Critical Thinking, Reflective Practice, and Adaptive Expertise in Engineering

Abstract

This synthesis paper examines the concepts of critical thinking, reflective practice, and adaptive expertise as represented throughout academic literature. The academic community generally considers each of these skillsets to be desirable attributes of engineering graduates and practitioners. Despite the trend of engineering programs across the country to embrace critical thinking, reflective practices, and adaptive expertise through mission and vision statements, the development of these qualities through education may be falling short. Lack of explicit exposure to and discussion of each concept may be contributing to the common inability of engineering students and educators to effectively communicate their understanding of each. In an attempt to contribute to the improvement of the situation, this paper aims to provide an individual evaluation of each topic as represented in the literature, a review of current operationalization techniques, and the current state of each topic within the field of engineering. Additional discussion builds connections by exploring relationships among the three topics, considers issues related to the topics within engineering, and offers possible areas of future exploration.

The Third Wave of Self-Regulated Learning’s Measurement and Intervention Tools: Designing ‘Diaria’ as a New Generation of Learning Diary

“…Turns et al [40] define reflection as a process where students review certain experiences and evaluate them from various perspectives with the aim of giving meaning to that experience, which will later be used to direct future actions. Hicks et al [41] proposed the following two reflection activities: first, reflection on experiences such as games, simulations, service learning, or internships; and second, retrospective reflection, which strives to relate previously learned information or experiences to current circumstances and activities, such as mapping or self-evaluation [42]. Turns et al [40] proposed various elements of reflection, such as experience, lens, meaning, action, intention, and dialectic.…”

Nudging Lifelong Learning and Reflective Thinking in Engineering Students Utilizing LinkedIn Learning

“…Although it is not mainstream, reflective practice is not new in engineering education. Many have drawn on Schon's [8] work on the "reflective practitioner" and how "reflection-in-action" and "reflection-on-action" can influence professional education [9,10,11,12,13]. Other researchers have emphasized the value of reflective thinking and underlined that students do not automatically learn from experience [14].…”

Adaptive expertise: The optimal outcome of emergency medicine training

“…What actions are necessary when their guidewire kinks during the insertion of a central venous catheter? Once unusual circumstances are recognized, the provider must engage in active critical thinking to call upon their foundational knowledge and flexibly adapt previous mental models to the novel situation 4 2,3 …”