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Education Sciences
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Critical Thinking: Bridging a Successful Transition between University and Labour...
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Critical Thinking: Bridging a Successful Transition between University and Labour Market

A special issue of Education Sciences (ISSN 2227-7102).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2023) | Viewed by 33819

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Dimitris Pnevmatikos

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Guest Editor
Department of Primary Education, University of Western Macedonia, 50100 Kozani, Greece
Interests: critical thinking; explicit instruction; higher education curricula; labour market needs; misconceptions; stakeholders
Prof. Dr. Roma Kriaučiūnienė

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Philology, Vilnius University, 5 Universiteto St., LT-01131 Vilnius, Lithuania
Interests: value attitudes and moral competence development; multilingualism and multiculturalism; foreign language didactics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues, 

Critical Thinking (CT) is among the 21st-century key skills that higher education (HE) is expected to cultivate to meet workplace challenges. To succeed in this overarching aim, HE institutions started reformulating their curricula by adding to their learning outcomes the cultivation of critical thinking skills and dispositions. To succeed in this aim, there are at least two presuppositions. First, there is a common understanding between the HE and the labour market of the expected CT skills that should be cultivated. In other words, HE institutions and the labour market have a common understanding of the CT skills they expect students to acquire after graduation. Second, HE knows how to cultivate students’ CT skills. Recent research showed that after four years of studies, students who graduated did not adequately enhance their CT skills or dispositions. This alerted the HE institutions that the cultivation of CT could not be expected as a by-product of learning in the various disciplines. Hence, as the implicit instruction is insufficient to foster CT, there is a need to search for and define new teaching approaches in HE classes that will foster CT. Although there is a consensus among the experts that explicit instruction of CT is required to be adopted in HE classes, there is still a need for evidence showing which instructional approaches could fulfill this aim in various HE disciplines. The current Special Issues will address how the Higher Education and labour market envisage CT and CT skills that should be cultivated. Moreover, the current Special Issue welcomes studies that present instructional approaches and ideas that can efficiently enhance students’ CT within the HE classes of different disciplines to meet the needs of the labour market. The following are the indicative topics for the Special Issue:

  • Identifying misconceptions related to critical thinking
  • Stakeholders' viewpoints on the development of critical thinking in Higher Education
  • Is there a gap between Higher Education and the labour market in envisioning critical thinking?
  • Developing common ground between Higher Education & labour market
  • Implementation of the critical thinking curricula in Higher Education among various disciplines
  • Fostering graduates’ critical thinking through University-Business Collaboration

Prof. Dr. Dimitris Pnevmatikos
Prof. Dr. Roma Kriaučiūnienė
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • critical thinking
  • explicit instruction
  • higher education curricula
  • labour market needs
  • misconceptions
  • stakeholders

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Published Papers (9 papers)

