Critical Thinking

To analyze, synthesize, think critically, solve problems and make decisions

To me critical thinking means being able to take information from many sources and in many forms and put it all together into a coherent product. Critical thinking requires creativity as well as analytical skills, fluency in the humanities as well as math and science. Critical thinking is what turns a student into a decision maker and leader. My assignments have encouraged me to develop my own critical thinking skills by requiring me to prepare research the crosses the lines between the qualitative and quantitative. Other assignments have provided me with data and required me to develop my own framework to analyze it. In short, my time in the MPA program has prepared me to work with numbers, people, and words.

Board

Analysis

This assignment required students to work in a group of five to prepare a detailed analysis on a nonprofit organization. The section of the assignment I completed is attached. This assignment details these competencies:

An ability to work across multiple frameworks of analysis
A willingness to go beyond surface level analysis to understand the nuance and complexity of a subject
An ability to make my own framework for analysis when the one provided may prove

Board Analysis

Mixed Methods Research Project

This assignment required me take a large amount of data, choose a possible subject that could be researched out of the data, and then prepare a research report that used both quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze it. This assignment demonstrates these competencies:

An ability to work with both qualitative and quantitative methods
A familiarity with multi-variate analysis
A competent understanding of excel and how to use it for statistical analysis

Mixed Methods Research Project