"Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do" (Bertrand Russell). In the current climate of competitiveness it has never been as important for Universities to ensure that their students emerge, equipped with the skills necessary for dealing with our ever- changing societies. According to a prominent Psychologist, as the world continues to become more complex, each generation needs to be more educated than the one that went before. In psychology there is a debate as to whether or not college improves students critical thinking skills. In order to investigate this, the present study was conducted with the view to assessing the effectiveness of a specially designed "Learning Skills" programme for use with a cohort of 1st year psychology students. It was decided that this programme be administered in the psychology tutorials by post-graduate tutors. This research comprised of four separate studies. The aim of each study was as follows; Study 1 was carried out in order to firstly establish which psychometric tests would be used in Study 2 and secondly, to confirm which skills modules should be included in the programme. The result of this study saw the selection of shortened versions of the "Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students" (ASSIST; Tait, Entwislte and McCune, 1998) and the "California Critical Thinking Skills Test" (Facione, 2000). Study 2, was the actual application of the Learning Skills programme to the 1st year psychology students. A current debate in psychology is whether critical thinking instruction should be given implicitly or explicitly. As such, following ethical approval, students in psychology were enrolled in a tutorial where they would either receive critical thinking instruction implicitly or explicitly. Psychometric testing sessions were held both pre and post intervention in order to establish if students' approaches to learning or critical thinking skills changed over time. It also investigated if any differences occurred in the critical thinking ability of the students in the implicit and those in the explicit group. The aim of Study 3 was to restructure the 1st year tutorials in psychology in accordance with the findings from Study 2 (i.e. whether critical thinking instruction should be implicit or explicit). Again two psychometric testing sessions were conducted to assess students' changes in the learning skills. Finally, the main aim of Study 4 was to follow-up the psychology students that took part in each of the preceding studies. Those students who took part in Study 1 were now final year students while those in study 2 were 2nd years. In this way it was possible to examine the approaches to studying and the level of critical thinking ability of the students at different stages of their academic qualification. In this paper the results of each of these studies will be discussed in more detail. Also, relevant implications from this research will be made along with suggestions for future research on how to enhance students' approaches to learning and critical thinking ability.