CASE STUDY CRITICAL THINKING

When her husband died, YOLANDA was left with three cars: a sedan, a truck, and a 5-year-old jeep.
Yolanda decided to sell them all and buy one new car.
To Yolanda, these cars had more sentimental value than monetary value, especially since her husband
had left her with plenty of money. She wanted to make sure each vehicle would go to someone her
husband would have liked, so she planned to interview prospective customers until she was satisfied
the cars would "go to a good home." A family friend, VINCE, volunteered to help Yolanda. He passed the
word around to his friends, and one by one people bought the vehicles
The sedan was bought by MONICA, a struggling community college student who worked part-time. Her
brother lent her the money, and he told her to take her time paying him back. However, she was eager
to rid herself of debt, so she took on extra hours at work even though her grades suffered as a result.
FRANK, a firefighter, bought the truck. He did odd jobs in construction during his free time between
shifts at the firehouse. He liked to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity and other groups that helped
folks in the community. He paid cash because he had received a bonus for an outstanding act of
heroism in the line of duty. It seemed like a good way to use the money.
MADELINE and PHIL bought the jeep. They already had two cars, a fairly new Cadillac Seville and a
Lexus. However, Madeline was a Girl Scout leader, and she wanted the jeep for camping trips.
A week later, Monica decided to give her car a good cleaning. When she removed the floor mats to
vacuum, she found a $100 bill. She called Vince to report her discovery, and he said, "Oh, just keep it.
Yolanda's husband was famous for hiding money in odd places. He had plenty of it, but he didn't
completely trust banks because of what his family lost during the Depression, so hed squirrel it away
for emergencies. Yolanda doesn't need it, and you can give it to your brother to reduce your debt."
Monica decided to follow Vince's advice.
A few days later, Frank took his truck in for a detail job. While he was waiting, ERIC, an attendant,
came up to him and said, "Mister, you should be glad you came to a reputable place because I just
found ten $100 bills under a mat in your truck." Frank called Vince and told him about the discovery,
and Vince repeated the story about how Yolanda's husband had a habit of stashing money. Vince again
said, "Just keep it. Yolanda won't even miss it." Frank felt funny about keeping the money, though, so
he donated it to Habitat for Humanity. That decision made him feel better.
A few weeks later, Vince was on the phone with Phil, and he told him the stories of the found money.
Phil called Madeline at home and said, "Go look under the mats in your jeep and see if there's any
money there." Sure, enough, she found an envelope with twenty $100 bills in it. Madeline called her
husband back and told him of her finding, and he then called Vince. Vince said, "Please don't tell
Yolanda; she'll wonder whether money was left in the other cars and then the good that came out of
those discoveries will be lost." Phil agreed and said, "Besides, we bought the car and that implies we
bought anything that was in it. That's a common rule at garage sales, isn't it?" Madeline argued with
him, saying, "We didn't 'buy' the money, nor do we need it. We should tell Yolanda and let her decide
what to do. I doubt she'll wonder whether her husband had left money in each vehicle."
***
Here are the six characters in this story (in order of appearance). Who, if any of them, is most
responsible to tell Yolanda about the money found in her vehicles?
___Vince ___Monica ___Frank ___Madeline ___Phil ___Eric
*****

