Macro and Micro Strategies to Stimulate Students’ Criticality

Abstract

Critical thinking (CT) is a long lasting legacy in higher education. Thus university academics strive to cultivate disciplinary based CT in their disciplines. Such a task is equally challenging in postgraduate and undergraduate courses. This study investigated macro and micro strategies that academics adopt in their teaching and assessment to enhance students’ CT at one university in the schools of Physical Sciences, Engineering, Humanities and Business. The study included 20 interviews with academics and the qualitative analysis of their summative and formative assessment tasks. The study shows that CT is an essential transferable and a meta-cognitive skill that helps transforming students to be workplace ready. The study identifies that formative assessment and continuous teacher feedback and reflective learning tasks as major contributors in developing self-directed learning. The study also indicates several teacher-related and student-related challenges in developing holistic thinking with a subtle shift between scaffolded and independent learning and negotiating students’ limited critical reading skills and written skills in argumentation.