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Research

28 pages, 1019 KiB  
Article
Examining Pre-Service Teachers’ Critical Thinking Competences within the Framework of Education for Sustainable Development: A Qualitative Analysis
by Panagiota Christodoulou and Anastasios Papanikolaou
Educ. Sci. 2023, 13(12), 1187; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13121187 - 25 Nov 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2386
Abstract
Empowering teachers with Critical Thinking and an understanding of sustainability is vital for guiding students’ informed decisions and actions in today’s world. Higher education needs innovative, student-centered methods like case-based teaching in order to promote Critical Thinking and the principles of Education for [...] Read more.
Empowering teachers with Critical Thinking and an understanding of sustainability is vital for guiding students’ informed decisions and actions in today’s world. Higher education needs innovative, student-centered methods like case-based teaching in order to promote Critical Thinking and the principles of Education for Sustainable Development. The aim of the study was to explore and evaluate pre-service teachers’ Critical Thinking when engaged with case studies in a practicum preparation course centered on Education for Sustainable Development. Nine undergraduate students in teacher education participated in the study and answered four case studies. The case studies’ responses were analyzed through a bottom-up content analysis revealing eight higher-order categories. While approaching the case studies, student teachers followed thinking processes similar to the processes proposed by the iterative models of Critical Thinking. Nevertheless, in some cases, pre-service teachers’ disengagement was evident. The rubric assessment highlighted that the responses fell under three profiles, namely the “Deficient Critical Thinker”, the “Emerging Critical Thinker” and the “Competent Critical Thinker”. The findings emphasize the need for targeted and individualized teaching interventions in teacher higher education programs aiming at Education for Sustainable Development complying with the learning needs of student teachers’ Critical Thinking profiles. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Critical Thinking: Bridging a Successful Transition between University and Labour Market)
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24 pages, 929 KiB  
Article
Experimental Programs of Critical Thinking Enhancement: A Worked-Based, Blended Learning Higher Education Curriculum for Economics
by Daniela Dumitru, Mihaela Minciu, Robert Alexandru Mihaila, Raluca Livinti and Monica Elisabeta Paduraru
Educ. Sci. 2023, 13(10), 1031; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13101031 - 15 Oct 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2928
Abstract
In an increasingly changing world, critical thinking is one of the key skills that ensure organizations’ competitive advantage. Thus, in higher education institutions, there is an accelerating emphasis on developing critical thinking (CT) among students. This paper presented the results of three experimental [...] Read more.
In an increasingly changing world, critical thinking is one of the key skills that ensure organizations’ competitive advantage. Thus, in higher education institutions, there is an accelerating emphasis on developing critical thinking (CT) among students. This paper presented the results of three experimental courses (pedagogy and didactics of financial accounting, virtual learning environments in economics, and business communication), using a blended learning method, aimed at improving students’ CT skills. The three courses were delivered by both higher education teachers and trainers from the labor market. After analyzing the data from the three experimental courses, it will be possible to assess whether the intervention of labor market trainers contributed to the improvement of students’ critical thinking skills, and in particular, at the level of which these component improvements have been identified. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Critical Thinking: Bridging a Successful Transition between University and Labour Market)
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13 pages, 284 KiB  
Article
Skill Profiles for Employability: (Mis)Understandings between Higher Education Institutions and Employers
by Luís Sebastião, Filipa Tirapicos, Rita Payan-Carreira and Hugo Rebelo
Educ. Sci. 2023, 13(9), 905; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13090905 - 7 Sep 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1771
Abstract
There is a consensus that employers, when recruiting, look for future employees to have a certain required profile. This profile consists of a set of skills that are considered crucial for the correct performance of the tasks that the employees will be performing. [...] Read more.
There is a consensus that employers, when recruiting, look for future employees to have a certain required profile. This profile consists of a set of skills that are considered crucial for the correct performance of the tasks that the employees will be performing. It is usually easy to identify which hard skills employers require, but it is not so easy to find out which soft skills employees should have. In addition to this difficulty, there is the possibility that higher education institutions may not be preparing students to align with employers’ envisioned skill sets. As part of the European Project “Think4Jobs” (2020-1-EL01-KA203-078797), an exploratory study was conducted to understand whether higher education institutions develop, and employers demand, individuals with the same profiles and to characterise these profiles. For this purpose, eight directors of different higher education programmes and six employers were interviewed. The information from the interviews was processed using the content analysis technique with the support of the NVivo data analysis software. The findings indicate that both educators and employers acknowledge the significance of soft skills, assigning them higher importance than hard skills, and the necessity of coordination between the two skill sets. Respondents also emphasised the importance of training, with course directors focusing more on initial training, while employers highlighted in-job training. Motivation, creativity, interpersonal relationships, communication, initiative and critical thinking were the skills identified by both groups as essential to an employee’s profile. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Critical Thinking: Bridging a Successful Transition between University and Labour Market)
