Banking Academy of Vietnam Faculty of Foreign Languages GRADUATION THESIS Perceptions of Critical Thinking among Banking Academy of Vietnam final-year students Author Le Vu Chung Thanh Student ID 20A7510155 Class K20ATCB Academic Year 2017 - 2021 Supervisor Dr. Trinh Ngoc Anh Hanoi, May 2021 17014128214121000000 Certificate of Originality I declare that the work in this thesis titled “Perceptions of Critical Thinking among Banking Academy of Vietnam final-year students” is my original work. No part of this thesis was previously presented in any study. All sources and citations were referenced in the bibliography.
_________________ Hanoi, May 2021 Le Vu Chung Thanh i Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to express my deep and sincere gratitude to my supervisor - Dr. Trinh Ngoc Anh, for providing me invaluable guidance throughout this research. It was great luck and an honor to work and study under her guidance. Despite her busy schedule, she was always patient and spent time helping me complete this thesis.
Besides teaching me the methodology to carry out the research and to present it as clearly as possible, her dynamism, vision, and motivation have deeply inspired me. I am extremely grateful for what she has offered me. Second, I also thank the BAV lecturers in general and the Faculty of Foreign Languages lecturers in particular for their enthusiasm and inspiration in studying and in life experience for many generations of students, including me. Thanks to them, I have found the direction for my future, and the day I finish this thesis will be the day I complete a part of my long-term plan.
Third, I would like to thank my family and friends for always being by my side, supporting, encouraging, and helping me improve myself day by day. Thank Truc Quynh for always being a great friend; her positivity and warmth have helped me change the way I see the world. Thank the friends from class K20ATCB, of the Faculty of Foreign Languages’ Youth Union and my dormitory roommates for supporting me a lot, they have made my student life at BAV more colorful and exciting. There were times when the pressure and fear made me want to give up, but thanks to them, I could get up and finish this thesis.
Finally, I want to thank a special person for always being by my side and taking care of me over the past two years, even in my most desperate times. I will never forget these priceless experiences. Love you all. ii Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction.
Background of the study. Scope and limitation of the study. Significance of the study. Structure of the study.
3 Chapter 2: Literature Review. Conceptualisation of Critical Thinking. Definitions of Critical Thinking. The role of Critical Thinking skills.
Review of previous studies. Theoretical frameworks of Critical Thinking. The Revised Bloom's Taxonomy. Liu et al.'s framework of Critical Thinking.
Some of the other frameworks. Data gathering procedure. Research population and Sample description. Reliability and validity.
32 Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion. Awareness of CT among BAV final-year students. Final-year students' frequency of thinking critically. Frequency of facing difficulties when thinking critically.
BAV final-year students' interest in Critical Thinking. Perceptions of Critical Thinking among BAV final-year students. Final-year students’ frequency of practice and facing difficulties when thinking critically. BAV final-year students' interest in learning Critical Thinking.
53 Appendix 1: Questionnaire on Perceptions of Critical Thinking among BAV final-year students. 53 Appendix 2: Questionnaire on Perceptions of Critical Thinking among BAV final-year students. 59 iv Appendix 3: Encoding survey items. 65 v List of Abbreviations Abbreviation Explaination BAV Banking Academy of Vietnam CT Critical Thinking SD Standard Deviation SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences RBT Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy vi List of Figures Figure Page Figure 1 - Thinking Uncritically and Critically (Reid et al.
31) 5 Figure 2 - The Knowledge Dimension of the RBT (Krathwohl, 2002, p. 14 214 ) Figure 3 - The changes of the Bloom's Taxonomy – Illustrated by me 15 Figure 4 - Framework of Critical Thinking (Liu et al., 2014) – Illustrated 20 by me Figure 5 - CT and higher-order thinking – illustrated by me 22 Figure 6 - Data gathering process 24 Figure 7 - Framework of data analyzing 28 Figure 8 - BAV final-year students' awareness of CT 33 Figure 9 - Sources of information from which participants know about CT 34 Figure 10 - Final-year students' awareness of being taught about CT while 35 studying at BAV Figure 11 - BAV final-year students' interest in learning CT 42 Figure 12 - Participants’ opinions on the importance of CT integration in 42 the BAV’s curriculums vii List of Tables Table Page Table 2-1. Philosophers' definitions of CT. Psychologists' definitions of CT (Lai, 2011, p.
The Cognitive Dimension Process (Anderson & Krathwohl, 16 2001) Table 3-1. Participants' demographic 25 Table 3-2. Cronbach's Alpha coefficient of groups of research results 29 Table 3-3. Cronbach's Alpha coefficient of section 1 29 Table 3-4.
Cronbach's Alpha coefficient of section 1 (2) 31 Table 3-5. Cronbach's alpha coefficient of section 2 32 Table 3-6. Cronbach's Alpha coefficient of section 2 (2) 28 Table 4-1. Perceptions of BAV final-year students towards the importance 35 of CT in their career, study, and daily life Table 4-2.
