The research study was published by the Psychological Science: Sage journal. Moreover, the authors of the paper did not receive any funding. The author’s primary methodology used an experimental design based on two aspects. The two aspects included a focus on IC as a potential variable to define critical thinking skills and the nature of college education and to focus on the correlation between peer interaction amongst college students and change. The study was based on a randomization of white college students assigned to groups using a two-by-two factorial method. While determining two independent variables, racial composition, and group sentiment, the authors proceeded to recruit volunteers for the study by issuing a questionnaire enquiring about the racial background and their general contact with racial diversity (Antonio et al., 2004). Another critical aspect of the method was that before choosing a participant, they provided them with a pertinent social issue and chose the ones with the most prevalent answer.
The participants would later be issued three essays and were required to provide their answers in a short essay expressing their opinions on explosive social issues worldwide. The authors also used a transfer essay to determine if group thinking affected earlier opinions of individuals. The research study arrived at its conclusion by testing four outcome variables: Perceived Novelty, Prediscussion Integrative Complexity, Post Discussion Integrative Complexity, and Transfer. The authors established that for every group they allocated a Black collaborator in a group of White participants, there was a generally perceived novelty of the collaborator and higher levels of IC (Antonio et al., 2004). They also concluded that when a minority opinion emerged, it stimulated more significant IC. Additionally, the higher the self-reported racial diversity interactions by a participant, the higher their IC turned out to be.
The first new concept that was introduced was perceived novelty. This variable mainly distinguished between two different races. When the Black collaborator often agreed with the group and the White collaborator agreed on the same opinion, the previous was considered more novel than the latter. This is seen throughout racially diverse countries whereby a member of a minority group may share the same opinions with a member of a majority group (Antonio et al., 2004). However, the member of the minority group is viewed as more novel.
Additionally, the authors also introduced the concept of how minority opinions positively correlated to IC. If a majority opinion emerged, there was a lower level of IC. The world often witnesses this occurrence through the minority influence effect as a form of social influence (Antonio et al., 2004). Another new concept was prolonged racial diversity exposure, whereby they realized that students who had interacted with their peers in class and their social life were more likely to have high IC. Their IC was more than that of students whose primary interaction was based on the study’s small group interaction.
The authors’ conclusions are reliable and should attract more research on the topic. This is because the authors use the concept of integrative complexity to define how critical thinking skills manifest themselves in collegiate education and how this further translates to racial diversity. Importantly, unlike previous experimental and quasi-experimental studies, the details were more factual due to the blindness of the study. Previous research uses self-reported data on the topic of concerning conditions of racial diversity. Hence their data and conclusions are convincing due to the randomization and blindness of the study. The two aspects eliminate bias, a critical factor in research concerning social issues.
Reference
Antonio, A. L., Chang, M. J., Hakuta, K., Kenny, D. A., Levin, S., & Milem, J. F. (2004). Effects of racial diversity on complex thinking in college students. Psychological science, 15(8), 507-510. Web.