The research problem
Discuss about the Critical Thinking for International Education Literature.
Critical thinking have had an exemplary influence on learning of students particular in this era when they are exposed before so many information databases. In the chosen article, the authors tend to reflect most essential viewpoints regarding how cultural biases differentiate the way in which students acquire knowledge and explore the various information databases. The viewpoints expressed by various critics of International literature indicated that perhaps the Asian students lack the critical perception of study compared to their Western counterparts. IN this context, all major and supportive findings that have been discussed in the concerned article have been highlighted in the course of this article analysis. Various hypothetical testing parameters of International Education literature have also been applied in the course of this study in order to understand the objective measures that the European and the Asian students have attained at the end of the tests.
The primary concern of this article is exploring whether the Asian students explore typical knowledge base and gain much more generalised knowledge compared to the western students or not. In fact Jerrim (2015), have opined that the curriculum of classroom discussion is very less practiced in the Asian classrooms. The mode of conveying educational knowledge from the end of the teachers is mainly through monologues. The students on the other hands are rarely expressive in classrooms and hence their spirit of critical thinking is not developed. This is the primary research problem in this article. In this context, the conception of critical thinking have also been explored and in what ways are the western students ahead in critical analysis and learning of the topics they study than the Asian students have also been questioned in this article.
In international education, critiquing and debating the principles or the theories described in the classroom is highly appreciated and invited from the professor’s ends. In fact the kind of classroom awareness and the quality of questions raised by the students’ during the tenure of discussion regarding a certain topic is analysed by the teachers to conclude what level of understanding has the student achieved in terms of the concerned topic. In the views of Prevoo et al. (2016), critical thinking on the part of the students is not despised by the teachers in the western countries. However the classroom structure and the lecture patterns that is practiced in the Asian classrooms do not provide much scope to the students for reflection of doubts or confusion, or expression of alternative perception. However, in the Western education system, cognitive skills of the students are high. They play the role of a critical thinker in the classrooms. In the words of Bleidorn et al. (2016), in the college level, critical thinking has a very significant place in education. The certain aspects of critical thinking that have been identified by Hallinger and Chen (2015), are the ability of the students to identify the assumptions behind the formulation behind any argument, making smart and relevant inferences from the interpretation of databases and also critiquing the merit of a conclusion that the author reaches at the end of the derivation. Another important hypothesis made by this article is that the lack of English language proficiency is directly related to the lack of critical thinking skills among the Asian students. In this context, the Cognitive Load Theory have been utilised in this concerned article. The Lack of proficiency in the Asian immigrant students in the western universalities compared to the native students is evident. According to the ideas of Shiraev and Levy (2016), the students have limited working space ion the memory. Processing language in any unfamiliar language overload their working memory and this becomes a hindrance in effectively processing the information. However Lin and Scherz (2014), opines in contrast that the same difficulty would be faced the students with English as their native language iof they are analyse other subjects in the medium of a foreign language.
Critical thinking and its importance
A unique research methodology was used in the course of this research. A survey was conducted in the New Zealand Based University where the role that dialectical thinking skills (thinking in native and foreign language) played in developing critical thinking skills was assessed. In this context the Halpern’s Critical thinking tool was used. In this research, students of Chinese, Japanese and New Zealand as well as European origin had participated. Students of both genders had participated equally. The average age of the participating students have been 21.95 years. The results of the test made it evident that the hypotheses that the researchers had assumed were certain and obvious. As predicted by Hamamura and Laird (2014), the European and the NZ based students had performed significantly better in the Halpern’s test. Tests were conducted on random topics that required high level of reflection to arrive at conclusion. The versatility and the variability of the outcomes from the ends of the two protocols of students, namely the Chinese and the NZ Europeans were analysed. The provided research data in the article in this context makes it evident that the students of European origin were far better. Various tests of English proficiency were also put in to practice with the objective measure of how this affects the creative thinking capacity of students. The Watson-Glaser tool was used to assess how weakness or lack of command over a certain language curbs the general intellect of a person when analysing any topic in that particular language (here English). In the test, 102 students of Asian origin, about 200 of the European New Zealand origins and about 54 were of the other origin namely Maoris, Samoans or of other mixed ethnicities (Lun, Fischer & Ward, 2010). Various analytical instruments that requires high language proficiency for the interpretive difficulties inhibiting in such practices were involved. They are writing inferences in English, recognising the assumptions by application of reading skills, interpretation and evaluation of academic arguments in English. The same outcomes were observed this time also. Other than some exceptions from the sample size from Asian origin, majority of the European students showed much better understanding of the topics and yet better expression and alignment to the required parameters was observed.
