Development of Critical Thinking in Higher Education

MIER Journal of Educational Studies Trends & Practices, 2021

There is a demand for transformation in higher education. Undergraduates need to be taught critical thinking, an essential skill that should be central to the mission of all educational institutions. Critical thinking is a key focus of academic interest among researchers in the field of pedagogy and methodology. Despite this, there is still a lack of sufficient information on approaches, methods, techniques, and means of incorporating critical thinking skills in the classroom environment at the tertiary education level. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the hands-on experiences of some European and Asian universities in promoting critical thinking education using a range of academic models. The review shows that critical thinking has already been integrated into many major tertiary education programmes in both European and Asian universities. Further, majority of the academic models implemented are transferable and flexible. The results confirm that i...

2017

This paper discusses the level of critical thinking skills adapted from The Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level X (CCTTX) by Ennis and Milan (1985) among final year diploma students from the Faculty of Business Management, UiTM Melaka taking the course of Office Administration and Introduction to Critical Thinking. This paper aims to encourage students to become critical thinkers and to provide lecturers with the best approach to develop students’ critical thinking skills at tertiary level. Findings have shown that their critical thinking ability ranged from low to moderate level. Thus, strategies of teaching and learning which stresses on student-centered learning must be adopted to stimulate student’s thinking by encouraging critical and creative thinking and the construction of new knowledge. 61 students taking Diploma in Office Management and Technology were chosen as samples of this study. The data was collected through observation and classroom based activities namely debates...

Tuning Journal for Higher Education

Critical thinking is a key competence in higher education. However, little is known about the conception that students have of this competence. This study aims to analyze what university students understand by critical thinking and if these conceptions agree with those of university teachers analyzed in a previous study. A total of 263 participants took part in the study. The findings reveal that students tend to consider critical thinking as a competence related to reasoning/arguing and questioning/asking oneself. Also, that students’ conception about critical thinking differs from that of teachers. Whereas students tend to consider critical thinking as related to reasoning/arguing, questioning/asking oneself and, to a lesser extent, to acting/compromising. Teachers, on the other hand, tend to consider critical thinking as related to analyzing/organizing and evaluating. No significant differences were found regarding students’ gender and academic year. These results highlight the i...

2010

The literature on critical thinking in higher education is constructed around the fundamental assumption that, while regarded as essential, is neither clearly nor commonly understood. There is elsewhere evidence that academics and students have differing perceptions of what happens in university classrooms, particularly in regard to higher order thinking. This paper reports on a small-scale investigation in a Faculty of Education at an Australian University into academic and student definitions and understandings of critical thinking. Our particular interest lay in the consistencies and disconnections assumed to exist between academic staff and students. The presumption might therefore be that staff and students perceive critical thinking in different ways and that this may limit its achievement as a critical graduate attribute.

VEDA’S JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE (JOELL), 2016

Language and thinking are unique abilities of human beings that separate them from other living things. The word "thinking" is used in many senses; generally we can say "we are because we think". It is an automatic process. But in the case of "Critical Thinking" (CT) we must teach the learners how to become a critical thinker and how to apply "Critical Thinking Skills" (CTS) in their day to day life as well as academic setting in order to get required results from a particular situation; problem; circumstance; or a plan. One of the products of a liberal undergraduate education is the ability to think critically. In practice, Critical Thinking is a skill that undergraduate learners are supposed to master as they complete their studies. Moreover the present education system focuses more on teaching facts rather than how to think. Since there is little emphasis on how to think at School and Intermediate level, undergraduate learners lack CT abilities. In this rapidly changing information age learners to a great extent need CTS for their academics, professional career, and life itself. In fact, it is very essential to teach learners at undergraduate level CTS along with other language skills such as Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing.

There has been no shortage of definitions of the concept of “critical thinking” over the years and the concept has been subject to much detailed scholarly work. In social and educational terms critical thinking is an important topic. Of late, critical thinking has also been widely discussed in the popular media, and the concept has been regarded as one of the most important graduate outcomes expected of a university education. However, despite this, scholars have yet to arrive at a holistic conception of critical thinking—a model of critical thinking as it were—that might usefully underpin the range of considerations about critical thinking that occur in the higher education literature. This paper: (1) reviews the various definitions and approaches to critical thinking, and (2) incorporates them into a single, coherent model. A number of disagreements in critical thinking scholarship are outlined as ‘axis disputes’ arising from the proposed model.

Multidisciplinary Journal of Educational Research, 2021

In our globalised, pluralistic, and often information-swamped society, critical thinking is recognised as an important competence to be developed in university education. In order to investigate this, 142 Latin American and Spanish teachers were asked about the importance of and potential for developing critical thinking in university education. Their responses were subjected to an inductive analysis, which lead to 13 categories about the reasons why it is important, and 11 categories about the potential and limitations for developing it in university education. These categories were found to remain statistically unchanged regardless of age, years of teaching experience, area of knowledge, gender and geographical area. Results show that teachers consider important to teach critical thinking at university and mainly for students to become good professionals in a complex world. Teachers believe it is possible to teach it, as long as active methodologies are used, in addition to other ...

Where there is an emphasis on critical thinking being an essential component learning at University level education, there needs to be a clear focus upon integrating the development of these skills within the curriculum. This paper looks at the importance of critical thinking in higher education and the difficulties that students have in applying critical thinking. Results from a short study show students' understanding of what critical thinking actually means.

