It is a truism in contemporary understandings of semantics that there is no simple one-to-one correspondence between a word and its referent. As Wittgenstein has suggested, we can only know the meaning of a word by understanding the way it is used, and these uses are known often to be variable and highly context-dependent. / The issue of the variable meanings of terms is especially important when the term in question has assumed some centrality within a particular social domain, when its meanings are contested, and when the way the term is interpreted has a major bearing on subsequent social and institutional practices. In contemporary debates about the aims and purposes of higher education one such term is ‘critical thinking’. Whilst there is general unanimity in the higher education literature about the importance of ‘critical thinking’ as an educational ideal, there is surprisingly little agreement about what the term means exactly, as well as what exactly students should be taught in order to be appropriately critical in their field. / This thesis reports an empirical study which investigated conceptions of critical thinking as they are held by academics from a range of humanities disciplines: History, Philosophy, and Literary/Cultural Studies. The broad method used was a ‘textographic’ one, focusing both on how the concept of critical thinking was talked about by informants in interview, and also how it was constructed in a range of texts used by them in their teaching on undergraduate programs. / The study found a good deal of variation in the meaning of the term ‘critical’, not only between the three disciplines, but also within them. This variation was located in a number of areas: in the epistemic entities to which students needed to direct their thinking (e.g. textual vs. phenomenal entities), and in the various analytical modes they were required to adopt (e.g. evaluative vs. interpretative modes). The broad principle to be drawn from these findings is that the nature of one's thinking is indivisible from the object to which that thinking is directed. / The varieties of critical thinking found in the study provide some challenge to certain generic understandings of critical thinking, ones that have assumed increasing influence in higher education debates in recent years. The study concludes by suggesting that the teaching of critical thinking is likely to be more effective if handled within the context of students’ study in the disciplines, as opposed to a generic extra-disciplinary approach. It is also suggested that an important part of becoming a critical thinker in the academy is being able to recognise and to negotiate this variety of critical modes.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

<p>This examination intends to find out what thoughts children in around 12 years of age thinks about their own television consumption. To examine this, the questions in issue is: “What does the children watch on television?” “Why do they watch the programs they do?” “How do the children speak about their own consumption?” “What does the children learn from TV?” ”Are the children concious of the impressions they take from TV?” “Do they speak critical about TV?” ”Is there anything indicating on some kind of influence from the childrens television consumption?” .To answer these questions I have chose to hold qualitative interviews, to let the children’s own thoughts be the foundation of the examination. The theories in this examine are that the person who does the consumption from different forms of television takes the information personally out of her own reality. Meaning that the person watching is the judge of how she applies the information to herself. Still the theories also want to shed a light on some of themethods that is used in media to sell some sort of irrational messages to the public, such as commercialism or norms. The television is a tool of communication that is interacting with itspublic and thus for that the public will take some sorts of impressions from the different programs on TV. The results will show the importance of reflection and communication about what is going on under the different forms that media is distributed.</p>

The importance of critical thinking as an outcome for students graduating from undergraduate nursing programs is well-documented by both the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) and the National League for Nursing (NLN). Graduating nurses are expected to apply critical thinking in all practice situations to improve patient health outcomes. Reflective writing is one strategy used to increase understanding and ability to reason and analyze. The lack of empirical evidence regarding the effectiveness of reflective writing interventions on increasing critical thinking skills supports the need for examining reflective writing as a critical thinking strategy. The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of a reflective writing intervention, based on Paul’s model of critical thinking, for improving critical thinking skills and dispositions in baccalaureate nursing students during an eight-week clinical rotation. The design for this pilot study was an experimental, pretest-posttest design. The sample was a randomly assigned convenience sample of 70 baccalaureate nursing students in their fourth semester of nursing school at two state-supported universities. All participants were enrolled in an adult-health nursing course and were completing clinical learning experiences in acute care facilities. Both groups completed two critical thinking instruments, the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) and the California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory (CCTDI), and then the experimental group completed a reflective writing intervention consisting of six writing assignments. Both groups then completed the two tests again. Results showed a significant increase (p=0.03) on only the truthseeking subscale on the CCTDI for the experimental group when compared to the control group. Some other slight differences on subscale scores could be accounted for by the institution, age, ethnicity, and health care experience differences between the control and experimental groups. Strengths of this study included the innovative intervention and the convenient format of intervention administration, completion, and submission. Limitations of the study included institutional differences, the eight-week commitment, and the lack of control of some aspects of the study environment. Evaluation of the qualitative data, replication in a larger sample, inclusion of different levels of students, and alternative design of assignments are all areas for future research.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 144-152).