A test of dialectical self-concept was also implemented. This test showed how the performance of the students differed if they performed the previous tests in their native dialect rather than English (or a foreign language). In the case of the Asian sample, the results of the DSS test and the WGCTA showed positive links (Lun, Fischer & Ward, 2010). In this regard, the contribution of dialect and language in expression, interpretation and reflection of topics was accepted.
Testing the hypotheses
Graph 1: Graph depicting the interaction between DSS and culture on critical thinking
(Source: San Miguel & Rogan, 2015)
Conclusion
The major outcomes suggest that the universities of Asia show a much lesser emphasis on the critical output of the students than the universities in New Zealand. The academic conventions that helps in the development of critical thinking skills like writing literature reviews, essays, or research proposals are very commonplace approaches used in the New Zealand based universities. Whereas, pertaining to this academic design, the Asian students have often reported their difficulties in fulfilling the requirements of these assignments. The first major hindrance is their lack of interpretative strength that is why they are not able to commendable make an analysis of the various information available from the databases. Secondly their presentation of the key findings and research analyses are weaker due to their dialectical limitations.
This research however leaves scope for various interpretive approaches to be exercised on the same topics. This article do not hint out how the students of Asian origin might profess their academic strengths in the foreign universities. Other than that what predominant practices have to be adapted in the Asian universities so that their students might compete in the global platforms easily, also requires further discussion and analysis.
Reference List
Bleidorn, W., Arslan, R. C., Denissen, J. J., Rentfrow, P. J., Gebauer, J. E., Potter, J., & Gosling, S. D. (2016). Age and gender differences in self-esteem—A cross-cultural window. Journal of personality and social psychology, 111(3), 396.
Hallinger, P., & Chen, J. (2015). Review of research on educational leadership and management in Asia: A comparative analysis of research topics and methods, 1995–2012. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 43(1), 5-27.
Hamamura, T., & Laird, P. G. (2014). The effect of perfectionism and acculturative stress on levels of depression experienced by East Asian international students. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 42(4), 205-217.
Jerrim, J. (2015). Why do East Asian children perform so well in PISA? An investigation of Western-born children of East Asian descent. Oxford Review of Education, 41(3), 310-333.
Lin, S. Y., & Scherz, S. D. (2014). Challenges facing Asian international graduate students in the US: Pedagogical considerations in higher education. Journal of International Students, 4(1), 16-33.
Lun, V.M., Fischer, R. & Ward, C. (2010). Exploring cultural differences in critical thinking: Is it about my thinking style or the language I speak? Journal of a School of Psychology and Centre for Applied Cross-Cultural Research, Victoria University of Wellington. 20(6), 604-616.
Prevoo, M. J., Malda, M., Mesman, J., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2016). Within-and cross-language relations between oral language proficiency and school outcomes in bilingual children with an immigrant background: A meta-analytical study. Review of Educational Research, 86(1), 237-276.
San Miguel, C., & Rogan, F. (2015). Assessing students’ English language proficiency during clinical placement: A qualitative evaluation of a language framework. Nurse education today, 35(6), 771-776.
Shiraev, E. B., & Levy, D. A. (2016). Cross-cultural psychology: Critical thinking and contemporary applications. Routledge.
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