Article review
The topic of this article is “The relationship between creative and critical thinking styles
and academic achievement among post-secondary vocational students” which written by
Maizam Alias and Busmina Balkis bt Abd Hadi. The aim of this topic is to explain about thinking
style of the post-secondary vocational students. Through their evaluation they found that
thinking style was associated with academic achievement of the students. They stated that both
male and female students are more to their critical and creative thinking which it associated with
their achievement.
The purpose of the study is to study the relationship between creative and critical
thinking styles and academic achievement among post-secondary vocational students which
they do the observation and found that the students use thinking style to help them in their
academic achievement. It also to investigate the thinking style among the community college
whether they apply the creative and critical thinking when they attend the work-based learning
program or not. Understanding people thinking style is very important in social dealing. This is
where they had looked the thinking style in many perspective such as management perspective,
education perspective and business perspective among others. Each perspective have different
way in classify the thinking style which it give arise to many different labels that being assigned
to types of thinking styles. In the business and management thinking style was used to classify
people namely, synthesis, idealist, analyst, pragmatist and realist. While in the perspective of
brain function, thinking style has been classified in four types which are logical, interpersonal,
sequential and holistic thinking style. In the education perspective, it is important to know the
students thinking style which it will help teacher to find the suitable way on how to help student
to be successful in their future. They found that learning style and thinking style are related
among each other. Each students need to have both creative and critical thinking style. This is
because it is helpful for them in making decision. According to Torrance(1967) creative thinking
is generally consider which involve the creation or generation of ideas, processes, experiences
or objects, while critical thinking involve evaluation, argument, judgment, deducing conclusion
from the information and data given and in the interpreting whether conclusion is based on the
basis data given and in evaluating evidence or authority. Creative thinking style was believed to
be associated with the right brain dominance while critical thinking involves the thinking process
which was held in the left brain side. The left brain side was characterized in the processing of
information in a conceptual and analytic way while the right brain thinking style was
characterized in processing information in a direct and synthesis way. The individual thinking
style change based on emotional experiences, life transitions and based on other important
insight. There are many factors that contribute to the differences in creative-critical thinking
style. The difference in thinking style involved many variables which including age, gender,
academic ability, socioeconomic status and in the culture perspective. Lehman (1953) proposes
that the peak of someone creativity occurred at the age of thirty while Sternberg (1997) said that
children become more creative before going to school because in the school they have to follow
every single rule state by the school. The studies in the United State and Canada conclude that
Asian community is less creative compare to Western people. This is because they found that
secondary school students in Malaysia have lower creativity than those students in the United
State of America. This is because culture value is the most important factor that contributes to
this thinking style. From the socioeconomics perspective, the studies found that the students
come from high socioeconomic background are more creative compare to those students who
are from low socioeconomic background. This is because, those who are from the high
socioeconomic background have the opportunity to mingle with the students who have the same
socioeconomic and they were sent too much institution to continue their study. But those who
have the low socioeconomic background are trap with their financial and limit them from mingle
with other students and learn a new things. Their parent also has difficulty to send them to the
higher institution to continue their study. Hermann(1996) found that males thinking styles are
more to logical and analytical thinking which more to left brain side while female thinking style
are more to feelings and interpersonal based thinking which based on thinking by using right
brain side. Sternberg (1997) state that males thinking style are more to Legislative, Internal, and
liberal thinking styles while females thinking style are more to executive or judicial, external and
conservative thinking styles. Working environment also is the factor which affects the thinking
style of males and females. Kelleher and Young (1990), Marlina Ali et al (2006) and Sharifah
Suhaila(2007) found that the thinking styles have differences between creative and critical
thinking style in the technical disciplines. The lack of thinking styles which different in the
technical disciplines are caused by the nature of the discipline which it involve logical, fact
based, complex, mathematical thinking and which it need for exercising critical and creative
thinking without counting the gender of the person. From the problem statement, they found that
students who were given an assignment, encounter a problem to do the assignment where they
have to apply the creative and critical thinking to do the assignment. They have difficulty to
apply their thinking skill to analyze the problems, in generating ideas, and in arguing analytically
and much more. The methodology that been used is Creative-Critical Styles Test was
administered to the participant to determine the level and type of their thinking style. The score
for the test was used to classify the person by following the categories namely superior creative,
creative, balance, critical or superior critical thinking. They used two format for the item which is
multiple answers items and open ended items. Based on the result of the test, it was found that
most participant fall into the creative thinking style category and none of the participants fall
under the superior creative or superior critical thinking style category. The relationship between
thinking styles and gender shown that more male apply creative thinking style while female is
more too critical thinking style. When they observed the relationship between thinking styles and
academic achievement they found that the thinking styles will influence the academic
achievement of the participant. From the discussion, it was found that students who attend the
work-based learning programmes were exposed to problem solving which need them to apply
creative thinking style which needs them to apply the critical thinking styles which were found in
both gender groups. They conclude that there are two aspect which lead to the similarity where
female who have similar thinking style with males in dominated disciplines or the work
experience have the similarity in thinking style. In the academic achievement, they found that
students learning activity and experience are the factor which leads to the successful academic
achievement. To help them become successful in their academic they have to apply the creative
and critical skills to help them to analyze problems, give their opinion, analyze, prepare the
assessment and generate ideas to resolve the problems.
