How do we find what we’re
looking for?
Critical thinking in the university
curriculum
Type relevant
English
Type relevant
Irish
UCD Fellows
in Teaching
and Academic
Development
language Unit Name
language Unit Name into
Tominto
O’Connor
this text box in Title Master.
Aoife Ahern this text box in Title Master.
Gerry MacRuairc
Martin McNamara
Fellowships in Teaching and Academic
Development
• Initiative under Strategic Innovation Fund
• Purpose: Conduct research which is of
strategic importance to the development
of teaching and learning in UCD
• 2009-2011 (7 fellows)
• http://www.ucd.ie/fellows/
Teaching for transitions:
Graduate Attributes
• Need for universities to clarify the nature of the
education they provide and clarifying the
contributions of their graduates to society
• Impetus to describe graduate attributes;
– Employers
– Policy makers
– Professional groups/organisations
– Local: UCD education strategy
• What are they?
– Qualities, skills and understanding gained as a
result of university education
– Generic and beyond purely disciplinary boundaries
– Prepares graduate not only for employment but as
agents for social good
• Tensions: ‘skills’ versus ‘attributes’, Generic versus
specific.
(Bowden et al 2000 Barrie 2006, 2007, Jones 2009)
Critical thinking
• Considered a (the) key graduate attribute
• Difficulty in definition:
– Cognitive skill
– Linked variously to logic, problem solving,
scepticism examining evidence, exploring
contradictions/complexities, development of
argument, open mindedness.
– 3 tiered model (Barnett 1997)
• Critical thinking (learning generally to problem solve)
• Critical thought (using this skill to interrogate a body
of knowledge)
• Critique (meta-criticism, can go beyond the discipline)
(Pithers & Soden 2000, Davies 2006, Jones 2007a,2007b, 2009)
Critical thinking
• Discipline specific or a generic attribute?
– Linked to epistemic culture (Jones 2007)
– ‘Generalists’ versus the ‘specifists’ (Davies 2006)
• Teaching and learning implications
– (How) Can it be taught or learned?
– Is it a subject in itself or incorporated within
disciplinary knowledge
– Curriculum design and delivery strategies
The Project
Aim:
 Explore the understandings and realisation of
critical thinking in the university curriculum
Objectives:
• Elicit and explore academics’ understanding of critical
thinking as a generic graduate attribute;
• Elicit and explore academics’ understandings of critical
thinking within the context of their discipline or subject
area;
• Examine how academics’ understandings of critical
thinking are realised in curriculum design.
The Project
• Multi-method qualitative study, approaching 10
schools.
– Semi structured interviews with 10 subject experts
to elicit their views on critical thinking
– Semi structured interviews with 20 module
coordinators as to how critical thinking is
incorporated into their module
– Documentary analysis of 20 module descriptors
looking for presence of critical thinking
– Documentary analysis of 3 pieces of student work
(from each module above, 60 in total)
Projected outcomes
• Provide a general insight of critical thinking as a
attribute of university education in UCD.
• Provide an insight into academics’ understanding of
critical thinking as a generic graduate attribute and
detailing the manner in which critical thinking is
positioned and developed within a disciplinary context.
• Provide an insight into the realisation of critical
thinking in the curriculum
• Recommendations with regard to:
(a) Module design and structure,
(b) Teaching and learning strategies,
(c) Assessment strategies.
Thank you
References
– Barrie S. (2006) Understanding what we mane by the generic
attributes if graduates. Higher Education 51 pp 215-241
– Barrie S. (2007) A conceptual framework for the teaching and
learning of generic graduate attributes. Studies in Higher
Education 32(4) pp 439-458.
– Barnett R. (1997) Higher Education: A critical business. Open
University Press, Buckingham.
– Davies W. M. (2006) An ‘infusion approach to critical thinking;
Moore on the critical thinking debate. Higher Education Research
and Development 25(2) pp 179-193.
– Jones A. ( 2007) Multiplicities or manna from heaven? Critical
thinking and the disciplinary context, Australian Journal of
Education Vol. 51, No. 1, 84–103.
– Jones A. (2007) Looking over our shoulders: Critical thinking and
ontological insecurity in higher education, London Review of
Education.
– Jones A. (2009) Generic attribute as espoused theory: the
importance of context. Higher Education 58 p175-191.
– Maton K. (2009) Cumulative and segmented learning: exploring
the role of
curriculum structures in knowledge-building in British Journal of
Sociology of Education 30(1) pp 43–57
– Pithers R.T & Soden R (2000) Critical thinking in education: a
review. Educational Research (42)3
– Pitman T. & Broomhall S. (2000) Australian universities, generic
skills and lifelong learning. International Journal of Lifelong
Education 28(4) pp 439-458.