Critical Thinking-Related Challenges to Academic Writing: A Case of Indonesian Postgraduate Students at a UK University

Abstract

This research reported Indonesian students’ perspectives on challenges in writing a critical academic essay and factors causing those challenges in a university in the UK. It was a qualitative method in nature and used a semi-structured interviewing technique with open-ended questions as the main method for data collection. The results indicate four main problems the participants’ encountered in relation to critical thinking realization in their essay writing which include clarity of ideas presented, lack of critical analysis, lack of critical evaluation, and lack of precision. This research also finds three important factors causing those problems of critical thinking realization by the students in their essay writings namely lack critical awareness, lack of understanding of the critical thinking concept, and differences of academic requirements between Indonesian and British context. This research is expectedly useful as an input in the re-design of syllabi and in the improvement of writing instruction that aims to promote especially international Indonesian students’ critical thinking in university-level education, in line with properly addressing students’ needs and developing CT pedagogy in the site.

The Process and Problems of EFL Learners in English Writing

“…Ratnawati, Yuliasri, & Hartono (2018) discovered that undergraduate students in West Java also encountered difficulties in their academic writing. Furthermore, Samanhudi & Linse (2019) found that Indonesian postgraduate students at a UK University faced problems related to critical thinking realization in their essay writing. Azizah & Budiman (2018) observed that postgraduate encountered difficulties in writing paper for international publication.…”

On Critical Thinking and Academic Writing in EFL/ESL Contexts: A Literature Review

“…2 studies are from Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia [3][4][5] [8], and the latter 4 articles are from Iran [11][12] [13]. 2 studies were conducted at well-known colleges in London, UK, but the participants are EFL learners from China, Turkey [1] and Indonesia [14]. Explanatory --Almost all of the previous studies use experimental research incorporating experimental group and control group.…”

“…The interviews took place at King's College London, UK with 2 Chinese and 1 Turkey student as the participants as well as interviewees. Another explanatory study that employs semi-structured interviews [14] observes the perspectives of Indonesian postgraduate students studying in a United Kingdom university and the difficulties of expressing their ideas and thoughts in their academic publications. in Iran do not necessarily involve experimental and control groups in testing their participants [13].…”

“…Of course, there needs to be a separate disclaimer that most successful implementations of CT in any academic writing productions are the work of training and exposure of certain teaching and learning approach, which not only promotes students' cognitive skills but also their familiarity and fluency in writing academically. Previous studies mention critical subject knowledge, manifesting authorial voice, and lastly the genres and requirements of the essay as the barriers that hinder students' writing performance Tahira et al [1] and Samanhudi and Linse [14] argue that since postgraduate students are most likely to be "forced" and "exposed" to Western discourses and thought process, EFL/ESL learners need to face technical problems in following Western-styled discourses they are not familiar with. The same issue is experienced by Indonesian students studying in UK that they had trouble differentiating the academic requirements in Indonesian and British context [14].…”

Critical Thinking among Indonesian Students Studying Public Health in Australia: Autoethnography of Challenges and Strategies to Adapt

“…Indonesian students who come to Australia for pursuing a degree need to deal with several challenges, as they need to adjust the way of learning from memorisation to critical thinking [8]. Most Indonesians students found it challenging to practice critical thinking in oral discussions and also writing assignments.…”