Computer-based performance approach for critical thinking assessment in children.

BACKGROUND: Critical thinking (CT) has been identified as one of the key skills in the modern world. Despite a variety of CT assessment systems for secondary school and higher education, there is a shortage of CT assessments for children. AIMS: To fill the gap, we developed a computer-based performance assessment (CPBA) of CT with automatic scoring. In the study, we analysed: (1) To what extent is the internal structure of the critical thinking assessment tool confirmed? (2) What are the patterns of students' behaviour within the CPBA? (3) To what extent is the convergent validity of the CPBA supported? SAMPLE AND METHODS: The sample consists of 1689 students, aged 9-11 years. To answer the research questions, the following quantitative data analysis methods were selected. The Bayesian Network was applied to investigate the internal structure. Latent Class Analysis was used to investigate the patterns of students' behaviour. To verify the convergent validity, the students were asked to solve the standardized math and language literacy tests. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The theoretically expected internal structure of the CPBA was confirmed: the two-factor structure (the Analysis of information and the Making inferences subskills of CT) describes the data appropriately. Moreover, CT was described not as a list but as a sequence of cognitive operations. Four different strategies that lead to different results of CT were revealed. A weak positive correlation between the results of the CPBA and the achievement tests confirmed the test validity.

The effects of prenatal testosterone on wages: Evidence from Russia.

Is in utero exposure to testosterone correlated with earnings? The question matters for understanding determinants of wage differences that have attracted so much attention among economists in the past decade. Evidence indicates that markers for early testosterone exposure are correlated with traits like risk-taking and aggressiveness. But it is not at all clear how such findings might map into labor market success. We combine unique data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey with measured markers (2D:4D ratios) for testosterone exposure and find that lower digit ratios (higher T) correlate with higher wages for women and for men, when controlling for age, education and occupation. There is also some evidence of a potential non-linear, inverse U-effect of digit ratios on wages but this is sensitive to choice of specification. These findings are consistent with earlier work on prenatal T and success in careers (Coates et al., 2009) but inconsistent with the work of Gielen et al. (2016) who find differing effects for men and women.