5 Benefits of Thinking for a Change Course

Thinking for a change is an evidence-based program designed for justice-involved adults. Research shows it improves thinking skills, communication, emotional regulation, and problem-solving.

Fidelity to the curriculum is critical for its success. This includes staff training and ongoing performance monitoring, coaching, and feedback.

Increased Self-Confidence

The most obvious benefit of thinking for a change course is that you will have more confidence in your ability to make and implement a decision. Your confidence will also help you overcome doubts or fears preventing you from taking a new direction. However, if you plan on changing your course to get into a more competitive university course, it is important to be honest about why you want to do so. If you are still determining if the change course is right for you, it will be hard to convince the admissions team at the new university that the change in your plans is a good idea. Furthermore, you should know that universities are well aware of students trying to jump into more competitive courses and are likely only to accept your application if you meet the basic entry requirements.

Improved Thinking Skills

Using critical thinking skills allows for a more objective analysis of situations. It improves comprehension and challenges generally accepted systems of thought, paving the way for innovation. Some of the most important inventions in human history came from people who questioned basic assumptions and were unafraid to take risks with their ideas.

It is also helpful for online research because judging relevance requires deciphering what information is pertinent and useful in achieving your desired outcome. Critical thinking also helps to diversify thinking patterns, enabling you to think more creatively. You can do this by challenging your own beliefs and embracing different perspectives. This can help to overcome cognitive biases that may have limited your thinking in the past. It also makes it easier to find solutions when facing problems.

Better Decision-Making

We’re all faced with important decisions at home or work. Often, the best way to make these decisions is to rely on intuition. However, some people find it difficult to trust their intuition and instead turn to others for advice. Unfortunately, this can lead to bad decision-making, especially when other people have different values and goals. Several soft methods and courses teach individuals how to better structure problems, elicit and aggregate preferences, deal with uncertainty, and make decisions. These courses can help people overcome various biases that hinder their decision-making processes. A recent study found that people who took these courses reported higher levels of proactive decision-making (level 3) and satisfaction with their decisions than control group participants.

Increased Self-Awareness

Dispositional self-awareness has been conceptualized in various ways, including insight, reflection, rumination, and mindfulness. Various self-awareness measures have been associated with different outcomes, but the precise relationship between these variables is largely unknown. This two-part mixed methods study aimed to advance knowledge of this complex construct by investigating its relationships with work-related outcomes.

In the first part, experts participated in focus groups to identify and categorize themes related to questions that were subsequently measured quantitatively. Statistical analysis revealed that the data were consistent with four factors identified by the experts: reflective self-development, acceptance of others and proactivity at work, emotional costs, and rumination. These results suggest that a simple model may be sufficient to capture the overall effects of increased self-awareness.

Improved Relationships

Students often describe the relationships they develop in this change course as “life-changing.” For example, they discover that beliefs and assumptions they held for years—that feedback will ruin a relationship—no longer serve them. They also realize they can make a real difference in the lives of their peers by simply being themselves and sharing their strengths, struggles, and experiences.