Making Learning Visible: Thinking critically about critical thinking - Phase 1 Update from the University of Bath and Stellenbosch University

Author

Abby Osborne
Assessment and Feedback Development Lead Centre for Learning & Teaching, University of Bath

As we draw towards the end of Phase 1 of our QAA Collaborative Enhancement Project to unpack, define and ‘make visible’ critical thinking, we have been reflecting on progress so far and what we have learnt in this first part of the project.

The last few weeks have been spent busily establishing our methods of research and evaluation, identifying stakeholders, scoping the literature and preparing our project submission for ethical approval. Getting the foundations in place for the project has also provided us with the opportunity to engage in valuable discussions with colleagues at our respective institutions, as well as from the broader sector.

Members of the Bath University project team recently attended and presented at the Advance HE Symposium 2024: AI Journeys- Being Human. Whilst the focus of the event was primarily on AI, the ‘being human’ angle was what stood out most, and resonated with the aims of this project. Prominent in the day’s discussions was the recognition that critical thinking will be fundamental to the success of our future graduates, particularly in a world where GenAI will become increasingly invisible.

The day’s discussions also evidenced the need for the sector to make this aspect of human learning more visible; delegates who attended the presentation shared their own definitions of critical thinking, emphasising great breadth in interpretation and the nebulous nature of the terms themselves. The diverse responses generated were themselves not problematic, as higher education encompasses a broad range of subject disciplines and specialisms. However, the responses, if only anecdotally, highlight a potential barrier for graduates as they grapple for meaning with the terms associated with critical thinking.

In addition to the recent symposium, the Bath team have also produced an article for the Times Higher Education. RIP assessment outlines the University’s strategic approach to managing the risks and maximising the opportunities of GenAI. At the heart of this strategy, lies our QAA project, once again emphasising the need to focus on the relationship between GenAI and human learning, rather than framing a response to GenAI without this human context. The article has drawn a positive response and recognition that this will be an important piece of work which will better equip our institutions and the broader sector to adapt to this new landscape.

Interacting with the wider sector during Phase 1 has provided us with a sound base on which to now conduct our semi-structured interviews with a range of academic and professional services colleagues. The interviews will enable us to gain a more nuanced understanding of the use of such terms in a wide- range of subject disciplines as well as exploring the challenges of supporting students to develop these much-needed skills, building on their prior learning and cultural context.

As summer commences, a much-needed pause in the busy academic calendar will allow us to focus on the joint creation of our critical thinking map. The map will support academics and their students to navigate the various elements that make up critical thinking, offering clarity and consistency so we can ensure these terms are visible and transparent. We look forward to developing the map, drawing on the invaluable data generated by our research participants in Phase 1. As the new academic term starts, we then look forward to ‘workshopping’ the map with a range of academic colleagues and their students to create further supplementary resources to support the effective embedding of the map in different disciplinary contexts and better scaffold our students’ critical thinking journey.  

Now that the groundwork has been laid and we have established parameters to our research, the project team at Bath and Stellenbosch is looking forward to the exciting job of map-building and turning our attention to the task of thinking critically about critical thinking.  With the much-valued support of QAA, we will work collaboratively, harnessing both the knowledge and experience from our respective localised contexts to tackle what is very much becoming a global challenge.