Case Study: How to Develop Critical Thinking Skills in Students

In this paper, the researcher examines the causes of continuous faulty everyday reasoning and poor argumentation skills displayed by literature in English students at the National University of Lesotho in their academic writings. Lack of these skills has had a great effect on students’ critical thinking abilities, preventing them from making reasonable interpretations of texts and formulating unbiased and well-reasoned arguments. Changes in technology and the workplace in the 21st century have matter-of-factly made the ability to think critically more important than ever before. Beyer posits that there is an agreement amongst most scholars and educationalists that a key feature of critical thinking involves the ability to collect, evaluate and make use of information effectively and appropriately. So how to develop critical thinking skills in students? This essay seeks to address the following questions: What causes these students to display poor argumentation skills in academic writings? What does the phrase ‘critical thinking’ mean? What sort of general approach is most effective for teaching critical thinking skills to these students? The paper advocates for an integrated method, a method that combines the stylistic analysis and reader response approach to the teaching of literary texts as a method of nurturing critical thinking skills among literature in English students at the National University of Lesotho.

Through generations, writing has continued to be one of the key means of communication. Over the course of history, the method through which writing is expressed has transformed; however, the objective has always remained the same: to actively and competently communicate information in a clear and rational manner. The general purpose of writing is to convey information to others in a way that can be fully understood. In today’s society, students need to be able to write in a manner that will help them in tertiary and in the workplace; critical thinking skills serve as starting points from which students can become contributing and active members of society.

However, the researcher has observed that today’s generation of students, more specifically students of literature in English at National University of Lesotho, do not display the mental energy that is essential to write well and arguably do not show critical thinking skills in their academic writings; therefore, lecturers face a real challenge, particularly literature in English instructors whose curriculum thrives on written expression and the applicability of critical thinking skills. As the global economy continues to become more competitive, it is vital for students to be able to have critical thinking skills. However, it seems not the case with literature in English students at National University of Lesotho. There is an alarming lack of critical thinking skills one notes in these students’ academic writings. It seems the application of critical thinking is either being forgotten, or simply not being taken into consideration.

In order for students to be primed to compete in a global economy, they must be able to think both critically and strategically; regrettably, our students, more specifically literature in English students are consistently unable to display critical thinking skills and this sadly seems to translate to a generation of students that is unable to acclimatize to a fast changing world. Mendelman argues that “in a day and age in which more and more children grow up engaged with primarily passive activities…teaching critical reading is one of the most important, and most difficult burdens of the classroom. Literature in English students need to be exposed and master the ability to think insightfully and critically, so that they will be able to compete in a modern, global economy.

One major challenge that lecturers encounter in the literature unit is that students have been unable to meet the university requirements in academic writing tasks. Many of these students graduate without knowing how to sift fact from opinion, make a clear written argument or objectively review conflicting reports of a situation or event in a literary text. Only a fraction of these students can make informed, critical judgments about written texts. These students’ challenges are reflected in activities such as understanding or interpreting, organizing texts, selecting, generating and connecting ideas, paraphrasing, integrating citations and documenting sources and manipulation of sentence structures. These have been observed when students compose essays, and write literary analytical papers, summarize single source and write essay type examinations because these are the writing tasks literature in English students are expected to carry out. In addition, these students, especially freshmen and sophomores do not possess necessary critical thinking skills that will necessitate them to effectively perform the above mentioned activities of academic writing.

“Of Course it’s True; I Saw it on the Internet!” is consistently a fundamental challenge that lecturers in the unit encounter. In the past, the greatest challenge facing researchers was finding information as they would trek to the stacks of the library in a hearty, robust effort to procure the needed information for an academic assignment; now, with the advent of the internet, information and data is a mouse click away, and the greatest challenge is evaluating the vast wealth of information available. The most pressing questions are: do learners engage in critical thought processes when they access information from the Internet? If so, what critical thought processes are being applied; if not, what are the implications for instructors? The use of the Internet as a source of information and data has practically exploded over the years. Anderson and Poole state that the Internet has evolved as the world’s greatest library “…the linking of computer networks across countries makes available an enormous information resource, the World Wide Web...”. Comprehensively, it can be argued that the Internet has some functions, especially in education, and these are:

• storehouse of information,
• communication without boundaries,
• online interactive learning,
• electronic/online research,
• innovation in the new world,
• improve interest in learning,
• global education,
• information catalogues.

