Achieving depth in students’ learning through critical thinking and
pedagogical innovations: any relevance to entrepreneurship education?
Patrick Oseloka EZEPUE *
Business Intelligence and Quantitative Modelling Research Group
Cultural, Communications and Computing Research Institute
Faculty of Arts, Computing, Engineering and Sciences
Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom &
Department of Applied Statistics
Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria
Tel: +44(0) 114 225 3163
Email: p.ezepue@shu.ac.uk
Amechi A EZEPUE
Federal Polytechnic Idah
PMB 1037 Idah,
Kogi State, Nigeria
* Corresponding author:
Dr Patrick Ezepue, Business Intelligence and Quantitative Modelling Research Group
Cultural, Communications and Computing Research Institute
Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom Tel: +44(0) 114 225 3163
Email: p.ezepue@shu.ac.uk
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Abstract
This paper reviews the literature bases on critical thinking and its links to innovative
learning, teaching and assessment (LTA) practices. The rationale for the research is the
need to ensure that student learning is critical and develops their entrepreneurial skills
and employability within the teaching of specific modules of a programme. The key
questions addressed in the research include: What do we really mean by critical thinking
through a discipline? How do we achieve depth in critical thinking within the teaching
process? What are the links between critical thinking, learning theories and pedagogical
innovations in a discipline? What is the link between all these issues and the quest for
entrepreneurship-focused education in African higher educational institutions (HEIs)?
The paper conceptually and practically examines the implications of these ideas in
making the teaching and learning of Statistics and Engineering programmes in (African)
higher educational institutions more entrepreneurial and the graduates more employable.
Key words: Critical Thinking, Innovative LTA Practices, Entrepreneurship and
Employability
Conference Themes: Entrepreneurship education and development
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1. Introduction
We review in this paper some salient literature which connects the concepts of critical
thinking and pedagogic innovations. The paper explores four central questions posed in
the abstract, namely:
RQ1: What do we really mean by critical thinking through a discipline?
RQ2: How do we achieve depth in critical thinking within the teaching process?
RQ3: What are the links between critical thinking, learning theories and pedagogical
innovations in a discipline?
RQ4: What is the link between all these issues and the quest for entrepreneurshipfocused education in African higher educational institutions (HEIs)?
In a foundational paper on education and graduate entrepreneurship/employability
Ezepue & Ezepue 2008 note as follows:
‘We believe that to achieve a skills-based and theoretically sound training in [SE&T]
requires that we work to models of teaching, research, consulting, project origination
and enterprise that provide such affordances as self-awareness, self- efficacy [Bandura
1977, 1986], authentic learning experiences, creativity, critical thinking, the ability to
maintain deep expertise in a primary research domain (PRD), use the expertise in a
primary application domain (PAD) and continually gain general cultural literacy (GCL)
in different disciplines, especially those that are cognate to the PRD and PAD areas’.
This paper particularly shows how the highlighted objectives of an entrepreneurial
education could be realized through critical thinking. The theoretical contributions of the
paper are the conceptualization of the percepts and mechanics of creative and
entrepreneurial education in any discipline and its links to the literature bases on
creativity and educational learning theories. The practical contributions of the paper
consist in deep exemplifications of the theoretical ideas in specific disciplines – statistics
and engineering.
We note that critical pedagogy has been entrenched in UK and most developed
countries (Cottrell 2005) but not that much in African HEIs. This is therefore a necessary
contribution to the development needs of the continent, especially since critical pedagogy
underpins, as we show in this paper, the quest for development-focused entrepreneurial
education.
It is expected that academics in African HEIs will adapt the thinking in the paper to
their own learning, teaching and assessment situations. This is the ultimate way in which
the education of the African mind can hug the strategic development needs of the
continent - needs which are clearly stated in the United Nations Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) and emphasized in the theme of this conference.
The rest of the paper is as follows. Section 2 reviews some pertinent literature on
critical thinking and its relevance to the four central questions stated above. The section
also links up the review and the research questions in checklists which guide curriculum
deliberations around critical pedagogy in any discipline. Section 3 uses insights from the
checklist(s) to explore how critical pedagogy underpins entrepreneurial and
development-focused education.
Section 4concludes the paper with a summary of key findings and an ending note on
the two main conference themes which the paper addresses, namely entrepreneurship
education and development.
