The Palgrave Handbook Of Critical Thinking In Higher Education
Taneka Tarring
"The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Thinking in Higher Education edited by Martin Davies and Ronald Barnett is a comprehensive and systematic treatment of critical thinking with philosophical approaches balanced by chapters that address its teaching and incorporation in the curriculum, and the relation of critical thinking to culture, to the cognitive sciences, to the professions and to society. In short, it is an indispensable guide and state-of-the-art compendium of critical thinking in the academy." - Michael A. Peters, Professor of Education, University of Waikato, New Zealand, and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne, USA
"A sweeping, landmark collection of perspectives on theory and practice from key thinkers and practitioners. This is a must read book for anyone who wants to know what critical thinking is, or might be, in higher education." - Richard James, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Director, Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education, The University of Melbourne, Australia
"'Critical thinking' is one of the key aims of higher education. But what is it? And, does it mean the same thing in all fields, disciplines and cultures? While insisting on the importance of critical thinking in higher education, this book problematises and debates what it means, and how it may be developed and implemented in curriculum. It fills a key gap in the literature, and in curricular and policy debates." - Leesa Wheelahan, William G. Davis Chair in Community College Leadership, Ontario Institute of Studies for Education, University of Toronto, Canada
Critical thinking has attracted considerable focus in recent years in both high school and tertiary curricula (Ku 2009). While the concept has a long tradition and both philosophers and educators agree on its importance, there is a reported lack of agreement on what the concept involves (Cheung, Rudowicz, Kwan, and Yue 2002; Green, Hammer, and Star 2009; McMillan 1987). There is even less agreement on how to teach it (Noddings 1995). Described as a most difficult term in education (Moore and Parker 2011), it is not surprising that critical thinking has also taken on a narrower focus than when earlier conceived (Davies 2011). This chapter presents an operational framework for teaching critical thinking and illustrates its application in an educational setting.
IFacultad de Educacin y Humanidades, Universidad de Tarapac, Chile
IIFaculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, School of Histories, Languages and Cultures, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom
IIIFacultad de Ingenieria, Universidad de Tarapac, Chile
Critical thinking (CT) in higher education (HE) has been widely investigated in Western countries. Most of the research on CT has conceived it as a higher order thinking skill with implications for learning processes. CT has also been connected with critical pedagogies, an approach that seems particularly attuned with the Latin American region. Through a systematic literature review, this article maps the scholarship on CT in HE in Latin America (LATAM). Findings point to a local character of the research on CT that heavily relies on cognitive psychology traditions. It is proposed that the scholarship on CT in LATAM is characterised by an epistemic disjuncture that favours theories and methodologies produced in the Global North overshadowing well-recognised traditions of critical pedagogies in the region. We conclude that research on CT in the region is missing an opportunity to develop powerful features that are especially fitting for LATAM' s geo-historic context.
Despite extensive research, CT is a slippery concept with diverse definitions pointing to different perspectives, dimensions and implications (Davies & Barnett, 2015). Research on CT in HE has mainly revolved around the ways in which students learn CT and how it can be assessed (Green, 2015; Hitchcock, 2015). However, there is no agreement about how to incorporate CT in study programmes. As a result, not only is more research required on how to promote CT in programmes of study (Abrami, et. al, 2015), but also more scholarship on the matter of CT itself.
Through a systematic literature review of articles, this review article aims to map the scholarship around CT in HE in LATAM. The review provides an identification of conceptualisations associated with CT in LATAM, ways in which CT is investigated in the classroom and/or in the curriculum either in specific disciplines or in a more transversal way. The research methodologies deployed to investigate CT will also receive attention. Given the long-standing tradition of critical pedagogies and Freire' s ideas in LATAM, this article argues that the scholarship of CT in HE in that region should emphasise a socio-political dimension. While CT skills are necessary and important to participate in the so-called information society, a CT approach that responds to the high degree of inequities in the Latin American region should strengthen the essence of Freirian critical pedagogies. According to this perspective, being critical involves a state of self-realisation and consciousness of the oppressive conditions that affect the social reality with the aim of interrupting them. The article expands on this topic and discusses implications of this review for HE in the region.
