verall, this study showed what researchers anticipated as a result of explicit critical thinking instruction in an undergraduate course. Specifically, the instructor of the course used, showed high integration of critical thinking skills and this was displayed in participant pre and post-test scores for both groups. Critical thinking is an important component that many employers are searching for in their potential employees, so critical thinking integration in the classroom is a great start to nurturing the critical thinking skills of students (McMillan, 1987).
It is shown that explicit instruction, including Beyer's introduction stage, sets the framework for the students learning of critical thinking. This contrasts some approaches to critical thinking instruction, which fail to introduce and simply embed the instruction. Using the framework provided the instructor with a specific strategy to build capacity for critical thinking.
Also, the "seeker" style critical thinker was shown to be the majority in this study. Again, the potential reasons for such a great gain in seeking behaviors on behalf of the online course could be due to the greater opportunities to use seeking information (active learning) behavior within the course (Machemer and Crawford, 2007). Further research needs to be done to determine if instructors should be catering to a specific style of critical thinking when teaching certain courses. Researchers strongly encourage further research to be performed to determine if other instructors show high integration of critical thinking components in their classes and to determine if a certain critical thinking style is the majority in certain college majors. This could be clearly an indication that students do experience higher levels of self-efficacy gains when their thinking has been challenged, as is many times with critical thinking instruction (Terenzini et al., 1995). Explicit instruction in the area of critical thinking exposes students to the nuances of the behavior, which promotes the awareness of critical thinking expectations during the course. The more generalized these results can become, the better. Learning what types of students there are and how they perceive critical thinking integration in the classroom will lead to more effective teaching methods. These effective teaching methods may increase the critical thinking ability of graduates, which is what employers are looking for in college graduates.