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2. Review of pertinent literature on critical thinking and their affect on
pedagogical innovations
We recall the model of critical thinking discussed in Nosich (2005), Paul & Elder (2001,
2002 and 2004); this model consists of two parts – the eight elements of reasoning and
the seven standards of critical thinking.
The elements are: [1] point of view [2] purpose [3] question at issue [4] assumptions
[5] implications and consequences [6] information [7] concepts and [8] conclusions and
interpretations. The standards are [1] clearness [2] accuracy [3] importance and relevance
[4] sufficiency [5] depth [6] breadth and [7] precision.
It is clear that this set of fifteen dimensions of critical reasoning define the quality of
learner-researcher-teacher engagement with subject matter under various learning
situations and environments. It is also clear that thinking about and doing entrepreneurial
activities tasks requires a combination of these dimensions. For instance, one cannot hope
to succeed in an entrepreneurial activity if one does not consider the purpose,
implications and consequences, importance, and scope (breadth and depth) of the tasks
involved in the activity.
The above dimensions of critical reasoning are considered for different alternatives to
a problem and within specific contexts in which the problem occurs. As explored in the
above texts and illustrated in Ezepue & Chigbu (2006, pp. 3-9 ff), critical thinking
through a discipline requires students to use the central logic of a discipline and the
above elements and standards to fully understand and deal with problems amenable to the
logic. Hence, student-learners could be taught to think statistically, mathematically,
historically, biologically, philosophically, sociologically, economically and so on, by
flexing this basic model in relation to disciplinary traditions obtaining in each field of
learning. This also applies to other life-worlds of the learner e.g. their professional life as
explored in Paul & Elder (2002).
To flesh out the general nature of intelligent questioning that the elements invite
learners to engage in, we refer to Paul & Elder (2001, p. 152) for the following generic
questions (applied to teaching and learning statistics, mathematics and related fields in
Ezepue & Chigbu 2006):
 What is the main goal of studying this subject?
 What are people in the study trying to accomplish?
 What kinds of questions do they pose? What kinds of problems do they attempt to
solve?
 What sort of information or data do they gather?
 What are the fundamental concepts, theories and organizing principles crucial to a
mastery of this field?
 How should studying this field affect my view of the world?
 How do we ‘create’ knowledge artifacts (products and services) in this field and how
are these artifacts used in daily life?
 Using the seven standards of critical reasoning as a guide, how do I evaluate my
understanding of these elements and hence the overall quality of my engaging with
reality (reading, writing and problem solving within and between connected
disciplines)? For instance, how clear, accurate, important and relevant are my goals?
How relevant are my assumptions? How deeply have I understood a topic, point of
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view and questions at issue considered by an author? How deeply and broadly can I
apply the understanding?
 As a literally functional dimension of depth in critical thinking (further explored
below) what is the full range of know-how that I can realize by running the problem
or learning situation through a thinking mesh consisting of a 8 by 7 matrix
accommodating the elements and standards of critical thinking on the rows and
columns, respectively, if that helps?
Using such a thinking mesh means interrogating all combinations of elements and
standards that are meaningful within the context of the problem and for each alternative
solution to the problem. It is clear that this provides the mechanism for gaining depth in
critical thinking, but this mechanism needs to operate in concert with insights from the
theories of knowledge (epistemology) and learning. We review these foundations below
to enable us unearth and understand other dimensions of depth in critical thinking.
The above questions can be adapted to different class situations, texts, problems, and
aspects of a learner’s life-world worthy of critical reflection. There are several examples
of central logics developed in Nosich (2005), Paul & Elder (2001, 2002 and 2004) for
different subjects, to enable learners to understand the gist of this overarching framework
for thinking through a discipline. Examples are the logics of and intelligible course plans
for biochemistry, American history, business, psychology, philosophy, sociology (Paul &
Elder 2001, pp. 153-169) and the logic of statistical science (Ezepue & Chigbu 2006, pp.
5-6).
Following Nosich (2005, p. 89) we can define critical thinking in a discipline as
‘reasonable, reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do in the
discipline and in the relationship between the discipline and the world at large’. This
pragmatic view of critical thinking opens many worlds for the critical learner; it touches
on other thinking frameworks and the characterizations of creative and critical learning
explored in this paper. It points to the basic questions that any thinking framework should
enable a learner-problem solver to ask; hence, it simply offers a protocol for enhancing
creativity by thoughtful engagement of reality.
