An Exploratory Study On Undergraduate Students' Conceptions Of Critical Thinking ——From The Perspective Of Phenomenography

Critical thinking,as an educational concept,was first proposed by John Dewey,the famous American philosopher and psychologist,in 1910 as“Reflective thinking”.Since then,while the experts and theorists have agreed upon the significance of critical thinking as an education ideal and one of the“Key Compentences”of the 21^stcentury,they have been divided in terms of what is critical thinking and how to teach critical thinking.This not only reflects the rich connotation of critical thinking,but also represents the diversification of research perspectives in the area.In search of the answers to these unresolved questions,there has been a turn in the research approach of critical thinking from the intellectual analyses by experts to the emphasis of individual experience.This study,taking a bottom-up approach,is an exploratory practice against this background.A conception reflects the apprehended content of a reality by an individual.It contains both the characteristics of the reality and the individual's thinking.The current authoritative theories of critical thinking in nature represent the experts'conceptions of critical thinking.In Chapter 2,these expets'conceptions are discussed to reveal the significance of critical thinking as an educational concept and the disciplinary and cultural influences in shaping the conceptions.This discussion builds up the theoretical framework of this study.Besides,an analysis of the empirical studies of individual's conceptions of critical thinking helps to decide the research approach and methods of this study.Chapter 3 introduces the theory of Phenomenography,the methodological basis of this study,which takes a second-order perspective to explore the undergraduates'conceptions of critical thinking and establishs the outcome space,revealing the characteristics,the qualitative differences and the logical conncections of these conceptions.The emphasis of subject experience and the educational value are the reasons why Phenomenography is chosen.Chapter 4 introduces the research design,methods and process.The research tools used in this study include written interview,English argumentative writing and face-to-face interview.The data obtained from these three tools form the“data source triangulation”to ensure the research validity.Double coding and“A reasonable degree of consensus”are also used to guarantee the research reliability.Based on Marton's conception analysis framework,this study uses text analysis and interview to investigate the conceptions of critical thinking of 34 undergraduates from S University in Shanghai.Chapter 5 introduces the research findings in the form of outcome space.The conceptions discovered include“Critical thinking as distinguishing the true from the false”,“Critical thinking as maximizing the benefits”,“Critical thinking as knowing the truth/improving one's own thinking”and“Critical thinking as understanding life”.These conceptions demonstrate qualitative differences between any two consecutive ones,forming a continuum of criticality with changes of content in themes and thematic fields.In Chapter 6,a conclusion is first made to summarize the“meaning aspect”and“structural aspect”of the undergraduates'conceptions of Critical thinking.A discussion is then conducted in terms of the resemblance of the conceptions discovered to the authoritative theories and the“native concepts”found in this study.Taking“Integrated teaching approach to English writing and critical thinking skills development”as an example,this chapter also explores the possibility of designing a course of teaching English argumentative writing and critical thinking by using the outcome space developed in this study.Limitations of this study and expectations of future research are discussed at the end of this dissertation.