Teachers’ Perceptions of Teaching Critical Thinking and Teaching Practice Focusing on Critical Thinking

• In Event: Poster session IV
  In Poster Session: Poster session 4

Proposal

Purpose
Critical thinking (CT) includes the component skills of analyzing arguments, making inferences using inductive or deductive reasoning, judging or evaluating, and making decisions or solving problems (Lia, 2011). There are three teachers’ perceptions about critical thinking are assumed important for teachers to develop teaching that support the development of students’ critical thinking in their classrooms. Firstly, to engage students in critical thinking, teachers need to act as a facilitator to allow for discussion and encourage understanding that thinking critically does not always end with a right answer, but instead sometimes ends in more questions or differing evaluations of the topic (Halx & Reybold, 2005; Arend, 2009). Secondly, as Paul (1990) defined, critical thinking is disciplined based self-directed thinking and thus, teachers need to see that supporting students to find their own solutions is one of indication of thinking critically. Lastly, teachers’ perception of teaching by focusing on critical thinking more than curriculum content is also central to develop students’ critical thinking skills as Schwartz and Perkins (1989) argue, “a better thinking process will help in mastering new content.” However, Asian teachers seeing teaching of content knowledge is more important than teaching of thinking skills. For example, Korea educators believed that teaching content relative to national college exam is goal thus, teachers would like to engage teacher-led method, like whole-class instruction (DeWaelsche, 2015).
Research Question:
What's the differences between how Western countries’ teachers perceive critical thinking associated with specific teaching methods and the relationship between Asian countries’ perceptions and their teaching instructions?
What's the similarities between how Western countries’ teachers perceive critical thinking associated with specific teaching methods and the relationship between Asian countries’ perceptions and their teaching instructions?
Theoretical Framework
The focus and design of this study is framed using the theory of planned behavior It means an individual often has three kinds of beliefs, such as behavioral beliefs, normative beliefs, and control beliefs. The more favorite one holds behavioral beliefs, the more likely he or she will see these beliefs in a subject normative manner, the greater control he or she will feel, and the stronger his or her willing to perform the relevant action.
Following this theory, we assume that teachers would like to perform teaching practices consistent with their favorite, deeply held, and controllable teaching beliefs growing out from their personal and professional experiences. This theory will guide us in identifying relationship between specific teaching perceptions and specific teaching practices proposed in the study as shown in the field (Belbase, 2012).
The conception about the core critical thinking skills also frames our selection and identification of teacher perceptions and teaching practices (Facione, 1990). In this conception, six critical cognitive skills are identified as central to teaching of critical thinking. They are: (1) interpretation; (2) analysis; (3) evaluation; (4) inference; (5) explanation; (6) self-regulation. Based on this conception, teachers’ perceptions of their role in supporting students to develop critical thinking in the study are specifically identified and their critical thinking teaching practices are coded in the questionnaire data.
Method
This study drew on the questionnaire data from 11142 lower secondary teachers in five countries (United States, Canada, Japan, Korea and Singapore) in the 2013 TALIS. Because of the pressure of national college exam and the value of collective culture and conformity, Asian countries focus more content knowledge teaching than promoting students’ critical thinking skills, while Western countries, like the United States, whose society values individualized and encourage students’ asking questions. The culture difference between Western countries and Asian countries results in the distinctions teachers’ perceptions and their using of teaching instructions which relative to student development of critical thinking. Thus, we selected American and Canada as representors of Western countries and Japan, Korea and Singapore as Asian representors. The population of participants of the five countries are 1926, 1773, 3484, 2933 and 3109 respectively. We decide to use these data because three teachers’ perception items about their role in helping developing students’ critical thinking are surveyed. These items are: (1) my role as a teacher is to facilitate students’ own inquiry, (2) students learn best by finding solution to problems on their own, and (3) thinking and reasoning process are more important than specific curriculum content as consistent with our framework on teacher perceptions on their role in developing student critical thinking (Facione, 1990).
Also, included in the data are four instructional practices central to the development of student critical thinking as conceptualized by the theoretical framework (Facione, 1990) based on four scales from not at all, to some extent, quite a bit, and a lot as consistent with the theoretical framework on critical teaching strategies. These items are: (1) small group discussion, (2) craft good questions, (3) I have individual students answer questions in front of the class, and (4) I let students evaluate their own progress. We expect that Asian countries seldom use strategies of small-group discussion and asking students evaluating own progress associated to the three perceptions, while Western countries more would like to use small-group discussion and crafting students’ questions to promote their CT skills.
Results
In general, it is interesting to note that teachers’ beliefs of their role being a facilitator promotes the pedagogy of asking students questions to increase students’ CT skills in the four (America, Japan, Canada and Singapore) countries. Moreover, teachers from Japan, America and Singapore holding this conception have statistically significance with the teaching practice of asking students’ self-evaluation their own progress. We can assume that teachers design activity of small-group discussion to promote students’ CT skills intrinsic in the belief that they’re regarding themselves as a facilitator to foster students’ CT skills.
Significance
This study contributes to the much-needed empirical understanding about the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of teaching critical thinking and their teaching practices absent in the existing empirical literature as shown in our literature review. Consequently, policy makers should develop relevant policy and generate resources to support the effort to develop important teacher conception and practices relevant to the development of student critical thinking skills.

Authors

• Lu Guo, Texas Tech University

• Jian Wang, Texas Tech University