Theoretical and epistemological foundations of critical thinking
To further explore the concept of depth in critical thinking we need some more views of
critical thinking. Moon (2006) offers the following views which suit this purpose:
A checklist for critical, entrepreneurial and development-focused
pedagogy
1. Critical thinking encompasses a number of focused processes of thinking that are
evaluative and/or constructive in form.
2. Is a process of working with complex ideas and making effective provision of
evidence to justify a reasonable judgment, with the evidence and judgment grounded
in the context of the judgment (application or problem).
3. A fully developed capacity to think critically requires an understanding of knowledge
as socially constructed and contextually relative, not merely a series of facts.
4. Effective critical thinking should facilitate deeply creative rather than superficial
learning [and should use a complete framework such as the elements and standards of
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critical reasoning in order to stand a higher chance of being reflexive and contextual,
whilst taking into account constraints, alternatives and emotional factors] (emphasis
ours).
5. Strategies for developing critical thinking in disciplines and course programmes
include:
[a] teaching through philosophy (Lipman 1991);
[b] teaching through a discipline (Meyers 1986, Nosich 2005, Paul & Elder 2002);
[c] teaching free of [and across] disciplines (Brookfield 1987) and many others.
6. Critical/creative teaching and learning should draw learners away from their ‘comfort
zones of knowing’ and towards contextual knowing (Vygotsy 1978) and should
facilitate active roles of discussing, dialoguing and problem solving (i.e. excite all of
Gardner’s multiple intelligences).
7. For this to happen, teachers should:
[a] model critical thinking themselves and provide examples of critical thinking in
specific disciplines under study;
[b] use formative and summative assignments to encourage students to think
critically; [c] be aware of different worlds in the same classroom (Perry 1970);
[d] avoid spoon feeding students;
[e] pose questions and allow students to critically think them through;
[f] encourage critical thinking through effective (report) writing.
On a generic framework for critical thinking and some answers to the four
research questions central to this paper
We point out that the core component of the generic model for critical thinking is the
eight elements-seven standards model, since this framework can be stretched to
accommodate other thinking frameworks, including the above meanings and pedagogic
implications of critical thinking. We therefore refer to the original Paul & Elder
framework and the model in this section interchangeably as the generic framework for
critical thinking. This framework enables us to provisionally explore the three central
questions of this paper as follows.
RQ1: What do we really mean by critical learning in particular
disciplines?
For this question, in addition to perspectives gained from the above notes, a creative and
critical learner should be able to use the learning acquired through a discipline to portray
characteristics 1 to 4 above.
RQ 2: How do we achieve depth in critical thinking within the teaching
process?
A creative and critical learner-teacher-professional should:
[a] rigorously employ the thinking mesh resulting from the matrix of elements and
standards in order to achieve functional (literal) depth in critical thinking; and
[b] be guided by the teaching protocols in 5 to 7 above, in order to achieve
philosophical/epistemological depth in critical thinking.
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In other words, deeply critical and creative learners learn how to learn within and across
disciplines and understand concepts in philosophy and epistemology that connects their
learning to their different life-worlds.
RQ3: What are the links between critical thinking, learning theories and
pedagogical innovations in a discipline?
This question requires a polite dip into the core concepts associated with learning
theories. The following ideas are adequate for this purpose. Cox & Light 2005, pp. 46-65
provides vital clues through the following schema of learning gaps. Our argument is that
critical pedagogy must be designed to overcome the five key learning gaps that could
exist in an LTA programme. Basically these are gaps between [1] Recall and
Understanding [2] Understanding and Ability [3] Ability and Wanting To [4] Wanting To
and Actually Doing [5] Actually Doing and Ongoing Change.
An underpinning language for making sense of these gaps is that of the ‘reflective
professional’ sketched in the first three chapters of Light & Cox (2005. We thus examine
how a combination of the checklists developed in this paper would help the reflective
professional overcome the gaps in their teaching and learning practices. Inevitably, we
will reiterate the foundational language along the way and in a closing commentary to
this section of the paper. The commentary will forge a close link between our
understanding of the affordances which flow to the reflective professional from the
checklists and the language of the reflective professional explored in Light & Cox (2005).