I have used this case study with two different groups. Once I used it with a group of my students, and
once with a group of high school teachers at a faculty development training. Both audiences had a wide
range of responses. Some people thought Vince had a responsibility to tell Yolanda since he "helped her
sell the cars." However, when others pointed out that he did not act as a broker but only passed the
word around, some changed their minds. Others thought Monica should have the responsibility because
she found the money first. Several in each group thought only Madeline and Phil should return the
money, but not Frank or Vince, because "they didn't need the money." I asked the group how much
money a person had to have in order to be in the category of "not needing any money," and they argued
about that, and the result was that again some people
changed their minds. A few in each group thought no one needed to tell, that Yolanda gave up her right
to know about the money because she had not been "careful."
Mostly, this case study elicited responses that were not firm. People couldn't make up their minds, or
they kept changing them. As a reading activity, it worked wonderfully because people made lots of
assumptions they could not back up with information in the story, so when they reread it, they changed
their decision.
At the end of the activity, I asked if they would have felt differently if they had known the story was a
"true" story instead of a piece of fiction. The teachers said they assumed it was a true story; the
students said the story could not be true. Since in actuality it was a bit true and a bit fiction, I haven't
made up my mind whether this is important, but I am mulling it over.
I will definitely be using it again because it helped me introduce critical thinking and reading in a
provocative way.
--Maggie Miller, Faculty, Reading, Austin Community College, TX
CASE STUDY Critical Thinking
ORRIN BROWN, 16, died of injuries sustained in a crash on Route 28 early Tuesday morning.
Brown led police on a 10-mile chase that ended in his death at 4 a.m. The angry mother of the dead
teenager said the policeman should not have been pursuing him.
State Trooper FRANK APPLELTON said he began following the driver of a blue van when it
veered over the center line on Route 28 going about 45 mph, five mph below the speed limit. When he
turned around and began following the van, the vehicle began to accelerate steadily with the officer in
pursuit, Appleton said. The 10 mile chase ended on a hairpin curve near Millersville.
Police had placed tire-deflating devices on Route 28 just west of Millersville, but the van never
reached the road block. The vehicle flipped over while negotiating a sharp curve, rolled over two or
three times, hit a utility pole, and Brown was killed instantly. Police estimate his speed at the time of
the crash at 55-60 mph. The boy was wearing a seat belt, according to police.
The chase angered the teenagers mother. I want to know why the police were chasing Orrin
in the first place, said ELAINE BROWN, 36. Theyre on that road every day, and they know it has a
lot of bad curves. Once they had his license number, all they had to do was come to our house and
wait for Orrin to come home. Instead they chased him to his death. The police killed my son as sure
as if theyd shot him.
Officer Frank Appleton said that State Police policy requires patrol cars to pursue any vehicle
that appears to pose a risk to other drivers. That van crossed the center line. When you see that, you
immediately suspect a drunk driver. If we dont pursue him and he kills someone, then the public
wants to know why we didnt get him off the roads.

Neighbors of the dead youth said they werent surprised that he was out driving the family van
at 4 a.m. on a school night. One neighbor who wished to remain anonymous said, Elaine Brown
doesnt care about that kid. Hes been running loose since he was ten years old, but hes not a bad
kid. If she had exerted a little more discipline over him hed still be alive today. What mother lets her
16-year-old stay out on a school night until 4 in the morning? And what was she doing letting him drive
all over the place when hed only gotten his drivers license last week? That kid was an accident
waiting to happen. They ought to throw the mother in jail.
A spokesperson for The National Traffic Safety Board reported that nationally six other vans of
the same model have flipped over in the past 12 months while negotiating a sharp curve and three
other people have been killed in these accidents. When told of these statistics, Elaine Brown said that
the MANUFACTURER OF THE VAN was as guilty of her sons death as the police. Im going to get a
good lawyer and sue them both, Mrs. Brown said. Someones going to pay for my sons death.
* * * * *
Mrs. Brown sued the state police and the manufacturer of the van for $1,000,000. If you were on
the jury, how much money (if any) would you award Mrs. Brown? Write in the spaces below the
amounts (if any) you would require each of the defendants to pay Mrs. Brown. Be prepared to
explain your decision.
$___________ = Amount paid by state police
$___________ = Amount paid by manufacturer of the van
$___________ = Total award to Mrs. Brown
--Skip Downing, Facilitator, On Course Workshop Skip@OnCourseWorkshop.com

CRITICAL THINKING AND ETHICS

My colleague, Pam Allan (also a graduate of the May, 2000, On Course Workshop), and I tried out a
case study with 25 incoming freshman football players as part of an all day academic orientation
session. Our goal was to introduce them to the university's definition of academic integrity and the
dangers of plagiarism. Our case study (provided below) describes a situation where two students get
behind in their reading and come to tutoring for help writing a paper. The tutor can't help them
because they haven't read the text. So, one student downloads an essay off the Internet and shares it
with the other. The first student tries to paraphrase the essay, but doesn't document his source. The
second student simply turns in the Internet essay as his own. They flunk the course.
Following the On Course model, we asked our students to rank the characters (teacher, tutor,
students) from most to least responsible. Then we broke into groups according to rankings. As we
expected most students ranked one or the other of the students as most responsible. However, we had
lively discussion about what the students could have done which touched on time management, the
role of tutoring, the need for proper documentation and the university's academic integrity policy.
We also were able to emphasize that most instructors aren't idiots and actually are aware of what's on
the Internet. Finally, we shared with them that in the real life situation, the students spent several
days blaming the instructor, their coaches and the tutor for their failure before taking responsibility
for their actions.

