Critical thinking and Chinese university students: a review of the evidence

Tian, Jing; Low, Graham

doi:10.1080/07908318.2010.546400

Cited by 77 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…In recent years, reviews and empirical studies have challenged the assertion that Asian students are deficient in CT because of cultural traditions; they have also argued that inadequate English proficiency is a factor hindering EFL learners from thinking critically. Tian and Low (2011), for example, reviewed the published literature about Chinese students' CT performance at universities abroad and identified subject area knowledge and target language proficiency as two key debilitative factors. Lun, Fischer and Ward (2010) addressed whether there are differences in CTS between 102 Asian and 210 European students at a Western institution.…”

Section: Correlation Between English Majors' Cts and Efl Argumentativmentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical Thinking and Argumentative Writing: Inspecting the Association among EFL Learners in China

Pei¹,

Zheng²,

Zhang³

et al. 2017

ELT

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Nurturing critical thinking (CT) has been acknowledged as a core objective of tertiary education, and drawn attention from academia of teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in China. The thrust of the present study was to determine the association between CT and EFL argumentative writing among Chinese undergraduates. To this end, 110 English majors across three grades at two universities were conveniently selected and given the critical thinking skills (CTS) test and EFL argumentative writing test. The results of this study indicated that undergraduate English majors in China did not possess strong CTS. Though their CTS was not found to be significantly correlated with EFL argumentative writing performance, textual analysis of typical essays showed that strong-CTS learners outperformed weak-CTS ones in relevance, clarity, logicality, profundity and flexibility of argumentative writing. The obtained results suggest a need to integrate CT into EFL writing instruction.

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Section: Correlation Between English Majors' Cts and Efl Argumentativmentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical Thinking and Argumentative Writing: Inspecting the Association among EFL Learners in China

Pei¹,

Zheng²,

Zhang³

et al. 2017

ELT

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“…Supervisors from an Anglophone university have indicated that "developing criticality is a very slow process" for some Chinese students [21] (p. 595). Tian and Low note the paradox where university teachers in China avoid teaching critical thinking because it is not required in examinations, even though they place "a high value on it and saw it as something they recognized that they ought to be teaching" [61] (p. 69).…”

Section: Construction Of "Chinese Students" As Uncriticalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Tian and Low found that some monolingual English-speaking academics see international students from China, as being "unclear about how to 'be critical' in an appropriate way, and thus become actively worried about their own critical thinking performance" [61] (p. 64).…”

Section: Lack Of Relevant Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

Debating the Capabilities of “Chinese Students” for Thinking Critically in Anglophone Universities

Singh

2017

Education Sciences

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There are media and research reports of international students from the People's Republic of China as being deficient in the capabilities for thinking critically. This paper argues for a shift in the frame for researching their critical thinking, moving the focus from the ethno-national label of "Chinese students" to "multilingual students" and their full linguistic repertoire. This opens up possibilities for exploring definitions of modes of critical thinking in Zhongwen (the official language of China) and English, and the importance of critical thinking in higher education in Australia, China and elsewhere. Attention then turns to constructions of "Chinese students" as uncritical, with explanations for their learning deficit including poor English language proficiency, lack of relevant knowledge, inappropriate assessment and deficiencies in China's educational system. This paper concludes by suggesting research into post-monolingual education may find a theoretic-pedagogical framework that sees multilingual students use their full linguistic repertoire to develop modes of critical thinking while dealing with the tensions posed by English-only monolingual education.

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“…Cheng (2000), however, sees this view of Asian learners as a "dangerous overgeneralisation" (p. 435) and the view of Asians as reticent and passive as "a groundless myth" (p.438). Tian and Low (2011) dismiss studies that claim passivity is an emanation of Chinese culture as limited or inconclusive in evidence. Seeing the problem as a Western versus Eastern dissonance tends to elevate the West and to stereotype, and therefore simplify, the East.…”

Section: Literature Review: International Student Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%