Literature in English students are very eager to use the internet - and only the internet - in conduction of their academic research. Whenever they are given an academic assignment, they are overly inclined on “surfing the net” or using “Google” to locate primary or secondary sources or to simply find materials relevant to a particular topic; and majority of them are overly trusting of the information published on the Internet and are not overly skeptical of the authors that produce the information. The implications for instructors are that students are often misinformed or mislead. Lee postulates that “critical literacy is our main concern. Anybody can put anything on the Internet. We need to empower our children to question the information they receive.” Regrettably these students have difficulties in prudently evaluating information found of the internet. A greater number of them tend to place greater emphasis on the process of finding an answer than on analyzing the actual information that they obtain from the internet. They tend to believe that every piece of information they get from the internet is academically correct. This, in turn, prevents them from making reasonable analysis and interpretations of texts, and formulating unbiased and well-reasoned arguments. Schrock posits that information on the Internet, such as World Wide Web sites can be written by anyone as there is no quality control for information published on the Internet. As a matter of fact, ‘the Internet itself is a network of networks which have different origins and purposes...anyone can be a ‘publisher’ on the Net.’

Though the Internet contains an enormous amount of information and allows students easy access to gain needed information, it is observed that it tends to hinder students ability to analyze information and think critically, as they tend to believe that what they obtain from the internet is always ‘correct’. Their ability and desire to be inquisitive, to retain information, and to think critically are significantly reduced. Thus, they frequently construct weakly supported or poorly reasoned arguments. Analyzing and synthesizing information are neglected. Anderson and Poole hint at a warning that students should be aware that “...the Web [also] contains an immense amount of trivia, much information is transient, and some is biased or inaccurate”. However, it has been conclusively noted that majority of these students are not prudent and judicious about where they locate information and are not always cautious and critical about the information that they may obtain from Google or whatever particular search engine that they may make use of.

Thus, it is argued that critical thinking skills have been profoundly compromised by the ‘internet’ era as learners are uncritical towards Internet information. In their rush to complete a given assignment, students are often unable to differentiate between fact, opinion, theory and rumour. They are also unable to draw inferences about the information that they gather. The challenge instructors in the unit now encounter is how to foster students to think critically by evaluating sources, looking at multiple sides of an issue and, lastly, determining the accuracy or possible bias of a document or posting on the Internet.

A great concern that the researcher alarmingly notes is that literature in English students habitually use sources that lack credibility and are potentially erroneous, such as wikipedia; in conducting their academic research. They often commit plagiarism and other violations of academic integrity because they lack research and critical thinking skills or they do not value their own thinking. For instance, there are instances where they plagiarize obscure articles because they do not expect to be caught or because they expect instantaneous success with little effort. They do not realize that when they plagiarize, they constrain themselves from learning to articulate, explore and defend their own ideas. This eventually has a grave consequence of subduing critical thinking. It has to be noted that a fundamental purpose of higher education is to guide students in becoming independent and original thinkers.

Critical Thinking Skills and Higher Education

Critical thinking is a tremendously important skill. Since their beginnings, institutions of higher education have sought to develop in their students critical thinking abilities that would be applicable in their lives as students and far beyond. Institutions large and small, private and public are committing to the development of responsible learners, capable of independent and cooperative knowledge construction, both inside and outside the classroom. Since the early years there has been a long-lasting upwelling in placing continual importance on critical thinking education. Fostering “students’ ability to think critically, to reason, and to use judgment in decision making” has become a key objective of a higher education. The ability to think critically enables students to successfully adjust to an ever-changing world.

