VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ----------------------- ĐOÀN THANH HƯỜNG ASSESSMENT OF CRITICAL THINKING IN THIRD-YEAR EFL STUDENTS’ WRITINGS AT HANAM TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE (Đánh giá tư duy phê phán thể hiện trong bài viết của sinh viên năm thứ 3 ngành tiếng Anh trường Cao đẳng sư phạm Hà Nam) M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 HANOI – 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY ÒF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ----------------------- ĐOÀN THANH HƯỜNG ASSESSMENT OF CRITICAL THINKING IN THIRD-YEAR EFL STUDENTS’ WRITINGS AT HANAM TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE (Đánh giá tư duy phê phán thể hiện trong bài viết của sinh viên năm thứ 3 ngành tiếng Anh trường Cao đẳng sư phạm Hà Nam) M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 Supervisor: Phùng Hà Thanh, M.A HANOI – 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com v TABLE OF CONTENT Page ACCEPTANCE i DECLARATION ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii ABSTRACT iv TABLE OF CONTENT v LIST OF FIGURE AND TABLES viii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1. Statement of the problem 1 1. Scope of the study 3 1. Significance of the study 4 1.
Design of the study 4 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 5 2. Conceptions of critical thinking 5 2. Critical thinking and logic 5 2.2 Critical thinking and cognitive psychology 7 2.3 Critical thinking and tool to gain desirable outcome 8 2.4 Critical thinking and critical inquiry 9 2.5 Critical thinking and universal intellectual standards 9 2.2 Critical thinking instruction 11 2. Argumentative writing and critical thinking 14 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY 17 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Samples and Sampling 17 3.1 Design of the writing tasks 18 3.2 Essay tests administered and collected 19 3. Criteria of assessment 20 3. Procedures of assessment 21 CHAPTER IV: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 22 4. Reliability and validity of the assessment 22 4.
Inter-rater reliability 22 4. The results of the assessment of critical thinking 23 4. The display of critical thinking in students’ argumentative writings 23 4. The numbers of arguments, evidence, refutations, and fallacies in 36 24 students’ argumentative writings.
The differences of critical thinking elements found in two groups of 25 writings 4. Types of arguments, evidence and fallacies found in each group of 26 argumentative writings 4. Types of arguments 26 4. Types of evidence 27 4.
Opposition recognition and refutation 27 4. Types of fallacies 28 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Types of arguments and evidence and the reflection of the influence of 30 familiarity on the quality of students’ critical thought 4. Opposition recognition and refutation and the reflection of the influence 32 of familiarity on the quality of students’ critical thought 4.
Types of fallacies and the reflection of the influence of familiarity on the 32 quality of students’ critical thought 4. Other remarks 33 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION 35 5. Summary of findings 35 5. Implications and recommendations 35 5.
Suggestions for further research 37 REFERENCES 39 APPENDICES Appendix A: Collection of students’ essays I Appendix B: Rubrics for critical thinking elements XXIV Appendix B1: Types of arguments XXVI Appendix B2: Types of evidence XXIX Appendix B3: Opposition recognition and refutation XXXIV Appendix B4: Types of fallacies XXXV Appendix C: Rating guide XXXIX Appendix D: Holistic rating scale to mark an argumentative essay XXXL LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com viii LIST OF FIGURE AND TABLES Page Figure Bloom’s Taxonomy 7 Table 1 Correlation of scores given by rater 1 and rater 2 on all 36 writing samples 22 Table 2 Correlation of scores given by rater 1 and rater 2 on writing samples on 22 familiar topic Table 3 Correlation of scores given by rater 1 and rater 2 on writing samples on 23 unfamiliar topic Table 4 Average score (Median) and score with highest frequency of appearance 24 (Mode) of all 36 writings given by each rater Table 5 Average scores (Median) and scores with highest frequency of appearance 24 (Mode) of each group of writing pieces regarding topic given Table 6 Total number and average number of each element of critical thinking 25 Table 7 Total numbers and differences of elements of critical thinking in writing 25 samples on familiar and unfamiliar topics LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION This chapter presents the statement of the problem, research problems, research questions, scope of the study, significance of the study, and design of the study. Statement of the problem From Socratic time, the ability to reason well has been regarded an important outcome of education and training, and since 1980s, ‗critical thinking‘ has become a ‗buzzword‘ in the intellectual circles (Fisher, 2001). Critical thinking is essential for everyone to perform well not only in educational systems, but also in future workplaces, and social and interpersonal contexts. Dewey (1933) pointed out learning to think is the central purpose of education.
Scriven (1985) acknowledged training in critical thinking should be the primary task of education. They are among those who recognize human beings do not innately possess the ability of thinking critically but acquire it through education. Although ‗critical thinking‘ is universally accepted as a goal of education as it refers to quality thinking, there remains a controversy around the ‗critical thinking‘ concept across borders. As many scholars have claimed, critical thinking took roots in Western societies, especially from the Greek culture with its related schools of academic thoughts and their renowned philosophers.