The article explained about thinking style in many perspective management, education
and business and brain function which is good to let the readers know why creative-critical
thinking is very important in people thinking style. When the researcher explains the creativecritical thinking in the perspective of education, we know that it is important for the students to
master their thinking styles which help them to achieve the successful in their academic. It is
also important for the students to be creative and critical thinker where they need to apply it to
solve their problems and when they were given an activity, they will be able to use the creativity
to finish the activity. It is not important from where the students come from, and the background
of the students towards the student’s academic achievement but the way of their thinking and
how they apply their creativity in thinking to help them overcome the problems. Individual
students need to have their own thinking style so that it will them to generate ideas and give
their ideas when they need to do a discussion and work in group. They can also change their
ideas with their friends and think critically when they have to solve a problems. Students need to
be creative and critical in solving the problems faced by them so that it won’t affect their
achievement. They also explain about the important of knowing about students thinking style
which help teacher to teach the students. By knowing the student level of thinking it will help
teacher to create an activity which suitable to the level of the students. When the teacher
teaches their students they know the aspect that need to be stress on in helping the students to
solve the problems. The activities that will be given to the students must help the students to
use their creativity in generating the good ideas and can help the students work together with
their friends. For example, before writing a lesson plan, teacher need to know the level of their
students and from there, they can plan the activity properly so that students will feel enjoy and
participate in the activity. They also explain about the part of brain involve in each thinking style.
For example, in creative thinking, people will use their right brain to analyze the information that
will be used to create or generate ideas, processing information and applying their experiences
in solving a problems faced by them. Critical thinking usually involved left brain which it will be
used for evaluation, argument, judgment, deducing conclusion from the information and data
given and in evaluating evidence. The researcher didn’t state the way on how teacher can
understand the students learning style. This is very important because by knowing the students
learning style it will help teacher to observe the students performance in the classroom.
Stenberg (1997) said that children are more creative before going to school because in schools
students must follow the directions and regimentation of the school. But for me, students will
become more creative when they enter the school where they will apply what they had learned
before which has been their experience and try to relate it to their activity and when they have to
confront the new things, they will be more critical in thinking. So, from their experience, they will
be able to solve the problems and can adapt to the new things. Not all students from high
socioeconomic background are more creative compare to those who have the low
socioeconomic status. This is because how they were exposed to the education itself will show
whether they are creative or not. We can’t judge people easily based on the people background.
This is because now days we can see that many people who came from low socioeconomic
background further their studies in a higher education level while many people from a high
socioeconomic background become a problematic person where they easily being distract with
western culture. If they are really in a high socioeconomic background and creative in thinking,
why they can’t differentiate between a good and a bad things.
In conclusion, thinking style is the most important element in the student’s academic
achievement. This is where the number of creative thinkers grows and grooms their ideas.
Creative thinker helps the students in their academic achievement where most students apply it
in their learning style. We should focus on the effort to improve thinking skills where we need to
analyze every single aspect of thinking from every angle so that it will help people especially
students be creative in their thinking style. Further study need to be done to make the thinking
style become more useful to the students education. We need to observe Malaysian students
thinking style so that we can analyze the student’s ability in the thinking and provide ways on
how to help students improve their thinking level and can apply their creative and critical
thinking in school and can help them in their academic achievement. Further study need to be
done so that we can know how to develop a good thinking style among students in Malaysia
and recognize what they need for their future.