ERIC Number: EJ1130263
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2015-May
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-1755-1382
EISSN: N/A
How Students Make Sense of Criticality Skills in Higher Education
Brown, Alison
Practitioner Research in Higher Education, v9 n1 p4-17 May 2015
Critical thinking skills in students, employees and citizens are endorsed for a wide range of positive reasons. What seems less well-known and the aim of this research was to investigate how students make sense of these skills. A semi-structured interview was loosely designed, using questions to ascertain criticality skills before, during and at the present time with 7 students in their final year of a BSc Complementary Therapy degree. All participants thought the word "criticality" was misleading to students unfamiliar with the term. All students used analogies and metaphors when providing their own definitions of what criticality skills are, often using linguistic binary opposed terms to define what criticality is as opposed to what it is not. Using the linguistic binary opposed terms, the author created a pedagogical tool "The Criticality Wheel" that could be used by lecturers as stimulus for their students to make sense of criticality.
Descriptors: Higher Education, Critical Thinking, Thinking Skills, Semi Structured Interviews, Qualitative Research, College Students
University of Cumbria. Fusehill Street, Carlisle, Cumbria, CA1 2HH, United Kingdom. Tel: +44-1228-616338; e-mail: riple@cumbria.ac.uk; Web site: http://194.81.189.19/ojs/index.php/prhe
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A