What does the phrase ‘critical thinking’ mean? According to Moore & Parker, there has been an extensive research conducted about critical thinking skills in many scholarly fields, which has yielded diverse definitions of the term. It is important that light is shed on the term as critical thinking is an umbrella term used for a complex array of thinking skills [interpretation, analysis, evaluation, explanation, inference and self-regulation]. Duron et al define critical thinking as an ability to investigate information by posing critical questions, examining and assessing pertinent information, instigating theoretic notions, and effectively communicating with others. Similarly, critical thinking is defined as an art of aptly propagating evidence through observation, employing context skills to discover a problem from a presented context and thereby applying theoretical techniques and arguments in order to decisively form an argument. Furthermore, it can also be defined as the competency to utilize complex ideas, whereby a student provides evidence to justify a rational judgment. Corroborating the views of Duron et al, Cotton posits that the capability to participate in cautious and contemplative thought in the twentieth century is highly regarded in many ways: as a fundamental characteristic of an educated person, as a requirement for responsible citizenship in a democratic society and more recently as an employability skill for an increasingly wide range of jobs.

Though much has been written about critical thinking skills, it has been unfortunately observed that literature in English students at National University of Lesotho are still unable to utilize this skill to analyze an issue and support an opinion on that issue by providing interconnected reasoning. In an analysis of the relationship among various components in a literary text, literature in English students are regularly confronted with information that at times appears to be self-contradictory and will need to reconcile these differences in their interpretive academic writing. However, majority of these students are unable to apply critical thinking skills to reconcile these distinctions. How can these students be helped to develop these significant skills so that they can arrive at well-reasoned arguments or viewpoints in their academic writings?

Literature Reading and Critical Thinking Compatibility

This paper argues that literature reading and critical thinking dispositions are compatible. When students read literature in the classroom, they are constantly expected to make intelligent decisions. For example, students are required to make judgments about character’s motivation, an author’s intent, the tone of a story, the nature of a fictional conflict, or any values expressed through a story or poem. As students read a story they often must decide where the plot is going, what the significance of a symbol is, or what the importance of a character or event is to the story as a whole. These and numerous other important decisions have an impact on the basic concerns of a literature class: students’ comprehension and interpretation.

Literature reading is an effective means of teaching critical thinking. This is why Lazere argues that “literature…is the single academic discipline that can come closest to encompassing the full range of mental traits currently considered to comprise critical thinking”. Literary works are a reflection of life and a world reconstructed. By examining its plot, thematic scope, and the interactions of the characters with others and the setting, learners are exposed to manifold viewpoints and therefore required to think and rethink their own ideas and actions. A good literary work aims to help students learn to change and be better through challenging a text. If this experience can be applied to other fields of training, learners (literature in English students in this case) can steadily accomplish self-direction and nurture such affective disposition as broad-mindedness, self-confidence, far-sightedness and truth-seeking which are indispensable to develop critical thinking.

Understanding literature requires intelligent judgments and decisions based upon reasonable and reflective thought. To make such judgments learners must become familiar with how literature works. The more students learn about various writing techniques and forms, the better they become at comprehending, interpreting, and judging the quality of the writing. A fundamental challenge as literature in English instructors is to find ways to help students become better critical thinkers through literature instruction. Critical thinking skills are basic to the literature instruction. In order for these students in a literature class to make intelligent judgments and decisions concerning their reading, they need to elucidate, identify evidence, set aside assumptions, organize thoughts, and draw conclusions. To express themselves effectively through the spoken and written word, they must employ these same skills. For this reason, literature study and critical thinking are intimately linked. Students are expected to learn to understand and evaluate the thoughts of others as well as develop and express their own ideas.

Integrated Approach: Developing Critical Thinking Skills

Most academics agree that instruction in critical thinking is vital for learning because it helps students to improve their comprehension of the information they obtain form their diverse research sources and it also promotes problem solving and better decision-making in real-life applications. The awareness as to the need to cultivate critical thinking skills in literature in English students at National University of Lesotho is an issue of concern to many. As an alternative solution to the current situation in literature in English unit in terms of insufficient development of critical thinking skills in students, I argue that the use of stylistic and reader response approaches as a method of approach to literature in English can be effective in promoting critical thinking skills.