Light & Cox (2005, Chapters 1-4) characterize creative/critical learning as an
‘academic/learning weave’ that: is concerned with issues of meta-learning (learning to
learn) and transferable learning (need for learners to develop transferable skills);
learning that has ‘adaptive and transformational potency’ (enables the learner to cope
with an increasingly changing world; is ‘constructive’ and ‘dialogic’, requiring
personally constructed and ‘socially shared meanings and understandings’; effectively
links teaching and research in the production of useful knowledge (Lowsted & Stjernberg
2006); engages both students and academics in the quest for authentic knowledge;
addresses the life-worlds or ‘total world experience of human-beings’, thereby giving
due attention to both the ‘academic competence’ of learners’ and teachers’ disciplineworlds and practical ‘operational competence’ of their work-worlds; accommodates the
‘presage’ characteristics that learners bring to the bargain e.g. their individual abilities,
learning styles (Honey & Mumford 1982), and biases towards different intelligences
(Gardner 1993, 1998).
In Chapter 4 of their text, Light and Cox provide two useful conceptual charts (not
displayed here) for teachers as reflective professionals to facilitate this mosaic of creative
learning; the first chart is the schema of ‘learning gaps’ (Cox 1992), the second presents
a ‘critical matrix of learning’. This section of our paper exploits these conceptual charts
in more detail.
Clearly the gaps identify a continuum of six crucial areas of learning – recall,
understanding, ability, wanting to (desirability), actually doing and ongoing change
(development and transformation) - which any successful learning intervention (most
importantly entrepreneurial education) must address, albeit unequally, depending on
which of the five gaps between the areas are more or less manifest in the learning
situation.
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Light & Cox (2005, Figure 4.1, p. 47) aptly depict these learning affordances as a
cascade of ellipses progressively embedded in each other from ‘recall’ up to ‘changing’, a
schematization that expresses the unfolding of being and knowing from the most basic to
the most desired state of being which signify the goals of a critical, creative and
entrepreneurial learning, teaching and assessment process. These goals provide practical
anchors to pedagogic innovations as engendered by creativity and critical thinking ideas.
The capacity to recall is essential as when learners need to marshal facts and ideas
learned in arguments and decision making. This capacity typifies the first stage of
knowing in Baxta Magolda’s shemes of knowing explored below. The first gap between
recall and understanding is very limiting for a learner since this means that learners
cannot even begin to use learned facts and ideas in specific contexts.
For example, in the statistical education students may be able to recall the five
phases of the IEVAI statistical modelling cycle, namely problem/model identification,
estimation of model parameters, validation of the fitted model on test data, application of
the model to real-life situations, and iteration of the model building process in light of
changes in the context of the problem over time. But they are no where able to apply
these phases to a real-life statistical problem if there is a gap between this recall and their
understanding of the stages. Equally in engineering education students may be able to
recall the laws of thermodynamics without being able to understand and use their
implications in the efficient design of man-machine systems.
Indeed, one can argue that for effective operational competence student-teacherprofessionals only need to recall that there are five stages and three laws of
thermodynamics, know where to locate the descriptions of the stages and laws and refer
to them when they are required in problem solving. It is therefore the understanding part
that matters for application. Gaps in recall and understanding are usually addressed in the
academic competence focus of critical and creative learning interventions.
What the checklists in this paper provide is a set of principles and practices that
effectively deal with this basic gap between recall and understanding. For instance,
embedding the elements and standards of reasoning into the learning intervention means
that learners develop an all-round understanding of the facts, contexts, alternative view
points, questions at issue, required information, concepts, consequences and implications
of a learning situation. Failure to do this may mean that the student learning is shallow or
surface and not deep, critical and contextual enough to foster mastery.
The next cascade of gaps which encompasses the first gap is the gap in understanding
and ability to actually put the understanding into practice. This is why internship
programmes are required in subjects like engineering, medicine, dentistry, law and other
so-called professional disciplines. But it must be pointed out that almost every discipline
is professional, since the learner must be put into authentic learning situations, which
preserve the messiness of real life problems they are expected to resolve using core
knowledge from the discipline.
Hence, just as we want dentists and medical doctors to be able to demonstrate
practical or operational competence when faced with real patients, we would also want an
expert in international relations to be competent in handling complex diplomatic and
strategic negotiating situations, a statistician to use data and information from a bank to
analyze bank financial management processes and suggest areas for improvement, to take
just a few examples.