PROFESSOR LOVELIT

Reggie was really upset. He hadnt started the paper. In fact he had only read about 25 pages out of
the 300 he needed to read before beginning the paper. Making matters worse, he had missed class
discussions because of games. The first thing Reggie did was call SALLY, his academic support
counselor, to see if he could work with a tutor on his paper. Sally met with him, but she told him
tutoring wouldnt help until he read more of the book. He asked her if she had read the book, and she
said no. Reggie tried to read more on the weekend, but he didnt have much time because of a game.
Besides he had to prepare for exams in other classes.
By Sunday night Reggie was really stressed out and started searching the Internet to see what he could
find out about the book. Finally, he found an essay on the Internet and used it to write his paper. The
next day he ran into ARNIE, another student in his class. Arnie said he hadnt started on the essay and
was still trying to finish the book. Reggie told Arnie about the Internet essay, but warned him against
using much of it since he was already using it for his essay. On Tuesday, Reggie took his essay to Sally to
have her read it over. Sally told him the essay didnt make much sense and asked him to explain to her
what he was trying to say. She soon realized he hadnt read much more of the book and told him she
really couldnt help him. She warned him about turning in someone elses ideas as his own. Reggie
went away discouraged. On Wednesday he tried to revise the essay some more before turning it in on
Thursday morning.
Meanwhile, Arnie kept trying to read the book. However, he was really upset because the book was
difficult and he couldnt read it quickly. Wednesday night in a panic, he took the Internet essay, added
his own introduction and conclusion and turned it in during class on Friday.
On Sunday night when Reggie returned from his meet, he had a voice mail message from Professor
Lovelit asking him to come to her office on Monday morning. At the meeting, she explained that she
knew he and Arnie had not written their own papers. Not only were the papers almost exactly alike,
but also she had found the original essay on the Internet. On top of that their papers were not about
the assigned topic. She told him that they would both receive and F for their final grade in the course.
* * * * *
Listed below are the characters in this story. Rank them in order of their responsibility for
Reggies failing grade. Give a different score to each character. Be prepared to explain your
choices.

Most responsible <-- 1 2 3 4 --> Least responsible

teacher
athlete

___ Professor Lovelit, the

___ Reggie, the student-

___ Sally, the academic counselor

___ Arnie, the other student

--Jan McMannis, Academic Counselor, University of Pittsburgh (PA) hubert+@pitt.edu

Critical Thinking Case Study
This critical thinking activity, attributed to William V. Haney, provides a wonderful illustration of how
easy it is to infer conclusions that are not supported by the known facts of a case.
DIRECTIONS: Read the following story that contains only true statements. Afterwards read nine
statements about the story and determine if each is
Tmeaning: On the basis of the information presented in the story the statement is DEFINITELY TRUE.

FMeaning: On the basis of the information presented in the story the statement is DEFINITELY FALSE.
?Meaning: The statement MAY be true (or false) but on the basis of the information presented in the
story you cannot be definitely certain. (If any part of the statement is doubtful, mark the statement
"?".)
THE STORY: Babe Smith has been killed. Police have rounded up six suspects, all of whom are
known gangsters. All of them are known to have been near the scene of the killing at the
approximate time that it occurred. All had substantial motives for wanting Smith killed. However,
one of these suspected gangsters, Slinky Sam, has positively been cleared of guilt.
STATEMENTS about the story (Mark each one with T, F, or ?):

1. Slinky Sam is known to have been near the scene of the killing of Babe Smith.
2. All six of the rounded-up gangsters were known to have been near the scene of the murder.
3. Only Slinky Sam has been cleared of guilt.
4. All six of the rounded-up suspects were near the scene of Smiths killing at the approximate time that it
took place.

5. The police do not know who killed Smith.

6. All six suspects are known to have been near the scene of the foul deed.
7. Smiths murderer did not confess of his own free will.
8. Slinky Sam was not cleared of guilt.
9. It is known that the six suspects were in the vicinity of the cold-blooded assassination.
ANSWERS:

1. T
2. ?
3. ?
4. T
5. ?
6. ?
7. ?
8. F
9. ?
from Models for Writers by Alfred Rosa and Paul Eschholz (St. Martins).