Critical thinking in STEM(M)

Presenter: Jane Sjoberg, University of Birmingham (UK)

Abstract

Critical thinking and the ability to demonstrate critical analysis are higher order learning skills that all students are expected to demonstrate in order to achieve good grades.

Academic literature and academic English support texts are available on this topic (e.g. Hadley and Boon, 2023). However, though some research exists into what critical thinking is in different fields, (e.g. Allison, 2019), research or handbooks that do purport to be discipline specific often focus on limited examples (e.g. Sternberg, 2019). In addition, those that are discipline specific seem (to me) to remain very much embedded within a social science ‘problem-solving’ view of what critical thinking involves (e.g. Hager et al, 2003).

Few materials (to my knowledge) that are designed to promote critical thinking in EAP activities address what demonstrating critical analysis means more specifically for STEM(M) subjects and the language that students need to deploy to signal criticality in their writing.

In this session, I will share some observations based on informal meetings with academic staff in different disciplines that I carried out in order to inform materials design. I will also share my own experience of how, as language specialists, we might help students to demonstrate their criticality by paying attention to language rather than only seeing critical thinking in its broader sense as a ‘questioning attitude’ to information and claims. The session will, I hope, be an opportunity to share experiences and reflect together on the topic.