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In answer to RQ3 above, these notes suggest that an efficient learning intervention must
use innovative curriculum delivery approaches e.g. real life problems, industry
placements and work experiences, simulations of real life contexts, authentic
case studies, relevant and well-explained case examples, personal experiences
of the learners and teachers, and appropriate formative and summative
assessments for learning, to overcome all the learning gaps indicated in this
paper (Ezepue & Chigbu 2006, Ezepue & Mwitondi 2006 and Ezepue & Udo
2006).
It is known in the psychology of education literature that authentic mastery of
learning outcomes by learner-researchers is mediated by enhancements in self-concept,
self-efficacy, self-esteem and autonomy which these approaches generate in learnerresearchers, as opposed to traditional ‘chalk and talk’ lecture (Nortcliffe 2006 in Smith
ed. 2006, O’Leary 2006 in Smith ed. 2006, Bandura 1977, 1986 quoted in O’Leary
2006).
Further explanatory notes on epistemological development
Drawing from the works of Baxter Magolda (1992, 1994 and 1996), Moon (2004)
chooses the following schemes for knowing as appropriate for higher education:
 absolute knowing – holds that knowledge is certain, absolute, factual and that
teachers are experts, a scheme in which knowing is entails accumulation of more facts
and a dualist position consisting of rights and wrongs (Perry 1970)
 transitional knowing – acknowledges a continuum in which there is partial certainty,
partial uncertainty as well as absolute knowledge
 independent knowing – in which learners recognize the uncertainty of knowledge
and are willing to assert their own opinions and belief
 contextual knowing – in which knowledge is seen as constructed and is evaluated on
the basis of the criticality of evidence which underpins the knowledge. In this scheme
teachers are best cast in the role of facilitators of knowledge, a relativist position
(Perry 1970).
Moon notes that few undergraduates reach consistent contextual thinking which should
characterize graduate programmes. Moon (2004) then makes the important point that
learners generally progress from absolute thinking to contextual thinking. This concept of
progression is fundamental to a characterization of philosophical/epistemological
(hereinafter shortened to philosophical) depth in critical thinking – a depth that is crucial
to entrepreneurship and development-focused education. We note that this
characterization is already in place in this paper; it is embodied in items 1 to 7 of the
above checklist of factors conducive to pedagogic innovations, and derives from Moon’s
definitions of critical thinking.
The progression in student learning owed to debt in critical thinking and mentioned
mentioned above should not merely be considered as staged from undergraduate to
graduate, but could happen all within the undergraduate programme and also within a
cognate family of modules. This view is supported by the centrality of the generic
framework for critical thinking in helping learners to work with all schemes of knowing,
as long as each scheme is related to the elements and standards of critical reasoning,
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especially the purpose, point of view, questions at issue, context and alternatives. For
instance, knowing the information to use is tantamount to having the facts of the case
absolute knowing; deciphering appropriate and relevant information from the facts echoes
transitional/independent knowing; and getting beyond the facts to deduce implications
and consequences within specific contexts and for alternative solutions portrays
contextual knowing.
This ability on the part of the learner-researcher-teacher-professional to flex the
schemes appropriately would seem to require the learners to be overtly exposed to the
generic critical thinking framework in the first place. It is in this way that progression of
learners’ thinking and knowing up to philosophical, as opposed to literal, depths could be
achieved.
It is also essential to expose the learners overtly to the schemes of knowing
themselves and guide them in reflexive discussions and feedback to help them reflect on
which state(s) of knowing they consider their work to portray. There is a need for
flexibilities in curriculum design aimed at enhancing philosophical depths in critical
thinking.
Examples include introducing a generic critical thinking module at the inception of a
programme of studies and developing the themes either in further levels of the module or
reinforcing the themes overtly in specific modules through personal development files,
learning logs, and profile assessments (assessments that first use formative comments on
a first draft to prepare students to perform better on a final copy of their work). These
design issues should be relevant to the subject matter and learning outcomes of the
modules. Additional to the schemes of knowing, Moon (2006) (see also Scott 2000) gives
examples of the kind of activities that critical thinking describes. These activities include:
 review of someone else’s arguments – as in research papers, dissertations, essays,
assignments – the key critical thinking activity being to analyze the ‘components and
process of the argument and the quality of the conclusion and process of reaching it’
 evaluation of an object – as of works of art, piece of writing (e.g. a text, academic
paper, student work), architectural and engineering constructions, media work and
study of literature – the key critical thinking activity being an ‘evaluation of the final
object
 development of an argument – as with the content, process of reasoning and
presentation of the argument
 critical thinking about self – which is basically reflective learning – and would to
result also from a rigorous application of the elements and standards of critical
reasoning to issues about self.
 habit of engagement with the world – listening to, co-operating and co-creating
knowledge, products and services with others, a habit comprehensively developed in
the notes on creativity and creative learning.
