This project concerns the ability to think critically as an intended learning outcome in the context of undergraduate education in the humanities. Even though critical thinking, including its role in education, has been studied extensively, application in humanities education is still at its infancy.

Introduction

Critical thinking is a complex construct consisting of knowledges, skills and attitudes. It is defined as: “purposeful, self-regulatory judgment which results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well as explanation of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations upon which that judgement is based.” (Facione, 1990; Abrami et al., 2015).  The Faculty of Humanities houses a diverse range of (under)graduate programmes covering fields such as languages, cultures, history and philosophy. We understand the nature of humanities as a position within Biglan’s classification (1973). In this, the humanities are described as a non-applied and soft discipline that mainly uses qualitative, interpretative research methods.

The scholarly perspective of the humanities—both as a field of study and as a faculty—is visible in shared intended learning outcomes of the various programmes. In these learning outcomes critical thinking is often mentioned as important, even considered characteristic to humanities education. But, we wonder whether students fully grasp what aspect of critical thinking they are stimulated to develop. If students have different experiences with and views on the critical thinking skills and attitudes they are supposed to develop, this has consequences for constructive alignment of education.

Aim and research question

The aim of this project is to develop, in co-creation with students, a holistic and comprehensive definition of critical thinking for the humanities, to be used in intended learning outcomes and ultimately to constructively align our teaching practices.

Our research question is: How can intended learning outcomes be understood and phrased so they reflect both the nature of humanities education as well as students’ experience of humanities education, specifically with respect to critical thinking?

Set-up and method

Our project focuses on second-year undergraduate students in two courses of the Faculty of Humanities. First, students fill out a questionnaire with quantitative and qualitative questions on critical thinking. Second, we contextualize the questionnaire results in focus groups, aiming to co-create a definition of critical thinking as an intended learning outcome for humanities education. Third, based on the results of the questionnaire and the first round of focus groups, as well as more extensive literature review, the definition of critical thinking and resulting intended learning outcomes will be finetuned and proposed to students in further focus groups.

(Preliminary) Results

The project will result in intended learning outcomes related to the competence of critical thinking that better fit the nature of the humanities and students’ experience.

Conclusion

Through constructive alignment, teaching and learning will benefit from both teachers and students having a better understanding of what critical thinking means in this specific context. Reflection on the humanities and on related intended learning outcomes will give students a better grounding in their own discipline, in the humanities, and in academia. For both theory and practice, it is important that concepts like critical thinking are defined in a holistic and comprehensive way, incorporating perspectives from all fields of academia.

References

• Abrami, P. C., Bernard, R. M., Borokhovski, E., Waddington, D. I., Wade, C. A., & Persson, T. (2015). Strategies for teaching students to think critically: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 85(2), 275–314.
• Biglan, A. (1973). The characteristics of subject matter in different academic areas. Journal of Applied Psychology, 57(3), 195–203. https://doi-org.proxy.library.uu.nl/10.1037/h0034701
• Facione, P. A. (1990). Critical thinking: A statement of expert consensus for purposes of educational assessment and instruction. Research findings and recommendations. Newark, DE: American Philosophical Association