Critical Thinking Skills and Brain Dominance of Post-Graduate Students

Authors

  • Nu Nu Nyunt Department of Educational Psychology, Yangon University of Education

Keywords:

Critical thinking skill, Brain dominance, Whole brain thinking

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to investigate the post-graduate students' critical thinking skill and examine their brain dominance. The design of this study was cross sectional in nature. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used in this study. The total of 326 post-graduate students from YUOE and SUOE participated in this study. Most of the participants were prospective teacher educators by profession. In addition, some of them were in-service teacher trainees and some were pre-service teacher trainees. Critical Thinking Skill Test (CTST) and Brain Dominance Test (BDT) were used as the research instruments. Alpha reliability for CTST, and BDT revealed at 0.64 and 0.86, respectively. Regarding the critical thinking, 25.8% were found to be advanced skilled thinkers, 46.9% were skilled thinkers, and the rest 27.3% can be classified as unskilled thinkers. Moreover, differences in level of education were found on overall test as well as interpretation sub-scale. Concerning the brain dominance, 27.9% of post-graduate students were whole brain thinkers, whereas 65.6 % were left-brain thinkers, and the rest 6.4% were right-brain thinkers.

References

Atkin, J. (1999). Thinking: Critical for Learning. In Edwards, J. (Ed) (1994). Thinking: International Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 201-215. Melbourne, Hawker Brownlow Education.

Bransford, J.D. et al. (2000). How people learn: brain, mind, experience, and school. USA: National Academy.

Dewey, J. (1933). How we think. Boston: Heath.

Elliott, D., Lee, B. J., Koh, B; Rickards, J., & Takayama, H. (1999). Learning to Think: Asians are trying to prepare kids for the information age. Can creativity be taught? Newsweek Magazine.

Facione, P. A. (1990a). Critical thinking: A statement of expert consensus for purposes of educational assessment and instruction. Research findings and recommendations. American Philosophical Association, Newark, DE. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 315423).

Facione, P. A. (1990b). The CCTST Technical Report #2: Factors predictive of CT skills. Millbrae, CA: California Academic.

Facione, P. A., Sánchez, (Giancarlo) C.A., Facione, N.C., & Gainen, J., (1995). The disposition toward critical thinking. Journal of General Education. 44, 1-25.

Hopkins, R. L. (1984). Educating the right brain: We need to teach patterning. USA: Clearing House.

Hough, D. (1987). Brain dominance theory and the Missouri public school curriculum as perceived by college freshmen at southwest Missouri state university: a field study. ED 296404. Unpublished field study, Missouri State University.

Irani, T., Rudd, R., Gallo, M., Ricke, S, J., Friedel, C., & Rhoades, E. (2007). Critical thinking instrumentation manual. Retrieved from http://step.ufl .edu/resources/criticalthinking/ctmanual.pdf

Keesler, V. (2006). Critical Thinking Test in Sociology Complete Test, Answer Key & Item Development Manual. Michigan: State University Michigan.

LoCicoro, J., & LoCicoro, R. J., & LoCicoro, K. A. (2005). The complete idiot's guide to clear thinking. USA: Alpha.

Martinez, M. E. (2000). Education as the cultivation of intelligence. USA: Lawrence Erlbaum.

McDonough, M. F. (1997). An assessment of critical thinking at the community college level. Dissertation Abstract International 58:2561A.

Paul, R.W. (1993). Critical thinking: How to prepare students for a rapidly changing world, Santa Rosa, CA: Foundation for critical thinking.

Paul, R., & Nosich, G. M. (1992). A model for the national assessment of higher order thinking. Santa Rosa, CA: Foundation for Critical Thinking. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 353296).

Porritt, J. (2005). Capitalism: As if the World Matters. UK: Earthscan.

Scriven, M., & Paul, R. (1987). Critical Thinking as Defined by the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking. The 8th annual international conference on critical thinking and education reform, Summer 1987.

Sousa, D. (2006). How the Brain Learns. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Townsend, D. (2005). Brain-based Learning. University of Lethbridge: Retrieved from http://education.alberta.ca/apps/aisi/literature/pdfs/ bbased_learning.pdf

Tsui, L. (2001). Faculty attitudes and the development of students' critical thinking. The Journal of General Education, 50(1), 1-27.

Tsui, L. (2002). Fostering Critical Thinking Through Effective Pedagogy: Evidence from Four Institutional Case Studies. The Journal of Higher Education - Volume 73, Number 6, November/December 2002, pp. 740-763. University of Cambridge Local Examinations

Syndicate (UCLES), (2007). Thinking Skills Assessment (TSA). UK. Cambridge University Press.

Wagner, M. (2009). Right Brain, Left Brain, Whole Brain. Retrieved June 21, 2010, from http://ezinearticles.com/?Right-Brain,-Left-Brain,-Whole-Brain&id=1996841.

Wade, C., & Tavris, C. (1996). Psychology (4th ed). USA: Harper Collins College Publishers.

Wonder, J., & Donovan, P. (1984). Whole brain thinking. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc.

Downloads

Published

2016-04-15

How to Cite

Nyunt, N. N. (2016). Critical Thinking Skills and Brain Dominance of Post-Graduate Students. AsTEN Journal of Teacher Education, 1(1). Retrieved from https://po.pnuresearchportal.org/ejournal/index.php/asten/article/view/147