This examination intends to find out what thoughts children in around 12 years of age thinks about their own television consumption. To examine this, the questions in issue is: “What does the children watch on television?” “Why do they watch the programs they do?” “How do the children speak about their own consumption?” “What does the children learn from TV?” ”Are the children concious of the impressions they take from TV?” “Do they speak critical about TV?” ”Is there anything indicating on some kind of influence from the childrens television consumption?” .To answer these questions I have chose to hold qualitative interviews, to let the children’s own thoughts be the foundation of the examination. The theories in this examine are that the person who does the consumption from different forms of television takes the information personally out of her own reality. Meaning that the person watching is the judge of how she applies the information to herself. Still the theories also want to shed a light on some of themethods that is used in media to sell some sort of irrational messages to the public, such as commercialism or norms. The television is a tool of communication that is interacting with itspublic and thus for that the public will take some sorts of impressions from the different programs on TV. The results will show the importance of reflection and communication about what is going on under the different forms that media is distributed.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of teachers' behaviors and characteristics upon the development of student mathematical critical thinking skills. From a pool of 20 teachers, whose students had been pre- and post-tested for a measure of critical thinking skills, 10 middle level teachers were selected to complete extensive questionnaires on their backgrounds and experiences, submit videotaped records of classroom activity, and to maintain detailed data on their classroom actions. The teachers were ranked in accordance with their respective classes' mean gain scores on the assessment tool. From the pool of 20 teachers, the top-ranked 25% (five teachers) and the bottom-ranked 25% (five teachers) were selected for the study. Extremes of the ranking order were used to increase the probability of determining potential differences in teacher behaviors and characteristics between the two groups. The two extremes were thus placed in two groups to identify those variables which contributed to differences between the groups. Identified variables from pairwise comparisons of the teachers within each group were analyzed, following corroboration from a minimum of three data sources, to generate groups profiles. A 5 x 5 matrix was constructed for each potential group variable. Comparisons were conducted between all pairs of teachers within each group, and the differences between the two groups were compiled in the form of group profiles. The five top-ranked teachers, based upon student performances, were distinguished from the lowest-ranked five teachers by greater use of small group instruction, math manipulatives, and warmup activities; as well as by provision for teaching higher-order thinking skills, frequency of transitions between classroom activities, and the use of activities which required the application of concepts. The lowest-ranked teachers were characterized by the greater frequency of teacher-directed instruction, a higher amount of computer usage, assignment of individual student work, highly structured classes, and extensive reliance on textbooks as the primary source of instructional materials. / Graduation date: 1993

The study aimed to discuss the impact of project-based learning on primary fifth graders with regards to inclination of self-regulation learning readiness and critical thinking disposition. The study adopted the Solomon four-group design with study objects taken from fifth graders from specific primary school in Kaohsiung. A total of 4 classes were randomly sampled with 2 classes being the experimental groups and 2 classes being the control group. The experimental group was applied with the six steps from WebQuest(Dodge & March,1995) as Scaffolding project-based learning in ¡§Taiwanese traditional Arts and Culture,¡¨ where the control group is excluded. After conducting 24 classes of experimental teaching for 6 weeks with 4 classes per week, t-test and two-way ANOVA were applied to understand the enhancement effect of self-regulation learning readiness and critical thinking disposition on fifth graders accepting project-based learning. The study further comprehend the impact of implementation of project-based learning for the self-regulation learning readiness and critical thinking disposition of primary school fifth graders with low, intermediate and high academic achievement. The research results are listed as follow: I. Under ¡§Unprecedented conditions,¡¨ the project-based learning program facilitates self-regulation learning readiness of primary fifth graders. II. The implementation of project-based learning can improve self-regulation learning readiness of primary school fifth graders with intermediate and high academic achievement. Students with high academic achievement show higher statistical significance than students with intermediate and low academic achievement with regards to improvement on self-regulation learning readiness. Students with intermediate achievement with regards to progress in self-regulation learning readiness do not show significance higher than students with low academic achievement. III. Project-based learning facilitates improvement on the critical thinking disposition of primary fifth graders. IV. Project-based learning can improve the critical thinking disposition of primary fifth graders with high academic achievement. The students with high academic achievement show higher significance than students with intermediate and low academic achievement with regards to enhancement of critical thinking disposition. Students with intermediate academic achievement do not show significance higher than students with low academic achievement with regards to progress in critical thinking disposition. The following recommendations are proposed according to the study results for curriculum teaching and future study: I. Implement the advantages of WebQuest to design project-based learning and to increase the number of classes. II. Students with different level of capacity will undergo different layers of project-based learning, which will be implemented to teaching with theory of cooperative learning. III. Researches undergo long-term follow-up or gradual removal of the scaffolding may be used to increase qualitative data collection and analysis.