14 pages, 274 KiB  
Article
Critical Thinking in Teacher Education: Course Design and Teaching Practicum
by Angeliki Lithoxoidou and Triantafyllia Georgiadou
Educ. Sci. 2023, 13(8), 837; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13080837 - 17 Aug 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3773
Abstract
Critical Thinking is considered a key component of Higher Education that supports graduates’ preparation for the labor market. However, in the field of teacher education more research is needed to support student-teachers with regard to the complexity of schools. It is considered that [...] Read more.
Critical Thinking is considered a key component of Higher Education that supports graduates’ preparation for the labor market. However, in the field of teacher education more research is needed to support student-teachers with regard to the complexity of schools. It is considered that a teaching practicum can set the stage for the cultivation of Critical Thinking skills and dispositions, as student-teachers have to face real problems and be led to decision-making. The paper presented here describes the curriculum transformation of courses offering theoretical lectures and teaching practicum in the Department of Primary Education, University of Western Macedonia. After focus group discussion with in-service teachers, the Critical Thinking skills and dispositions considered necessary for teacher education were thoroughly described and utilized for the course design. The courses were modified to include a variety of teaching strategies following the direct infusion approach for training in Critical Thinking with the aim of promoting reflective practices for fostering student-teachers’ critical reflection. In this way, they can be empowered regarding their professional development. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Critical Thinking: Bridging a Successful Transition between University and Labour Market)
22 pages, 1137 KiB  
Article
The Task-Based Approach to Teaching Critical Thinking for Computer Science Students
by Elena Mäkiö and Juho Mäkiö
Educ. Sci. 2023, 13(7), 742; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13070742 - 20 Jul 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3209
Abstract
Critical thinking (CT) is one of the most important 21st-century skills that employers believe will grow in prominence. However, many higher education (HE) graduates often lack it. This is also true for graduates in computer science (CS) and related disciplines, who need CT [...] Read more.
Critical thinking (CT) is one of the most important 21st-century skills that employers believe will grow in prominence. However, many higher education (HE) graduates often lack it. This is also true for graduates in computer science (CS) and related disciplines, who need CT to drive social and organizational digitalization. There are a number of strategies for teaching CT. However, there is no evidence regarding how to effectively teach CT in CS. To address this gap, this study proposes an educational approach that aims to promote CT to the students of CS and related disciplines. An educational experiment using this approach was conducted in two modules with similar content. The written reflections of 11 students on their development in CT and the quantitative data of students’ self-assessments of their CT skills and dispositions before (N = 20) and after (N = 11) the experiment were analyzed. Priority was given to the qualitative data. The results of this study support the hypothesis that the proposed approach has a positive impact on the development of students’ perceived CT skills. They also show that this approach stimulates and promotes students’ ability to transfer CT to other tasks and domains and to other contexts and situations. However, the positive development of students’ CT dispositions could not be demonstrated in this study, which can be explained by the short duration of this intervention. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Critical Thinking: Bridging a Successful Transition between University and Labour Market)
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19 pages, 1540 KiB  
Article
Undergraduate Students’ Conceptualization of Critical Thinking and Their Ideas for Critical Thinking Acquisition
by Dimitrios Pnevmatikos, Panagiota Christodoulou, Triantafyllia Georgiadou and Angeliki Lithoxoidou
Educ. Sci. 2023, 13(4), 416; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13040416 - 19 Apr 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3742
Abstract
Higher education institutions are responsible for preparing and equipping undergraduate students with the skills required by the labor market, such as critical thinking. However, academics should consider students’ pre-existing ideas before designing and implementing an instructional intervention regarding critical thinking. Drawing on the [...] Read more.
Higher education institutions are responsible for preparing and equipping undergraduate students with the skills required by the labor market, such as critical thinking. However, academics should consider students’ pre-existing ideas before designing and implementing an instructional intervention regarding critical thinking. Drawing on the literature for conceptual change, the current study aimed to map students’ conceptualization of critical thinking and their ideas regarding the acquisition of critical thinking. In total, 243 first-year social sciences students participated in the study. To explore students’ ideas, the authors constructed an instrument with 20 scientific and non-scientific statements about critical thinking. The instrument was a two-tier questionnaire, and participants indicated their level of agreement with each statement using a 5-point Likert scale as well as their confidence in their answers. Students’ ideas were categorized into six groups depending on their endorsements for the statement and their level of confidence in their decision. Results revealed that students had insufficient conceptualization of critical thinking, and their ideas regarding how critical thinking might be acquired were not consistently aligned with those of academics. Implications for instruction are discussed considering students’ ideas on critical thinking. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Critical Thinking: Bridging a Successful Transition between University and Labour Market)