Perceptions of BAV final-year students towards the importance 36 of CT in improving interpersonal skills Table 4-3. BAV final-year students' frequency of thinking critically 37 Table 4-4. Differences of practicing CT between English major and non- 38 English major students Table 4-5. Frequency of facing difficulties when thinking critically 39 Table 4-6.
Differences of having difficulties when thinking critically 41 between English-major and non-English major students viii List of Appendix Title Page English version: Questionnaire on Perceptions of CT among 50 BAV final-year students Vietnamese version: Questionnaire on Perceptions of CT among 56 BAV final-year students Encoding survey items 62 ix Abstract Critical Thinking (CT) is an active process of analyzing and evaluating the information to figure out what to believe and do, and it is very important in this digital age. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the perception of final-year students at Banking Academy of Vietnam (BAV) towards Critical Thinking. To achieve this aim, I used a quantitative approach to collect data from surveying 158 students via an online questionnaire in terms of their perceptions and frequency of practicing Critical Thinking skills. The results show that final year students at BAV tended to have a positive perception of CT and they frequently practice using this skill.
Also, they showed interest in learning more about CT. However, these students might have a not-so-good understanding of CT. The results also indicate that the respondents considered CT less supportive for decision-making skills, and they sometimes had difficulties when making decisions. This study implies that it is necessary for BAV final year students to understand and practice CT more, and the integration of CT in the curriculums of BAV may help improve this situation.
Keywords: Critical Thinking, perception, final-year students. x Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter provides an overview of the background of the study, the research aim and research questions, and the significance of the study. It also indicates the scope and limitations of the study. At the end of this chapter, there is a summary of each chapter to facilitate the readers’ flow of reading.
Background of the study How can students distinguish between facts and fake news in this technology era? How can they cope with canards and sensational news which are constantly updated and bombarded? How can they hold a capability to think thoroughly about issues, make wise decisions, and defend their thoughts and opinions? In the meantime – these are vital for dynamic job markets. The answer might be "to think critically" - one of the primary aims of Western higher education. Western countries have been researching, using, and teaching Critical Thinking skills widely for decades (Paul et al. However, in Vietnam, the term has been paid some attention to over the past few years thanks to the globalization process.
Up to present, there are few studies about Critical Thinking in Vietnam. I was fortunate to study and practice Critical Thinking skills through two modules, which are "Critical Reading" and "Debating Skills" as an English major at the Faculty of Foreign Languages. In addition, from my own observation and stance, students' performance from presentations and debates showed that they did not seem to know how to think and argue properly, and they often make logical fallacies when expressing their points of view - the manifestation of being unable to think critically. Therefore, I question how students of Banking Academy of Vietnam perceive Critical Thinking.
To obtain an understanding of this issue, this study is conducted among final-year students. Research questions The study seeks to answer the key question: "How do final year students at Banking Academy of Vietnam perceive Critical Thinking?". This question is divided into sub-questions as below: (1) How do final year students at BAV know about Critical Thinking?; (2) How often do they practice Critical Thinking?; (3) How often do they face difficulties when thinking critically? (4) How important is Critical Thinking to them? (5) How is their interest in learning more about the skills?. Scope and limitation of the study The study is carried out at the Banking Academy of Vietnam, Hanoi, Vietnam and it investigates the perceptions of final year students in this university towards Critical Thinking skills.
The limitation of the study is that the research sample can not represent the student population of the university because it only focused on final year students 1. Significance of the study Firstly, this study provides an overview of the reality of the perceptions of Critical Thinking skills among BAV final-year students. Secondly, the findings may contribute to the literature of Critical Thinking skills in Vietnamese higher education and may suggest some implications for curriculum improvement, teaching, and learning practices. Structure of the study The present research contains five chapters including: Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Literature Review Chapter 3: Methodology Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion Chapter 5: Conclusions and Recommendations The first chapter provides an overview of the present research, like the research background, research objectives.
The second chapter represents reviews of related theories, concepts, and literature, then clarifies the theoretical framework of this study. The research methodology will be introduced in the third chapter, which includes information like the locale of the study, research design,… After that, in the fourth chapter, the analyzed results of the investigation will be described for findings and discussions. After all, conclusions and recommendations will be made based on synthesizing the above data and information. 3 Chapter 2: Literature Review Chapter two presents a review of and analysis into related literature, which provides a preliminary look at the current situation of the research issue thereby drawing some research gaps to support the need for the t study.
This chapter consists of two main parts. The first part conceptualizes Critical Thinking, specifically, its definitions, its role in life, and a review of previous studies on that topic. The second part focuses on analyzing the theoretical frameworks in order to find a relevant and suitable one to guide the study. Conceptualisation of Critical Thinking 2.
Definitions of Critical Thinking The root of Critical Thinking (CT) appeared more than 2500 years ago; still, the concept of CT has been developed for a century (Paul et al. The pioneer for Critical Thinking in the early twentieth century - a philosopher named John Dewey, suggested that CT linked with "reflective thinking", which is "an active, persistent, careful consideration of a belief or supposed form of knowledge in light of the grounds which support it and the further conclusions to which it tends" (Dewey, 1910, p.