Liberal Arts Education and the Cultivation of Critical Thinking: A Longitudinal Study of Curricular Approaches and Cognitive Development

Abstract

This longitudinal study examines the relationship between liberal arts education and the development of critical thinking abilities among undergraduate students. The research tracked 2,156 students across 18 higher education institutions over four years, comparing students in liberal arts curricula with those in professional and pre-professional programs. Critical thinking was assessed using multiple measures including the Cornell Critical Thinking Test, the Collegiate Learning Assessment, and course-embedded assessments of analytical reasoning. The study examined curricular features including breadth requirements, writing-intensive courses, discussion-based seminars, and integrative capstone experiences. Findings demonstrate that liberal arts curricula emphasizing interdisciplinary breadth, intensive writing, and Socratic dialogue produced significantly greater critical thinking gains than narrowly specialized programs, with effect sizes of 0.47 standard deviations over four years. The research identifies pedagogical practices most strongly associated with critical thinking development, including argumentation analysis, perspective-taking exercises, and evidence evaluation tasks. Results also reveal that critical thinking gains transfer to novel domains and contexts beyond those in which skills were developed. The study contributes empirical evidence to ongoing debates regarding the value of liberal education and offers implications for curriculum design and pedagogical practice.