Background: A holistic approach to performance assessment recognizes the theoretical complexity of multifaceted critical thinking (CT), a key objective of higher education. However, issues related to reliability, interpretation, and use arise with this approach.
Aims and method: Therefore, we take an analytic approach to scoring students' written responses on a performance assessment. We focus on the complementarity of holistic and analytic approaches and on whether theoretically developed analytical scoring rubrics can produce sub-scores that may measure the 'whole' performance in a holistic assessment.
Sample: We use data from the Wind Turbines performance assessment, developed in the iPAL project this study where 55 students at a German university participated.
Results: The (sub)scores generated from the scoring scheme empirically reproduced the theoretically assumed structure of CT, with valid and reliable scores in a three-dimensional model. The proposed interpretation of CT as assessed with a performance assessment and measured by the rating scheme was supported preliminarily.
Conclusion: Our results support the complementarity of holistic and analytic approaches to assessing CT. When combined, they provide interpretable scores for a complex, multifaceted construct useful in diagnostic contexts.
Keywords: analytic approach; critical thinking; evidence-centred design; higher education; holistic approach; performance assessment; scoring; validation.
© 2019 The British Psychological Society.