Multidimensionality of critical thinking: A holistic perspective from multidisciplinary educators in Karachi, Pakistan

Abstract

<p>Critical thinking (CT) is a phenomenon of worldwide importance and is a desired outcome in higher and professional education. Development of CT is considered a primary responsibility of educators; however, educators find it challenging to foster learners’ CT if their own understanding of CT skills and concepts is not well developed. Limited research is available on how multidisciplinary educators perceive and practice CT. The study aimed to identify perceptions and practices of CT among educators from the disciplines of nursing, medicine, and education in higher education in Karachi, Pakistan. A descriptive exploratory qualitative design was used where 12 purposefully selected educators from three disciplines participated. Semi structured interviews were conducted and content analysis was done. Although the findings revealed four major themes, the focus of this paper is limited to the theme of faculty perceptions. Faculty’s perceptions of nature, acquisition, and application of critical thinking are multidimensional and although the educators were from various disciplines their perceptions of critical thinking were analogous. Thus combined efforts by all multidisciplinary educators in a higher education are needed to assist them to actualize their perceptions to promote CT practices in a classroom setting.</p

Critical Thinking in a Higher Education Functional English Course

“…Two studies in Pakistan (Saeed et al, 2012;Cassum et al, 2013) have emphasised the importance of critical thinking in higher education. These studies both note the major US study (Facione, 1990(Facione, , 2000 but are well aware of the dominance of a teacher-centred culture in Pakistan where the teacher is seen as the r of the information and the learner has the role of memorising as much as possible.…”

“…Numerous studies have emphasised the importance of developing critical thinking at both school and university stages of education (McPeck, 1981;Siegel, 1980Siegel, , 1984Norris, 1985;Fisher and Scriven, 1997;Cassum et al, 2013;Al-Osaimi et al, 2015). In Pakistan, the Higher Education Commission (with responsibility for Higher Education) has reflected this in noting problems with courses and with assessment (HEC medium term development framework II, 2010II, -2015.…”

Developing a rubric to assess critical thinking in a multidisciplinary context in higher education

“…Additionally, the most frequently identified characteristics or criteria of learning related to CT highlighted in these rubrics are: communication, analysis, evaluation, synthesis and reflection. Evidently, critical thinking is a multidimensional construct and, accordingly, the assessment of CT is necessarily multidimensional (Cassum et al 2013). These common constructs and scoring patterns highlighted in the literature guided the development of the rubric discussed in this paper.…”

“…The debate on this longstanding controversy is important to understanding the nature and patterns of thinking; however, it is not mandatory to take one position against the other. There is plenty of support for infusion of the two approaches (Swartz & Perkins 1989;Swartz & Parks 1994;Reed & Kromrey 2001, Davies 2006Cassum, Profetto-McGrath, Gul, Ashraf & Syeda 2013). Since the study presented in this paper aims to develop a common CT assessment tool for diverse disciplines, the authors embrace the idea of educating students for 'multifaceted critical thinking' and the concept of CT that resonates with that of the proponents of 'infusion' (Davies 2006).…”

“…argumentation as a strategy to teach science education and problem-based learning), contributed to the process. Some of the team members have also published in the area of teaching and integrating CT (Cassum et al 2013;Bhutta & Anwar, forthcoming…”