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13 pages, 1287 KiB  
Article
Implementation of the Critical Thinking Blended Apprenticeship Curricula and Findings per Discipline: Foreign Language Teaching
by Ovidiu Ivancu, Roma Kriaučiūnienė and Svetozar Poštič
Educ. Sci. 2023, 13(2), 208; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13020208 - 16 Feb 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2607
Abstract
Critical thinking is a central element in higher education, designed to respond to authentic challenges that our society currently faces: the emergence and spread of fake news, disinformation, and manipulation. There is a consensus regarding CT’s importance and role in higher education. Nevertheless, [...] Read more.
Critical thinking is a central element in higher education, designed to respond to authentic challenges that our society currently faces: the emergence and spread of fake news, disinformation, and manipulation. There is a consensus regarding CT’s importance and role in higher education. Nevertheless, CT skills are often implicitly mentioned and only occasionally included in university curricula explicitly. The present paper aims at analysing how CT can be measured and tested in higher education, and it proposes specific tasks designed to increase the use of CT within the theoretical framework defined by Peter Facione and Paul Elder. Updated course descriptions were tested, and students’ feedback was analysed and discussed. CT was measured by pre-questionnaires, mid-questionnaires, and post-questionnaires to establish the effectiveness of coherently implementing CT into the course descriptions. The survey includes answers to open questions to determine the suitability of the tasks proposed. The present research is part of the international Erasmus project “Critical Thinking for Successful Jobs”. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Critical Thinking: Bridging a Successful Transition between University and Labour Market)
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14 pages, 247 KiB  
Article
Viewpoints on the Development of Critical Thinking Skills in the Process of Foreign Language Teaching in Higher Education and the Labor Market
by Svetozar Poštić, Roma Kriaučiūnienė and Ovidiu Ivancu
Educ. Sci. 2023, 13(2), 152; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13020152 - 31 Jan 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2777
Abstract
This paper analyzes the different viewpoints of the participants in four focus groups discussing critical thinking (CT) in teaching/studying foreign languages. Three of them were conducted at Vilnius University and one at the Public Service Language Centre in Vilnius, Lithuania. All of the [...] Read more.
This paper analyzes the different viewpoints of the participants in four focus groups discussing critical thinking (CT) in teaching/studying foreign languages. Three of them were conducted at Vilnius University and one at the Public Service Language Centre in Vilnius, Lithuania. All of the interviewees agree about the importance of critical thinking, although they define it differently and emphasize a number of various aspects needed for its acquisition and application. Both students/trainees and instructors/trainers describe several classroom activities that stimulate CT and suggest implicit and explicit methods for evaluating it. The focus group discussions were conducted as part of the international projects Think4Jobs, whose main task was to determine the gap between CT as it is taught at institutions of higher education and in the labor market. Answering this question, the participants mention the unpredictability of the labor market, the usefulness of CT for many different jobs and the importance of teaching it for the acquisition of foreign languages. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Critical Thinking: Bridging a Successful Transition between University and Labour Market)
19 pages, 344 KiB  
Article
Development and Validation of a Critical Thinking Assessment-Scale Short Form
by Rita Payan-Carreira, Ana Sacau-Fontenla, Hugo Rebelo, Luis Sebastião and Dimitris Pnevmatikos
Educ. Sci. 2022, 12(12), 938; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12120938 - 19 Dec 2022
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 7970
Abstract
This study presents and validates the psychometric characteristics of a short form of the Critical Thinking Self-assessment Scale (CTSAS). The original CTSAS was composed of six subscales representing the six components of Facione’s conceptualisation of critical thinking. The CTSAS short form kept the [...] Read more.
This study presents and validates the psychometric characteristics of a short form of the Critical Thinking Self-assessment Scale (CTSAS). The original CTSAS was composed of six subscales representing the six components of Facione’s conceptualisation of critical thinking. The CTSAS short form kept the same structures and reduced the number of items from 115 in the original version, to 60. The CTSAS short form was tested with a sample of 531 higher education students from five countries (Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Romania, and Portugal) enrolled in different disciplinary fields (Business Informatics, Teacher Education, English as a Foreign Language, Business and Economics, and Veterinary Medicine). The confirmatory analysis was used to test the new instrument reliability, internal consistency, and construct validity. Both the models that hypothesized the six factors to be correlated and to tap into a second-order factor representing the complex concept of critical thinking, had acceptable fit to the data. The instrument showed strong internal consistency (α = 0.969) and strong positive correlations between skills and between the skills and the overall scale (p < 0.05). Despite the unbalanced sex distribution in the population (close to 75% females), the instrument retained its factorial structure invariance across sexes. Therefore, the new instrument shows adequate goodness of fit and retained stability and reliability, and is proposed as a valid and reliable means to evaluate and monitor critical thinking in university students. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Critical Thinking: Bridging a Successful Transition between University and Labour Market)
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