differentiate language skills and critical thinking skills, and evaluate them separately, when it comes to formal assessment.

When measuring language skills, use Bloom’s early or foundational cognitive domains as a model:

If we measure these items, we are really measuring language skills. For example, with a reading activity, we might ask the following questions:

  • Who is the story about?
  • Where does the story take place?
  • What is the main idea of the story?

Can they understand the overall organization and the key vocabulary? These types of questions assess a student’s linguistic ability.

Then, when it comes to critical thinking, the more advanced levels of Bloom’s cognitive domains provide a useful guide:

These types of questions assess a student’s metacognition or critical thinking:

  • Which character is most important to the story?
  • Why?
  • Do you agree or disagree with the character’s actions?
  • Why or why not?

The clear separation of language and critical thinking in assessment will help you to get a measure of each student’s progress in both skills.

Informal assessment

What about those informal assessments? It can be harder to delineate critical thinking and language skills clearly in an on-the-spot assessment.

For example, if you’ve assigned group work, consider keeping a checklist of how students interact with one another. Some checklist items can be:

  • Who made an inference?
  • Who supplied reasoning for another student’s idea?
  • Who made a comparison?
  • Who drew a conclusion?

You can also ask your students to keep a checklist and post these questions on an electronic bulletin board. Like self-assessment, these peer-to-peer assessments can get students reflecting and noticing.

Rubrics can also be useful in informal assessment. Let’s say you’ve asked students to prepare or write an essay. To measure critical thinking, you can look at each student’s ideation process when they’ve been working on their essays:

  • Is a student looking at all possible topics?
  • What are the factors that make a student select the option they did?
  • Are they demonstrating an awareness of other ideas?

The answers to these questions will tell you whether or not your students are thinking critically.

Just like with any other skills, the assessment of critical thinking needs to happen both formally and informally. We need to consider both the process and the final product. And in doing so, we need to carefully design rubrics that differentiate language skills and metacognition.

Learn about our English courses

More blogs from Pearson

  • Woman writing on whiteboard with two women watching her, smiling
    Writing your own English language materials with the GSE
    By Billie Jago
    Reading time: 4 minutes

    Being an English language teacher means you’re also probably (definitely) a materials writer. You likely tailor or create language materials for your students that are suited to their needs and interests, either as supplements to your course materials or for communicative lessons. Alternatively, you might be a teacher who creates paid, published materials available for students worldwide to enjoy.

    With this in mind, think of the materials you’ve developed and ask yourself the following:

    • How do you level your grammar or vocabulary for the content you write?
    • How do you find topic-related vocabulary to extend your students’ knowledge of language?
    • How do you contextualize new grammar or vocabulary?

    You can use many different resources, from online dictionaries to course workbooks to a Google search. Still, the Global Scale of English is a reference that provides everything you need to write great learning materials, all in one place. It can help save you valuable time as a teacher and materials writer.

    For me, the GSE was a game changer as an English teacher, and it continues to be as I write materials. The GSE is not just a tool; it’s a companion in the complex journey of material development, offering clarity and direction at every step. It can guide you in creating effective, engaging learning resources.

    How to use the GSE toolkit to create your own materials

    1. Establishing clear Learning Objectives

    The GSE helps you start with a clear roadmap. It provides detailed descriptors for language proficiency at every level, ensuring your materials align with specific learning objectives. For instance, if you’re creating a beginner-level reading comprehension activity, the GSE descriptors will guide you on the appropriate complexity of vocabulary and sentence structures.

    Take a look at the Learning Objectives tab in the GSE Toolkit to learn more.

    2. Designing level-appropriate content

    Once objectives are set, the GSE assists in tailoring the content difficulty to the targeted proficiency level. Its numerical scale, ranging from 10 to 90, allows you to pinpoint the exact level of language skills required and design your materials accordingly. This precision ensures that learners are neither overwhelmed nor under-challenged.

    You can set the level you are looking for by sliding the bar along the scale, so it corresponds to the appropriate CEFR level or GSE range.

  • Friends sat on a moving train together talking
    What is the hardest language to learn?
    By Charlotte Guest
    Reading time: 4 minutes

    It's incredible that thousands of languages are spoken worldwide, each with its own set of challenges for learners. A question that often pops up is: "Which language is the hardest to learn?". Today we take a closer look at this question and consider different factors that make learning a language challenging.

    What is the hardest language to learn? 

    Learning a language is a complex process that involves several components, including phonetics (sounds), morphology (word formation), syntax (sentence structure), semantics (meaning), and pragmatics (communication in context). These factors all contribute to the perceived difficulty of a language.

    Language difficulty

    The U.S. Foreign Service Institute ranks languages based on their difficulty for English speakers. Factors include similarity to English and script complexity.

    FSI Language Difficulty Rankings

    • Category I: Easiest languages (e.g. Spanish, French, Italian)
    • Category II: Moderately difficult languages (e.g. German, Indonesian)
    • Category III: Difficult languages (e.g. Russian, Hebrew, Arabic)
    • Category IV: Very difficult languages (e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Korean)

    In theory, you should also be able to apply this the other way around to work out how hard It would be for someone to learn English. But it isn't quite as simple as that in practice.

  • A man working on a laptop in a library smiling
    Are remote English tests lower standard?
    By Alice Bazzi
    Reading time: 2 minutes

    As digital testing becomes more widespread, a common perception still persists: that remote testing or at-home tests are somehow lower in quality than traditional test center exams. For institutions and governments, this raises an important question: does the delivery format impact the standard of assessment? 

    The reality is, the quality of the test is defined by design, scoring and security, not by location. 

    PTE Express is built on the same core principles as established English proficiency tests, including rigorous test development, validated content and standardized scoring processes. The academic integrity of the test remains consistent regardless of whether it is taken in a test center or from home. 

    In many ways, remote testing introduces additional layers of oversight. PTE Express incorporates advanced features such as biometric identity verification, AI-enabled monitoring and fraud detection algorithms to ensure that each test session meets strict security standards. These systems provide continuous monitoring and create detailed audit trails, offering institutions greater transparency into how tests are conducted and validated. 

    For US institutions evaluating large volumes of international applicants, this ensures that remote scores can be trusted to meet the same standards as in-person testing without limiting access based on geography.

    Governments also benefit from scalable, secure testing solutions that support broader participation while maintaining compliance and integrity. Agents, in turn, can confidently recommend remote testing options knowing they deliver both accessibility and credibility. 

    The bottom line 

    Remote testing is not a lower standard, but it is an evolution of English testing delivery. PTE Express demonstrates that it is possible to maintain high-quality, secure and globally consistent assessment in a fully online format.