Atkinson (1997) believed that critical thinking is a tacit, indefinable, socio-cultural practice and behavior that individuals in the U.S or Western society subconsciously and naturally acquire. Nevertheless, many others have argued that the social structures and values that developed in the East represented a different value system from the West have created different conceptions of critical thinking. There is ‗individualism‘ in the West that inspires public debate, logical science with the focus on objective observation; and there also is ‗collectivism‘ in the East leads to the individuality suppression, more holistic view of reality with the focus on the group (Nisbett, 2003; Davidson, 1998). These differences have put the ‗critical thinking‘ concept within the matter of ‗culture specific‘.
The students from the East may not apparently show up the ability to reason well, but those claimed they lack critical thinking should reconsider the cultural aspects. Gieve (1998) introduced the notions of monological critical thinking and dialogical thinking, which pointed out the influences of education background and cultural traits on the way Western and Eastern students exhibit their critical thinking skills. With this approach, Gieve (1998) stated that critical thinking is hardly irrelevant or ill-suited to LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 non-Western ESL students and it has a significant and far-reaching value for students in any society and culture. With his opinion, we return to the consensus among discussions related, that human thinking is flawed and has to be improved with the support of education.
Thus, Western or non-Western students all have to undergo a learning process before claiming themselves ‗critical thinkers‘. As the central target of education in general, the development of critical thinking skills has also become a key goal for educators in first and second language education in particular. Teachers of English in EFL (English as Foreign Language) contexts, however, are often constrained by the linguistic skills of their students in Asian countries like China, Japan, Vietnam, etc. For example of writing skill, the learners‘ writing pieces always seem to disappoint the instructors, especially when it comes to argumentative essays.
Vietnamese students, even at tertiary level, have been claimed to lack critical thinking since Eastern learners of English are often characterized as lacking critical thinking characteristics due to those perceptions mentioned above. Since both native speakers and non-native speakers have to exert great effort to become ‗critical thinkers of English‘, this claim should be examined carefully. Courses on argumentative writings and critical thinking share the focus on arguments and argumentation. In most English language curriculums in Vietnam, there is always a part for argumentative writing practice that integrated background of Western arguments and critical thinking skills.
To find out if Vietnamese students can reason well the way native learners do or not, it is recommended to study their argumentative writings. As an EFL teacher from Hanam Teachers‘ Training College, the researcher of this paper understand the importance of critical thinking to third year students majoring in English since they are about to finish their study with much paper work to be done and communication to be set. Thus, while assessing the students‘ skills of analyzing and reasoning in a case study, the researcher wanted to explore whether third year EFL students here displayed features of critical thinking in their English compositions and then, whether content familiarity an influential factor on students‘ thinking process. Research problems This study focused on investigating and assessing the display of critical thinking in the argumentative compositions of third year EFL students at Hanam Teachers‘ Training LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Based on the evaluative views of both Western and non-Western raters, it would reveal the extent to which Vietnamese students in their native culture context display their critical thoughts. Then, the study would also examine the influence of familiarity on the quality of those students‘ critical thought. Research questions Based on the statement of the problem, this study sought to answer the following two major questions with the subdivided ones. To what extent do third year EFL students at Hanam Teachers’ Training College display critical thinking in their argumentative essays? a.
How well do the students reason in their argumentative writings according to the raters‟ assessments? b. How many arguments, pieces of evidence, refutations, and fallacies are there in 36 collected argumentative writings? 2. To what extent does familiarity affect the quality of critical thinking in those students’ writings? a. What are the differences of the critical thinking elements found in two groups of writings? b.
What are the types of arguments, evidence and fallacies found in each group of argumentative writings? c. How do the results reflect the influence of familiarity on the quality of students‟ critical thought? 1. Scope of the study Within the scope of this study, the researcher wanted to explore the well-know Western concept of critical thinking. Since the knowledge related to this concept is boundlessly varied, the researcher‘s attention only rested on the aspect that critical thinking refers to reasoning ability in argumentation.
That led to her choice of the argumentative writings as the key samples for the study among many other types of writing tasks taught in the Hanam Teachers‘ Training College‘s writing curriculum. The reason was that argumentative writings get students involved directly and actively in argumentation process by forming reasons, making inductions, drawing conclusions, and applying them to the discussed issues. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 Accordingly, the study investigated the argumentative writings by 36 Vietnamese college students from a same classroom. All the students are in the first semester of their third year studying.
They were all participating in a course called ―English Writing 5‖, which introducing writing skills for their fifth semester. The samples were the participants‘ compulsory writing tasks, which were told be part of their performance evaluation, assigned by the instructor of the course. Significance of the study Through this study, the researcher hoped to gather and present useful knowledge about critical thinking for those who have keen interest. People who come across this research might gain some knowledge about the nature of critical thinking with different conceptions across disciplines and insights which they might find helpful.
It is hopefully that the research results would be practical for students, lecturers, and researchers. For the students, the study might generally raise their awareness of the importance of critical thinking and its influence on such specific linguistic skill as writing.