Student perceptions of “critical thinking”: insights into clarifying an amorphous construct

Abstract

“Critical thinking” has been situated as an important skill or way of thinking in chemistry education. However, despite its perceived importance, there has not been an established consensus definition for chemistry and science education with many resources operating from working definitions. The many definitions obfuscate what “critical thinking” is and entails and thus makes it an amorphous construct within education. Previous work in chemistry education has explored how different groups define “critical thinking” and found that the groups had limited agreement. The work here seeks to expand the literature base on what we know about “critical thinking” by probing perceptions of the construct further. Using semi-structured interviews and constructivist grounded theory, I explored student perceptions of “critical thinking” in the context of organic chemistry courses. From the analysis, I generated four major themes. Students perceived that “critical thinking” (1) involved the application and use of knowledge, (2) was contrasted to passive approaches to learning, particularly rote memorization, (3) was learned from previous experiences prior to organic chemistry, and (4) was motivated by a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic forces. I assert that these overarching commonalities across student perceptions align with the previous literature and the scientific practices in three-dimensional learning, thus offering a potential way forward for clarifying the construct and being more explicit about what we want students to know and do.

“What About the Students Who Switched Course Type?”: An Investigation of Inconsistent Course Experience

“…For example, both traditional and transformed sections of OChem are taught in large lecture halls with 360 students with accompanying smaller recitations. However, the ways that two types of courses are enacted are different, resulting in our finding that different course cultures appear to result. , …”

“…There are several possible reasons for this. The expectations and course culture in the two different iterations of organic chemistry are manifestly different, ,, and different types of thinking and problem solving are valued and rewarded in each course. In OCLUE, students routinely (at least twice a week) complete formative tasks for homework on beSocratic, which require them to engage in mechanistic reasoning at the same time as drawing electron pushing mechanisms.…”

“…However, the ways that two types of courses are enacted are different, resulting in our finding that different course cultures appear to result. 33,34 In traditional sections, the class resources are a commercially published textbook 29 and recommended end-of-chapter homework problems, instruction is via lecture, and the course grade is comprised solely of student performance on several high-stakes tests and a final exam. While recommended homework problems are assigned, completion does not contribute to the course grade.…”

“…Assessments in the traditional sections typically include completing reactions, drawing mechanisms, devising syntheses, and identifying substances from spectroscopic data; that is, the kinds of organic chemistry assessments found in many courses. 34 While OCLUE students are also expected to complete such tasks, they are also asked to construct explanations and reason about phenomena; in other words, they are often asked to explain how and why something happens and to provide explicit reasoning in both formative and summative assessments. 30 Interestingly, it appears that students are aware of the differences in expectations between the two courses.…”

Pre-service chemistry teachers’ understanding of knowledge related to climate change

“…CGT facilitates exploring openended responses while minimising bias and assumptions and recognises the researchers' role in the research process (Charmaz, 2006). CGT has been used by researchers to explore students' perceptions of critical thinking (Bowen, 2022;Wan et al, 2023) and translational organic chemistry (Flaherty, 2020). Based on the CGT analytical process (Charmaz, 2006;Corbin and Strauss, 2015;Creswell and Poth, 2017), we conducted multiple stages of open coding, focused and axial coding, and theoretical coding to develop a narrative interpretation framework for pre-service chemistry teachers' climate change knowledge.…”