Targeting critical thinking within teacher education: The potential impact on society

Williams, Robert L.

doi:10.1080/08878730509555359

Cited by 57 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 29 publications

(31 reference statements)

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“…Critical thinking can be reflected into students' writings, class discussions and even into students' multiple-choice test performances (Williams, 2005). Therefore, pre-service teachers' comments in the online community of practice were evaluated and discussed by associating with quantitative outcomes.…”

Section: Discussion About Qualitative Findings Of the Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is very important that students acquire critical thinking skills during their higher education, as it creates a path to their career (Kumar & James, 2015). Similarly, although the literature on critical thinking in teacher education is not extensive, teacher educators are increasingly acknowledging that critical thinking skills of teachers of the future must be developed (Williams, 2005). However, the outcomes of some descriptive studies conducted with preservice teachers in Turkey show that critical thinking disposition of pre-service teachers is either low (Temel, 2014) or medium (Kartal, 2012;Korkmaz, 2009).…”

Section: Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Kloppers and Grosser (2014) have emphasized that critical thinking dispositions of the teachers should be developed first, before expecting them to develop their students' critical thinking skills. The teachers of the future may affect the development of the community by enhancing critical thinking skills of their students (Williams, 2005). Therefore, teacher training programs should primarily focus on the development of critical thinking.…”

Section: Critical Thinking and Critical Thinking Dispositionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, teacher training programs should primarily focus on the development of critical thinking. Williams (2005) has mentioned that developing critical thinking in teacher education may potentially increase the effectiveness of the communities in solving national and international problems and he argued that this relationship between teacher training and social problem solving may occur in three steps:…”

Section: Critical Thinking and Critical Thinking Dispositionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Effects of Online Communities of Practice on Pre-Service Teachers’ Critical Thinking Dispositions

Ekici

2017

EURASIA J MATH SCI T

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This empirical study attempted to investigate the effect of using online communities of practice in teacher education on pre-service teachers' critical thinking dispositions. California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory and the comments posted to the online community of practice were used as the data collection tools. Results showed that online communities of practice did not affect pre-service teachers' overall critical thinking disposition significantly. However, research results revealed that the scores that pre-service teachers have achieved from self-confidence and open-mindedness sub-factors of the inventory have significantly differentiated in favor of the pre-service teachers in the experimental group. The statements that pre-service teachers have made on their comments were weak in terms of critical thinking. Pre-service teachers have mostly expressed their own views and they have usually supported each other by providing positive opinions. Therefore, it is thought that online communities of practice affect positively only pre-service teachers' self-confidence tendency and the abilities to express their own opinions.

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Section: Discussion About Qualitative Findings Of the Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Critical Thinking and Critical Thinking Dispositionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Critical Thinking and Critical Thinking Dispositionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The Effects of Online Communities of Practice on Pre-Service Teachers’ Critical Thinking Dispositions

Ekici

2017

EURASIA J MATH SCI T

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“…Universities should, therefore, select students with a good ability to deal with information of this kind, that is, students who possess at least moderate critical thinking skills. In particular, focusing on the development of critical thinking in teacher training has been proposed to increase the use of critical thinking in the society as a whole (Williams, 2005). This further suggests that investigation of the critical thinking skills of applicants to teacher education programs, and to programs of educational sciences in general, is important.…”

Section: The Purpose Of the Study And Research Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

University Applicants’ Critical Thinking Skills: The Case of the Finnish Educational Sciences

Utriainen

Marttunen

Kallio

et al. 2016

Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research

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This study investigates the quality of the critical thinking skills of applicants (n=77) seeking entry to the faculty of educational sciences in a Finnish university and how these skills are associated with the applicant's age, previous higher education experience and matriculation and entrance examination scores. The data consist of the applicants' responses to problem-solving tasks and their matriculation and entrance examination scores. Critical thinking skills were measured with comparison and argumentation tasks. The results indicate that comparison of the texts and analysis of the arguments they contained were more difficult tasks than putting forward arguments both for and against of one's personal standpoint. In addition, previous experience of higher education predicted participants' comparison skills and their matriculation examination grades predicted their argumentation skills. The feasibility of using critical comparison tasks in the entrance examination tests is discussed.Keywords: critical thinking, argumentation, entrance examination, academic achievement, higher education 3Critical thinking and well-developed argumentation skills are commonly seen as important from the civic participation perspective (Arum & Roksa, 2011;Kuhn, 2005;Williams, Foster & Krohn, 2008), and are also regarded as key learning outcomes by higher education institutions (Halpern, 2001). Hence it is not surprising that university students' critical thinking skills have been widely studied (e.g., reviews by Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005;Niu, Behar-Horenstein & Garvan, 2013), and also that various definitions of critical thinking have been proposed. For example, Elder and Paul (2010) define critical thinking as a process of assessing and analyzing one's own thinking with the aim of improving it, whereas Ennis (1993) conceptualizes critical thinking as reasonable reflective thinking, aiming at deciding what to believe or not. These definitions highlight the importance of knowledge and its justification in conceptions of critical thinking. Ennis (2008) has labeled views of this kind as epistemic approaches to the conception of critical thinking, since they share the purpose of finding the truth or at least the closest approximation to it. In contrast to this common epistemic element is the claim that there is no unanimous definition of critical thinking (Flores, Matkin, Burbach, Quinn & Harding, 2012). Nevertheless, three common dimensions for critical thinking have been suggested, namely the ability to perform rational and reasonable thinking, the ability to see alternative viewpoints, and the ability to reflect on one's own thinking and its quality (Niu et al., 2013;Flores et al., 2012).Like the definitions of critical thinking, the research results on learning critical thinking skills as an outcome of university studies are also conflicting. In some studies, participation in higher education has been found to develop certain elements of students' critical thinking, that is, the ability to approach problems from various...

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Charting the effects of improving instruction: College seniors learning to write lesson plans

Pass

2006

Perf. Improv.

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Targeting critical thinking within teacher education: The potential impact on society

Cited by 57 publications

References 29 publications

The Effects of Online Communities of Practice on Pre-Service Teachers’ Critical Thinking Dispositions

The Effects of Online Communities of Practice on Pre-Service Teachers’ Critical Thinking Dispositions

University Applicants’ Critical Thinking Skills: The Case of the Finnish Educational Sciences

Charting the effects of improving instruction: College seniors learning to write lesson plans

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