Journal of Education Culture and Society

Aim. The aim of this research is to examine how critical thinking is reflected in Lithuanian higher education study programmes and what conceptual model(s) of critical thinking are used by study programme makers. Methods. The subject of the study encompasses 8 higher education study programmes and their subjects. They are analysed based on a constructed conceptual framework, which defines 9 critical thinking skills and 18 critical thinking dispositions. Results. Analysis, evaluation and decision making are the most common critical thinking skills embedded in the goals of a study course and its learning outcomes. Explanation, interpretation and making inferences are less pronounced. Dispositions are listed rarely and in quite an indistinct way. Only open-mindedness and honesty have clear expression and statement in study programmes, though to a lesser extent. Dispositions such as concern for every person, inquisitiveness and flexibility are very fragmented. Conclusions. For the mean...

1993

This study investigated the perception of university teachers regarding what critical thinking skills are needed for successful undergraduate study, and determined the relative importance r2 these skills within and across academic disciplines. A total of 3' university teachers in 6 academic disciplines of Physical Sciences, Biological Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities, Engineering, and Education in an Australia in university responded to a 72-item questionnaires about their perception of the frequency and importance to success of each item within their academic disciplines. The results showed that academic staff perceive critical thinking skills as having a fundamental role in undergraduate studies and that though a large number of skills are common to all disciplines, some of them are specific to different disciplines. Overall, the skills rated as most important were the abilities to explain ideas with reasonable clarity, to critically reflect on and analyze all information presented, co assemble facts to determine the validity of an argument, and to draw sound inferences from the information formed or given. Common errors cited were a reluctance to be analytical, presentation of a poorly st-uctured argument, and disregarding facts or evidence in drawing conclusions. (JB)

2020

The study shows a proposal on specific diagnosis of critical thinking skills in higher education students according to literal, inferential and critical reading levels. A literature review on Critical thinking was done to support concepts. This proposal is adapted from the variables of the information obtained. One of the conclusions shows that the career profile is a determining factor in the result and that motivation and interest are outstanding in the reading and writing processes. Teaching students to evaluate their own processes and helping teachers to include critical readings in their curricula will help to develop effective skills associated with critical thinking. The general objective of the research project is to strengthen Critical Thinking and the argumentative capacity of the students of the schools of Administration, Health Sciences, Engineering and Architecture, Social Sciences, Humanities and Theology through strategies of reading and writing. A mixed methodology was used; the researches designed and administered 2 critical reading texts, each with 10 questions and organized in 3 reading levels (literal,inferential and critical), to 158 students; then, a data analysis on how students infer, interpret and analyze text content before they start a communicative course was done. The results show that

Thinking Skills and Creativity, 2019

Critical thinking is a competency which is being required from students in their personal and professional life. For this reason, universities must do their most to include it in their syllabus, programs, and classes. However, there is still much work to be done since there is not a clear definition of this competency, and also new active methodologies need to be enhanced for its development. This article starts with a literature review of the main methodologies to teach this competency, and moreover, analyzes the main methodologies that 230 university teachers from Spain and Latin America use in the classroom as well as the ones they consider as more effective for the development of critical thinking. This information is contrasted with the concept these teachers have of critical thinking, based on previous research in which six different categories of concept were found. The data is analyzed using the test of Chi-square and Cohen's Kappa. The results seem to indicate that teachers use and consider as most effective mainly three different methodologies: oral and written reflection and argumentation; reading, analysis and synthesis of resources; and case studies, regardless the concept they have of critical thinking, although some other tendencies between methodologies and concept of critical thinking are observed. In addition , there is a significant relationship between methodologies teachers use and those they consider most effective. Finally, some implications for curriculum design and implementation in relation to critical thinking are presented.

Essachess : Journal for Communication Studies, 2018

Abstract: Nowadays, both on-line and "off-line" lives seem to be bound to the terms of democratization of information. While this brings clear advantages, does free and fast access to plenty of information entail that individuals are better informed and well-equipped to think reasonably, make decisions, and solve problems? In a time apparently governed by fraudulent decision-makers, floppy media, fake news, and frantic information, it is essential to know how to think critically. Critical thinking is crucial along schooling, in the world of work, in personal everyday life, and in life as members of a society. Nonetheless, critical thinking is not innate and effortless; it must be developed and mobilized with deliberation in a systematic way. Researchers and international agencies agree that it is critical to have critical thinking to face present-futurist challenges such as the United Nation's 17 Sustainable Development Goals . But before individuals learn to become cr...

Over the last 5 years there have been significant contributions to the literature on empirical research about improving critical thinking in tertiary students. In this presentation I draw on and critically discuss some of this research in relation to three questions about improving tertiary students' critical thinking. These questions are: whether tertiary education improves students' critical thinking (and if so, which elements of the educational process are most important, and which students get the improvements); whether the medium of education (contact classes or online) makes a difference to improving students' critical thinking; and what we should be measuring.

International Journal of Higher Education, 2020

Critical thinking in university studies is the cornerstone for the development of research processes at the doctoral level; it becomes the vector of this action, whose processes in the management of learning will require that the competencies understood are developed by teachers and students, for the achievement of the goals proposed by the actors involved. This is how the research had the purpose of measuring the critical thinking of university doctorate students whose methodology was quantitative, with a population of 150 students, which allowed, in the first place, to establish the reliability and the analysis of the construct of the instrument used (Watson-Glaser test) and whose results showed a reliability of 0.77, KMO of 0.757 with a bilateral significance of 0.000. Likewise, of the five dimensions or factors of the instrument, five have a positive impact on moderate levels (Nagelkerke's pseudo-R square of 0.574) excluding inference. The descriptive analysis established th...