CT has been addressed from different disciplinary traditions, especially psychology and philosophy (Davies & Barnett, 2015) which, in turn, have had implications in educational settings. While philosophical approaches have focused on logical argumentation psychological traditions have drawn on cognitive approaches mainly (Paul, 2011).
From a cognitive perspective CT is a 'combination of skills, attitude and knowledge' (Sternberg & Halpern, 2020: 1). Usually, CT is associated with higher order thinking skills such as evaluating, synthesising, analysing, interpreting, making inferences, and explaining (Facione, 1990). A critical thinker not only has the ability to deploy higher and complex cognitive skills, but also possess good communication skills that allow them to work effectively with others in a team to address problems (Paul & Elder, 2006).
More than five decades ago, from a cognitive developmental perspective, Perry (1970) observed students for fifteen years during their educational journey at university and recorded how students developed their CT. He provided four phases of student-teacher interaction, showing how their roles interact and change during the learning process. In the first phase, students learn pre-set 'correct' answers and provide them when asked. In a second phase, students realise that some questions might have different answers; at this stage, students start to develop hypotheses regarding the unanswered queries, thus beginning the CT process. In a third phase, students start to understand the need for theories to support their work, for which their teachers provide validity. Students develop argumentation skills, logical consistency, and use reasoning characteristic of their discipline. In the last stage, students understand how to address certain problems and develop their own worldviews in a range of domains. Students begin to view problems from different perspectives, formulate valid questions, identify suitable solutions to problems, and even develop new theories. In pedagogical situations, and according to Schendel, et al. (2020) CT can be enhanced if students build knowledge from real situations, engage actively in their learning and receive support from peers and teachers through class discussion, collaborative group work, and open- assessments.
CT also includes dispositions that involve an attitudinal dimension and a 'sense of psychological readiness of the human being to be critical' (Davies & Barnett, 2015: 13). From this perspective, CT is conceived as a set of dispositions in 'relation to the self, ...to others... and to the world' (Davies & Barnett, 2015: 13). For example, CT in relation to the self involves a desire to be well-informed, tolerance to ambiguity, integrity, empathy, perseverance, and intellectual courage among others. CT in relation to others includes a respect for alternative viewpoints, open-mindedness, appreciation of individual difference and scepticism, while CT in relation to the world involves interest, inquisitiveness and seeing both sides of an issue (Davies & Barnett, 2015: 13). However, in Davies and Barnett' s words, this latter definition fails to include 'a sense of actual or potential action' (2015: 14). Accordingly, these authors propose 'the skills-plus-dispositions-plus-actions' view (Davies & Barnett, ibid), for which Barnett coined the term 'criticality' (Barnett, 2007).
Criticality involves not only cognitive skills and dispositions but also 'the individual' s wider identity and participation in the world ... it comprises three things: thinking, being, and acting' (Davies & Barnett, 2015: 15). These three moments are intertwined and each may be realised at ever higher levels. According to this view, CT enables higher education students to reach a level of transformative critique while engaging with the broader world as a citizen. Such students and graduates are autonomously able - unprompted by pedagogical situations - to size up situations in the world and to respond to them agentically.
There are two key debates about the very concept of CT that have important implications for teaching and learning processes. The first one is whether CT is a general skill (Ennis, 2015) or is content-specific, being rather attached to different disciplines (Abrami, et al., 2015; Schendel, et al., 2020). It has been argued that CT involves generic skills that can be applied across a large variety of disciplines, such as science, history, literature, psychology, and everyday life (Tiruneh, et al., 2018). Jones, in turn, argues that CT 'occurs within the conventions, methodologies, and knowledge bases of particular disciplines and fields and within the structures that they provide' (2015: 169). Some scholars (Abrami, et al., 2015; Schendel, et al., 2020) have pointed out that CT constitutes a generic skill while also being discipline specific while Ennis (2015) point out that CT involves dispositions that will encourage students to use these skills either in general contexts or specific situations.
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