The Process of Generating Negative Reactions to Critical Thinking Learning and Its Intervention Model

Toward Practical Application of Cultivating Critical Thinking Skills in A College

Abstract

This study aims to make a model to explain how college students develop negative reactions to learning critical thinking and how teachers can effectively and educationally support their learning in an active learning class. To explore what students experienced when learning critical thinking, three different researchers conducted semi-structural interviews with 18 college students who learned a critical thinking over one semester. After the interview, one researcher analyzed the interview data and constructed a model using the Modified Grounded Theory Approach (M-GTA) to indicate how they learned critical thinking and developed negative reactions to it. Two other researchers checked if the model was made properly and captured their learning process of critical thinking. Consequently, 11 concepts, three categories (Direct Learning in the Class, Conflict about the Change of the Self and Backlash against the Class) and two different levels – cognitive and experiential – of understanding circulating through all categories were generated. As other previous related studies have indicated, we also found that students negatively reacted to learning critical thinking. However, unlike other studies, which focus attention on differences in thinking styles between East and West, our model explains the negative reaction as students’ efforts to reduce cognitive dissonance between their existing self with intuitive thinking and new self with critical thinking. Therefore, we suggested that teachers support students who learn critical thinking by helping them integrate critical thinking, a new thinking style, into habitual ways of thinking. In addition, we conducted three types of questionnaires to multi-dimensionally understand students’ process of learning critical thinking: Feelings Experience Scale (FES), and Profile of Mood States (POMS). FES indicated that some students had limited ability to experience a variety of emotions. POMS indicated that about 40% of students were at high risk for having mental health issues. It was indicated that students who were not good at handling their own emotions had difficulty in integrating a new thinking style into an existing self and were likely to react to critical-thinking more negatively. They may need more emotional support although critical thinking was cognitive learning.