THE ROLE OF CRITICAL THINKING IN ACADEMIC WRITING: AN INVESTIGATION OF EFL STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS AND WRITING EXPERIENCES

Abstract

It is generally considered that evidence of critical thinking, as expressed through argumentation, is central to successful academic writing at Western universities. However, the concept of critical thinking is complex: its nature is difficult to define and students, especially those coming from ‘non-Western’ backgrounds, are perceived to have difficulty in implementing a critical dimension in their writing. The present study, based on the use of in-depth interviews with three postgraduate students, presents findings on the students’ interpretations of critical thinking, the factors which they perceive to affect the implementation of critical thinking, and the perceptions of their development as critical thinkers. The findings show that the students, despite coming from different traditions of discourse, have a fairly comprehensive understanding of critical thinking and willingly engage with it. The findings also reveal that although cultural background plays a role in influencing their writing styles, the students have the capacity to learn and master a new discourse. The problems they encountered were due to uncertainty in demonstrating an argument, insufficient subject knowledge, and problematic issues surrounding the essay genre, such as authorial voice and assessment demands. Implications for university departments and tutors are that they should review their writing instruction and guidelines so as to make the requirements of argument more explicit and easily understandable, and in the long term, to reevaluate the norms of the traditional essay form to accommodate a wider spectrum of expression.

Keywords: Critical Thinking, Academic Writing, EFL Students

REFERENCES 

Andrews, R. (1995). Teaching and learning argument. London, NY: Cassell.

Andrews, R. (2000). ‘Introduction: learning to argue in higher education’ in Andrews, R and Mitchell, S (eds). Learning to Argue in Higher Education. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook Publishers, pp. 1-14.

And rews, R. (2003). ‘The end of the essay?’ Teaching in Higher Education, 8/1: 117-128. Andrews, R. (2007). ‘Argumentation, critical thinking and the postgraduate dissertation’. Educational Review, 59/1: 1—18

Andrews, R and Mitchell, S. (2001). Essays in Argument. London: Midd!esex University Press.

Atkinson, D. (1997). ‘A critical approach to critical thinking in TESOL’. TESOL Quarterly, 31: 71-94.

Atkinson, D. (1998). ‘Comments on Dwight Atkinson’s “A Critical Approach to Critical Thinking in TESOL”: The author responds’. TESOL Quarterly, 32: 133- 137.

Atkinson, D. and Ramanathan, V. (1995). ‘Cultures of writing: An ethnographic comparison of Li and L2 university writing/language programs’. TESOL Quarterly, 29:539-568.

Ballard, B. and Clanchy, J. (1991). Teaching Students from Overseas: a brief guide for lecturers and supervisors. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire.

Benesch, S. (1999). ‘Thinking Critically, Thinking Dialogically’. TESOL Quarterly, 33/3: 573-580

Biggs, J. (1987). Student Approaches to Learning and Studying. Hawthorn:Australian Council for Educational Research.

Biggs, J. (1994). ‘What are effective schools? Lessons from East and West’. Australian Educational Researcher, 21/1: 19—39.

Bonnett, A. (2001). How to Argue: a student’s guide. Harlow: Pearson Education.

Branthwaite, A., Trueman, M. and Hartley, J. (1980). ‘Writing essays: the actions and strategies of students’, in Hartley, J. (Ed.) The Psychology of Written Communication. London: Nichols and Cogan Page.

Briggs, C. (1986). Learning How to Ask: a sociolinguistic appraisal of the role of the interview in social science research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cadman, K. (2000). ‘‘Voices in the Air’: evaluations of the learning experiences of international postgraduates and their supervisors’. Teaching in Higher Education, 5/4: 475-491.

Canagarajah, S. (2002a). ‘Multilingual writer and the academic community: towards a critical relationship’. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 1: 29-44.

Canaga raja h, S. (2002 b). Critical Academic Writing and Multilingual Students. Michigan: University of Michigan Press.

Casanave, C. (2004). Controversies in Second Language Writing: dilemmas and decisions in research and instruction. Michigan: University of Michigan Press.

Creme, P. (1999). ‘A reflection of the education of the ‘critical person’’. Teaching in Higher Education, 4/4: 461- 471.

Davidson, B.W. (1998). ‘Comments on Dwight Atkinson’s “A Critical Approach to Critical Thinking in TESOL”: A Case for Critical Thinking in the English Language Classroom’. TESOL Quarterly, 32/1: 119-123.

Davies, W. M. (2008). ‘Not quite right’: helping students to make better arguments. Teaching in Higher Education, 13(3), 327—340.

DiCicco-Bloom, B. and Crabtree, B.F. (2006). ‘The qualitative research interview’. Medical Education, 40: 314—321

Dornyei, Z. (2007). Research Methods in Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Egege, S. and Kutieleh, S. (2004). ‘Critical thinking: teaching foreign notions to foreign students’. International Education Journal, 4/4: 75-85.

Elander, J., Harrington, K., Norton, L., Robinson, H. and Reddy, p. (2006). ‘Complex skills and academic writing: a review of evidence about the types of learning required to meet core assessment criteria’. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 31/1: 71-90

Forsey, M. (2012). ‘Interviewing individuals’, in Delamont, S. and Jones, A. (eds) Handbook of Qualitative Research in Education. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 364-376.

Fox, H. (1994). Listening to the World: cultural issues in academic writing. Illinois: National Council of the Teachers of English.

Garside, C. (1996). ‘Look who’s talking: a comparison of lecture and group discussion teaching strategies in developing critical thinking skills’. Communication Education 45: 2 12—227.

Gieve, S. (1998). ‘Comments on Dwight Atkinson’s “A Critical Approach to Critical Thinking in TESOL”: Another reader reacts’. TESOL Quarterly, 32: 123-129.