Abstract This study was mainly to explore the different teaching strategies to the effect of Environmental Education. The subjects were three sixth-grade classes of an elementary school in Kaohsiung. The experimental group was implemented Critical e-STSE teaching (Critical Thinking and Web Quest Information Tool were integrated into e-STSE teaching), the control group one was implemented Critical Thinking integrated in lecture teaching, and the control group two was implemented e-STSE teaching (Web Quest Information Tool was integrated in e-STSE teaching), conducting Environmental Education based on the Issues of Petrochemical Industrial Park. The teaching effects were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. On the aspect of quantity, the pretest and posttest of Environmental Education Sub-target Questionnaire of students¡¦ grades were evaluated and analyzed by ANCOVA for the learning differences of three groups. On the aspect of quality, the students¡¦ discussions of K12 issues, learning sheets and tasks of Web Quest were analyzed. In addition, the kids¡¦ feedback forms, interviews and teachers¡¦ journals were analyzed. The results based on the analysis were as below: 1. Three different groups all had significant results on the students¡¦ Environmental Education Performances. 2. Web Quest teaching design promoted the two groups-Critical e-STSE teaching and e-STSE teaching-on the learning results of the Educational Awareness and Sensitivity, and the Educational Action Skills, better than Critical Lecturing Teaching group. 3. Critical Thinking teaching activities promoted the two groups-the Critical e-STSE teaching and Critical lecture teaching- on the learning results of the Educational Ethical values, better than the e-STSE teaching group. 4. Critical Thinking and Web Quest Informational Tool integrated in e-STSE Environmental Educational Program promoted students¡¦ learning interests and abilities to the Science and Environmental Education. 5. Web Quest teaching design combined with K12 network classroom enhanced students¡¦ autonomous learning abilities and motivations. 6. The Curriculum design of games and group cooperation enhanced students¡¦ learning outcomes. 7. Field study and Observation were suited to apply to the Critical Thinking and Web Quest Informational Tool integrated to e-STSE Environmental Educational Program. Finally, based on the results, the researcher make recommendations on the future teaching design and implement, and the further relevant study direction. Keywords¡GCritical Thinking¡BWeb Quest¡BSTSE¡BInformation Education¡BEnvironmental Education

The purpose of the research aims to integrate Big6 skills into critical thinking instruction for elementary school sixth grade social studies, cultivate the students the basic capability of information literacy, lead the students an usage the Big6 skills step to integrate the critical thinking meaning of the Ennis as the teaching mode, promote the student to learn the theme learning research in the social studies. The main teaching mode includes four stages: (1)the valuation stage;(2)the investigation stage;(3)the development new look stage;(4)the integration stage. The researcher of this research teach in grade six of primary school, with class student for research object, the data collection pays emphasis to qualitative and quantification analysis , the quantification analysis with Chiu-Ching Chen method which draws up of the critical thinking capability test, researcher learns the theme questionnaire, basic information literacy questionnaire, the qualitative data collection includes the social work sheets, topic research achievement report, student learning portfolio, carrying the teaching diaries, the classroom observation record, consulting with students, parent feedback opinion and teacher¡¦s own inspection and feeling. The results of the data collection and the analysis are as follows: 1. Big6 skills integrate the social studies critical thinking teaching to carry on a two-stage theme learning action research through giving something back to,examining oneself and revising the teaching process, can be used as the basis of the teaching project implementation. 2. Big6 skills integrate the social studies critical thinking teaching project, which is not able to promote the student's critical thinking cognition and skills immediately and effectively, for critical thinking disposition is obviously helpful. 3. The students who have experienced the Big6 skills integrated the social studies critical thinking teaching, emerge from self-directed learning to active learning capability. 4. Parent and teachers and students study the theme and life of the social studies as well as the relevant linking of the teaching project, apply the information science and technology and the group cooperate learning, all embrace encouraging and forward-direction of the viewpoint, affirm the student's performance. Researcher's comprehensive implementation comes to a conclusion that the action research of integrating Big6 skills into critical thinking instruction for elementary school social studies, willing to have the following suggestions to the researcher in the future: The suggestions are: 1. Expanding the Big6 skills implementation information integrates each subject teaching. 2. The social studies teacher should value the critical thinking teaching, carry on a related research of topic. 3. Encouraging teachers and students to participate into the action research together, constructing networking learning mode. 4. Learning to use the qualitative analysis method flexibly. 5. Networking action teaching strategy. 6. Improveing techniques and ways in monthly examination, setting-up social studies item pull.