In a world of endless information flow the ability to discriminate fact from fiction is highly valued. Critical thinking is not a skill that is always taught directly and sometimes not taught at all. The Taiwanese government has promoted critical thinking as an essential part of education. Bibby & Chang (2025) reported that teachers believe that teaching critical thinking skills is important but under resourced. The major obstruction is an assessment system that is exam focused. In an extension of this research a follow up online questionnaire asked students (Male N=43, Female N=74) from high school (N=, Mean Age:16.78yrs) and university (N=, Mean Age: 20.64yrs) attending public and private schools whether they felt critical thinking skills were important, whether they were taught and if so taught well, and how able they feel with respect to critical thinking. In addition they were asked how frequently specific thinking skills were taught. The results suggest that like teachers Taiwanese students recognise the importance of critical thinking though they did not always think it was well taught or encouraged. There was also evidence that public school students under appreciated their critical thinking skills and private school students over estimated theirs and this was something that became clear at University. Furthermore, with regard to specific thinking skills there was a disconnect between the teachers’ and students’ perceptions of how often a skill was taught. The implications of the these findings will be discussed.

Authors:
Peter Bibby, Lead for Taiwan, Taiwan
Shania Chang, Lead for Taiwan, Taiwan

About the Presenter(s)
Dr Peter Bibby is currently a retired Psychology professor from the UK with a PhD in Psychology and Computing who now acts as a consultant for a Taiwanese NGO called "Lead for Taiwan" (LFT) promoting 'Critical Thinking' in schools and Universities

See this presentation on the full schedule – Tuesday Schedule

Bookmark