These modes of teaching and learning literature are based on the premise that different readers construct meaning to texts in different ways and thus are empowered to interrelate on a direct and personal level with the texts. Dhanapal (2010) points out that these modes help students become personally engaged in the investigation process and in this process they will think both creatively and critically. The stylistic approach is concerned with language teaching theory and practices as the focus is mainly on the process of language learning and the student. I have solely selected the stylistic analysis because it is an approach that focuses on the text itself, that is, it concentrates on words on the paper and leads on to make textual discoveries and reader-response approach because it argues that the reader is a proactive agent who imparts ‘real existence’ to the text being read and apprehends its meaning via interpretation. The researcher argues that the effective use of both stylistic and reader response approaches is prominently suitable for inculcating critical thinking skills in literature in English students at National University of Lesotho. The position of the researcher is that this integrated approach provides learning experiences that enable the development of critical thinking skills. Corroborating this, Shakila asserts that this approach [integrated approach] helps to enhance the classroom experience as it lays a significant foundation for interactive process.

With an integrated approach in play, the instructor’s role changes as s/he transforms from ‘lecturer’ to instructional guide. The instructor now guides and directs students in a step-by-step process and s/he also ensures that any complications students might encounter throughout the process are addressed and resolved. The instructor promotes and encourages students, guides and monitors progress, provides feedback, reinforces confidence, and preserves motivation. Students now take responsibility of their own learning. In the context of literature in English unit, both stylistic and reader response are significant methods to the teaching of literary texts as both are theories that exclusively merge as a result of their shared features. They are particularly flexible but ‘yet anchored in the sound theories of the established disciplines of linguistic and pragmatics’. It is here believed that the use of reader response would enlist a variety of interpretation

It can be concluded that reader-response approaches as we have seen would enlist a variety of interpretation but with stylistics in play, readers would follow some similar interpretive conventions. The process of reader-response and stylistic approaches to literature can be seen in the following flow chart. Reader-response criticism claims that literature should be treated as a performing art in which every reader re-creates his or her own, unique, text-related meaning.

Conclusion

In this paper it has been argued that developing critical thinking is one of the key objectives of institutions of higher education and to achieve this aim, using literature study to encourage students to think critically is a highly feasible approach. In order to inculcate critical thinking amongst literature students through the teaching of literature, lecturers must first recognize and put a degree of priority in developing their students’ critical thinking skills in designing their instructional approaches. Learners must be encouraged to ask themselves questions about literary texts that ignite their critical thinking, stimulating them to think more critically about the prescribed literary passage than just learning ‘what’ to think about it. They must also be encouraged to understand and discover that there is no one particular standpoint in any given issue and also how perceptions can also keep changing.

This study represents an attempt to evaluate the level of CCTS among Malaysian students and at the same time propose and integrated approach to the teaching of literary texts to inculcate and enhance the level of CCTS. The researcher believes strongly that the need to cultivate CCTS and improve the level of English proficiency among Malaysian students can be done by employing the integrated approach to literary texts.

It is strongly believed that employing an integrated approach to the teaching of literary texts would not only inculcate and enhance CCTS but in the long run have a positive impact on students’ overall academic achievement.

One remarkable approach in teaching literature intended to create a strong emphasis in critical thinking skills is Halpern’s Four-Part Model for explicit instruction. However, it has to be noted that putting emphasis on the accurate teaching approach alone is not enough in ensuring the development of students’ critical thinking skills; students’ classroom engagement and motivation are also key aspects of the learning process. It is here suggested that literature lecturers should not only focus on employing ‘favourable’ classroom pedagogy and teaching methods, but they should also be able to create a conducive learning environment that promotes active classroom discussions, encourages learners’ enthusiasm for learning and the ability to relate the texts to their real-life contexts. The researcher has also noted through this research that there is evidence of the lack of research in this area that attempts to describe the precise features, guiding principles or rubric literature that instructors could refer to in order to choose the types of literary texts that would prove to be suitable and beneficial to literature students to accordingly suit their level of competency and thereby cultivating and enhancing critical thinking skill.

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