The importance of this map of critical thinking activities is that it helps us consider how
to teach and assess learners for critical, creative and entrepreneurial learning within
specific modules.
…
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A checklist for achieving philosophical depth in critical thinking for LTA
innovations
From the above notes on philosophical depth in critical thinking we can depict learning as
creative, philosophically deep and critical if:
1. student-learners and teachers understand the different schemes of knowing (i.e.
absolute, transitional, independent and contextual/constructivist knowing) and if the
teaching and learning process progresses learners towards contextual knowing with
appropriate use of the other levels
2. the curriculum design and delivery expose learners (with examples) to typical
activities which critical thinking describes e.g. review of someone else’s arguments,
development of own arguments, evaluation of objects, critical thinking about
themselves, and habit of engagement with the world, all of which require learners to
demonstrate depth in critical thinking
3. the (formative and summative) assessments for learning measure learners’
achievement of these goals as learning outcomes in the curriculum.
In conclusion, this section has expanded our toolkit for facilitating creative, critical and
innovative learning, teaching and assessment processes in order to improve student
learning experiences. More importantly, in order to design and assess such processes for
entrepreneurial and development-focused education.
General and module-specific critical thinking skills texts are available for this
purpose e.g. Cottrell (2005). Majority of the texts are based on the Nosich-Paul-Elder
generic framework for critical thinking, an observation that reinforces the centrality of
the framework in approaches to pedagogic innovations.
This paper formally explores, in this and preceding section(s), the concept of depth in
critical thinking as arising from a combination of theoretical perspectives and
pedagogical feature. These perspectives are summarized in the checklists for innovations
in teaching, learning and assessments.
3. Some notes on applying the checklists to creative and entrepreneurial
learning
RQ4: What is the link between all these issues and the quest for entrepreneurshipfocused education in African higher educational institutions (HEIs)?
I addition to answers to this question contained in the above notes, the notes presented
here explore RQ4 in the light of educational learning theories and the strategies for using
them in realizing LTA innovations. In designing creative learning situations (including
curricula, assessments and learning materials), there is a need to:
 devise individual, paired and group tasks and assessments which facilitate critical
collaboration;
 enable learners to become functionally and philosophically deep in their learning, by
using positive participatory interactions (in appropriate spaces and at the right times),
to enable the student-learners to have their own (critical) voices and positions and
express their autonomy;
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
enable learners to understand how to be critical in specific cultural and cross-cultural
domains, using skills of critical thinking within and across disciplines;
 enhance learner’s creativity through critical use of information and technology.
A look at the eight elements and seven standards of critical thinking through a
discipline shows that mastery of these elements and standards is fundamental to
achieving these objectives (Nosich 2005); see related ideas in Ezepue & Chigbu 2006 and
Ezepue & Mwitondi 2006. We make the point here that using learning materials that
facilitate experientially deep and transforming kinds of participatory learning is
especially effective when the learning situation involves problem posing and problem
solving (as in case studies, problem-based learning and related methods) (Ezepue &
Chigbu 2006, Ezepue & Udo (2006).
In an expansive treatment of creativity as un/conscious, Pope (2005, pp. 70-78)
provides us with the following clues to creative and critical learning:
 the fact that it springs from unconscious (both personal and collective) and conscious
processes;
 requires inspiration, imagination (imagineering);
 goes through five fundamental (but not necessarily consecutive) stages – problem
posing/scoping (initial sensing and structuring of the problem), preparation (a
multidimensional investigation of the problem), incubation (a suspension of
conscious thinking about the problem), illumination (‘the appearance of a happy
idea’ or solution) and verification (‘the conscious testing of the solution’; and
 involves ‘multiple drafting’ at sensory, emotional and cognitive levels, in a ‘stream of
consciousness’ encompassing different ranges of experience which have meanings for
and within a learner’s life-worlds (see Damasio 2000, pp. 317-35; Light & Cox 2005,
p. 27).