Goetz, J. and LeCompte, M. (1984). Ethnography and Qualitative Design in Educational Research. Orlando, FL: Academic Press.

Groom, N. (2000). ‘A workable balance: self and source in argumentative writing’ in Mitchell, S. and And rews, R. (Eds.), Learning to Argue in Higher Education. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook Heinemann, pp. 65—145.

Hyland,K. (2002a). ‘Authority and invisibility: authorial identity in academic writing’. Journal of Pragmatics 34: 1091—1112

Hyland,K. (2002b). ‘Options of identity in academic writing’. ELT Journal 56/4: 351- 358.

Ivanic, R. (1998). Writing and Identity: the discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Ivanic, R. (2005). ‘The discoursal construction of writer identity’. In Beach, R., Green, J., Kamil, M. and Shanahan, T. (Eds.) Multidisciplinary perspectives on literacy research. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, pp. 391-416.

Johnson, J. (2002). ‘In-depth interviewing’ in Gubrium J. and Holstein J. (eds). Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage, pp. 103—19.

Jones, A. (2005). ‘Culture and context: critical thinking and student learning in introductory macroeconomics’, Studies in Higher Education, 30/3: 339-354.

Kaplan, R.B. (1966). ‘Cultural thought patterns in intercultural education’. Language Learning, 16: 1-20.

King’s College London. (2011/2012). MA in English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics Handbook. [Online] Available at htjj/kingscoege.backhoard,com [accessed 02/09/12]

Kirkpatrick, A. (1997). ‘Traditional Chinese text structures and their influence on the writing in Chinese and English of contemporary mainland Chinese students’. Journal of Second Language Writing, 6/3: 22 3-244.

Labov, W. (1972). Language in the Inner City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Lea, M, and Street, B. (1998). ‘Student writing in higher education: an academic literacies approach’. Studies in Higher Education, 23/2: 157—172.

Leki, I. (1995).’Coping strategies of ESL students in writing tasks across the curriculum’. TESOL Quarterly: 29/2, 235-260.

Lillis, T.M. (2001). Student Writing: access, regulation, desire. Routledge: London.

Lillis, T.M. and Turner, J. (2001). ‘Student writing in higher education: contemporary confusion, traditional concerns’. Teaching in Higher Education, 6/1: 57-68.

McPeck (1981). Critical Thinking in Education. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

McPeck, J. (1990). Teaching Critical Thinking: dialogue and dialectic. New York: Routledge.

Mitchell, S and Andrews, R. (2000). Learning to Argue in Higher Education. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook Publishers

Mitchell, S., Prior, P., BlIbro, R., Peake, K., See, B. H., & Andrews, R. (2008). ‘A reflexive approach to interview data in an investigation of argument’. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 31/3: 229—241.

Mishler, E.G. (1986). Research Interviewing: context and narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Moore, 1. (2004). ‘The critical thinking debate: how general are general thinking skills?’ Higher Education Research and Development. 23/1: 3-18.

Raimes, A. and Zamel, V. (1997). ‘Response to Ramanathan and Kaplan’. Journal of Second Language Writing, 6: 79-81.

Ramanathan, V. and Atkinson, D. (1999). ‘Individualism, academic writing and ESL writers’. Journal of Second Language Writing. 8/1: 45-75.

Ramanathan, V. and Kaplan, R. (1996a). Audience and voice in current Li composition tests: Some implications for ESL student writers. Journal of Second Language Writing, 5: 21-33.

Ramanathan, V. and Kaplan, R. (1996b). ‘Some problematic “channels” in the teaching of critical thinking in current LI composition textbooks: Implications for 12 student-writers’. Issues in Applied Linguistics, 7: 225-249.

Richard Andrews. (2007). ‘Argumentation, critical thinking and the postgraduate dissertation’. Educational Review, 59/1: 1—18.

Scott, M. (2000). Student, critic and literary text: a discussion of ‘critical thinking’ in a student essay. Teaching in Higher Education, 5/3:277-288.

Scriven, M and Paul, R. (2003). Defining critical thinking: a statement prepared for the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking Instruction. (accessed 22/08/2012) wwwc

Stapleton, P. (2002). ‘Critiquing voice as a viable pedagogical tool in L2 writing: Returning the spotlight to ideas’. Journal of second language writing ii: 177-190.

Street, B. (2009). Hidden features of academic paper writing. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 24:1: 1—17.

Tapper, J. (2004). ‘Student perceptions of how critical thinking is embedded in a degree program’. Higher Education Research and Development, 23/2: 199-222.

Tsui, L. (2002). ‘Fostering critical thinking through effective pedagogy’. The Journal of Higher Education, 73/6: 740-763.

Wingate, U. (2011). ‘Argument! Helping students understand what essay writing is about.’ Journal of English forAcademic Purposes 10/1016: 1-10.

Wrigley, 5. 2010. ‘A critical examination of ‘academic literacies’ in the context of the university writing of international students’. Dissertation submitted for MA ELT in Applied Linguistics, King’s College, London. [Online] Available at https://kngscoHege.bIackboard.corn [accessed 09/09/12]

Wu, S and Rubin D.L. (2000). ‘Evaluating the impact of collectivism and individualism on argumentative writing by Chinese and North American college students’. Research in the Teaching of English, 35/2: 148-178.

Zamel, V. (1993). ‘Questioning academic discourse’. College ESL, 3/1: 28-39.

Zamel, V. (1995). ‘Strangers in academia: the experiences of faculty and ESL students across the curriculum’. College Composition and Communication, 4/6: 506- 521.

Zamel, V. (1997). ‘Toward a model of transculturation’. The TESOL Quarterly, 31/2: 341-352.