Mid-Atlantic Christian University students demonstrate themselves to be far beyond peers in the area of critical thinking. Incoming and graduating students are asked to take a critical thinking exam. The exam is a component of the Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP) published by the American College Testing (ACT) Program (http://www.act.org/caap/). The university has been gathering results for five years running and is pleased to share the following results.
| Graduating Class | % of MACU students who achieved a score above the national mean. |
| 2009 | 37% |
| 2010 | 57% |
| 2011 | 68% |
| 2012 | 79% |
| 2013 | 92% |
| Graduating Class | National Mean Score | MACU Mean Score |
| 2009 | 62.3 | 62.2 |
| 2010 | 63 | 56.9 |
| 2011 | 62.5 | 59.6 |
| 2012 | 60.6 | 63.8 |
| 2013 | 59.9 | 64.6 |
Observations:
1) The national context indicates that over the past five years college graduates’ ability to think critically is diminishing.
2) While the national trend is diminishing over five years (2.4 point drop), MACU graduates show steady gains (2.4 point gain) in critical thinking skills.