We therefore emphasize that appropriately combining critical thinking and decisionmaking frameworks such as [1] the eight elements and seven standards of critical
reasoning and [2] techniques of creative problem solving in a problem-based, casedriven and discovery-based learning environment, is a royal road to making these clues
effective in achieving critical and creative learning. For a learning programme to be
entrepreneurial it must develop these capacities in the learner-teacher-professional.
The power of this combination lies in its ability to coerce the multiple intelligences of
the learner and to facilitate the learner’s progression through the above five stages of
creative sense-making (as explored in the accelerated learning ideas of Rose & Nicholl
1997).
Furthermore, the learning environment and process should facilitate active and
experiential learning, ‘address’ the head and heart of the learner (i.e. be analytical and
emotional) and relate form and matter, by training the learner to understand theoretical
(formal) frameworks and their real-life (material) applications (Pope 2005).
It is clear from these conceptions of depth in critical thinking and the responses to the
research questions addressed above that facilitating critical, creative and entrepreneurial
learning requires students to embark on a journey of excellence, of becoming
transformed by formal teaching and personal learning to individuals capable of cocreating knowledge and generating novel ideas, products and states of being, in alignment
with intended learning outcomes, which they own and adapt to their personal life-worlds
(Light & Cox 2005, 15-44, 67-195).
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The student also has to engage in mature reflections about the learning, be able to
critically think things through a discipline, be in the habit of re-visiting, ‘re-membering’,
re-familiarising, adapting and translating understanding across problem situations and
domains of enquiry, Nosich (2005), Richard & Elder (2001) and Pope (2005). The cocreation of knowledge implies collaborative learning as intended in paired and group
work and related forms of assessment.
There is a sense in which module learning outcomes must be critically owned by the
learner-student such that the knowledge is sufficiently personalized and other-related as
to conform broadly to the central logic of the discipline and module assessment criteria,
and enable the learner to be free to re-invent the knowledge in situational contexts. This
is a view of knowledge as both individually and socially constructed, Light & Cox
(2005).
The challenge in education for entrepreneurship through creative and critical learning
is flexing the instructional strategies optimally to achieve a balance of features such as
learners’ capacities for independent (self-directed) learning, their voice, creativity and
conformity/non-conformity to formal learning outcomes and curriculum design, Light &
Cox (2005), Ezepue (2006a, 2006b), Ezepue & Chigbu (2006), Ezepue & Mwitondi
(2006). As explained in Pope (2005. pp. 132-133) a complex systems perspective on
creativity views creativity as a property or quality which emerges from or is associated
with the above checklists.
5. Conclusion
In this paper we have outlined the theoretical frameworks which underpin an attempt to
design a creative learning and thinking curriculum conducive to entrepreneurship
education in (African) HEIs. We have shown how to apply the framework to any
discipline using mainly statistics and engineering education as examples. The responses
to the research questions and the deep discussions of the import of the responses for
creative learning demonstrate the fact that the concept of functional and philosophical
depths in critical thinking are fundamental to any attempt to sculpt a pedagogic
architecture that will support creative and entrepreneurial learning.
We reiterate the fact that while creative critical learning strategies are increasingly the
norm in UK and other developed countries (Cottrell 2005, Moon 2004, 2006, Nortcliffe
2006), our experiences with the Nigerian higher educational system show that these
modern instructional practices are not yet, if at all they are, employed in most African
HEIs. This paper therefore aims to close this gap. Moreover, even when the said practices
are now common in the developed countries, we have seen that the literature is weak on a
direct application of critical thinking to most disciplines other than creative writing, the
arts and humanities in those countries. There are also epistemological concerns and
pedagogical restraints that need to be overcome in successfully embedding critical
thinking in LTA practices (Sweet & Swanson 2000). Hence, the paper bridges this gap in
the pedagogy, especially with respect to mathematical sciences and engineering
education, which are the core focus of the authors’ academic engagements.
Finally, we note that achieving strategic goals of mass education of would-be
entrepreneurs in Nigeria and Africa needs to involve the fundamental theoretical and
practical solutions offered in this paper.
13
Acknowledgments
The authors sincerely acknowledge the support for this search collaboration received
from their respective higher education institutions – Sheffield Hallam University, UK and
the Federal Polytechnic, Nigeria.
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