Abstract
Recently, the necessity of critical thinking (CT) education has been noted in various areas, and the number of studies related to CT education in Japan has been steadily increasing. Therefore, this article highlights pertinent issues in these studies by reviewing recent theoretical and practical studies regarding CT educations conducted in Japan. Practical studies, the focus of this article, are classified based on the purpose of CT educations (such as the development of academic literacy or of citizenship literacy) as well as on the manner of education, such as the “general approach” (in which students learn critical thinking through separate critical thinking courses), or the “immersion approach” (in which students learn critical thinking by immersing themselves in the existing subject-matter areas). The findings confirm that CT education is conducted for various purposes and by various methods. In addition, this article provides several suggestions for further CT practices and studies by elucidating the importance of the purpose of teaching and the suitability of the outcome evaluation.
Key Words : critical thinking, education, higher-order literacy, instructional approach, evaluation
