Pedagogies for Critical Thinking: Innovation and Outcomes in African Higher Education

近年来，人们对高等教育如何促进经济和人类发展有了新的认识，这加强了在低收入背景下投资高等教育的理由。这反过来又促使了非洲高等教育系统内的一波改革和振兴努力。推动这种改革的主要假设之一是，高等教育鼓励人们批判性地思考问题，并在决策时使用证据。然而，有证据表明，学生通过大学学习提高批判性思维能力的假设在许多非洲情况下可能是不成立的。对非洲大学毕业生展示批判性思维等"高技能"的能力的关注，促使人们越来越认识到许多非洲高等教育机构需要进行教学改革。然而，该地区高等教育政策的一个问题是，对教学重要性的重新关注得到了有限的经验证据的支持，因为对非洲大学内教学实践的有效性几乎没有分析。虽然有大量的文献调查的方式，在大学的学术经验可以积极影响学生的批判性思维能力的发展，目前的证据大部分依赖于在其他文化背景下进行的研究，特别是美国，英国，澳大利亚和，在有限的程度上，东亚。因此，有这样的调查结果可能是如何适用于非洲大学contexting.This项目的目的是扩大现有的证据基础，围绕教学实践如何影响批判性思维的发展，在非洲高等教育机构通过调查当地产生的教学干预对学生的批判性思维能力的影响在肯尼亚，加纳和博茨瓦纳。该研究遵循混合方法设计，包括对学生成绩的纵向研究和对机构如何能够鼓励教学改革进程的定性调查。在每个国家的情况下，我们的机构样本将包括六个院系：三个已被有目的地选择，由于他们的教学改革的尝试，和三个'匹配'院系具有类似的特点，干预院系，但尚未尝试任何教学干预。在每个学院内，100名新生的随机样本将在第一年开始时完成批判性思维评估（适用于学习环境），并在大学第二年结束时再次完成。将比较各院系之间的评估分数，以调查在干预院系注册的学生是否比在没有尝试任何教学改革的院系注册的学生表现出更大的进步。进一步的分析将调查哪些教学实践对批判性思维能力的提高有最大的影响。与纵向研究平行，深入的定性案例研究将在“干预”学院内进行，以深入了解干预实施过程。该项目的结果将为非洲各大学目前正在实施的教学干预措施的有效性提供可能具有普遍性的证据。

New understanding of the ways in which higher education contributes to economic and human development has strengthened the justification for investment in higher education in lower-income contexts in recent years. This, in turn, has prompted a wave of reform and revitalisation efforts within African higher education systems. One of the primary assumptions motivating such reforms is that higher education encourages the ability to think critically about problems and to use evidence when making decisions. However, there is evidence to suggest that the assumption that students improve their critical thinking skills as a result of university study may not be valid in many African contexts. Concern about the capacity of graduates from African universities to demonstrate 'high skills', such as critical thinking, has prompted a growing recognition of the need for pedagogical change within many African higher education institutions. A problem for higher education policy in the region, however, is that this renewed interest in the importance of teaching and learning is supported by limited empirical evidence, as there has been little analysis of the effectiveness of pedagogical practice within African universities. Although there is a substantial body of literature investigating the ways in which academic experiences at university can positively influence the development of student critical thinking skills, much of the current evidence rests on research conducted in other cultural contexts, particularly the USA, UK, Australia and, to a limited extent, East Asia. There are, therefore, concerns about how applicable such findings may be to African university contexts.This project aims to expand the existing evidence base around how pedagogical practices affect the development of critical thinking at African higher education institutions by investigating the impact of locally-generated pedagogical interventions on student critical thinking ability in Kenya, Ghana and Botswana. The study follows a mixed methods design, comprising a longitudinal study of student outcomes and a qualitative investigation of how institutions are able to encourage processes of pedagogical change. In each country context, our institutional sample will consist of six faculties: three which have been purposively selected due to their attempts at pedagogical reform, and three 'matched' faculties which have similar characteristics to the intervention faculties but have not yet attempted any pedagogical interventions. Within each faculty, a random sample of 100 incoming students will complete a critical thinking assessment (adapted for use in the study contexts) at the beginning of their first year and again at the end of their second year at university. Gains in assessment scores will be compared between faculties, in order to investigate whether students enrolled in the intervention faculties demonstrate more progress than students enrolled in faculties which have not attempted any pedagogical reform. Additional analysis will investigate which pedagogical practices have the strongest impact on improvements in critical thinking ability. Parallel to the longitudinal study, in-depth qualitative case studies will be conducted within the 'intervention' Faculties, in order to gain insight into the intervention implementation process. The results of the project will provide potentially generalisable evidence of the effectiveness of pedagogical interventions currently being implemented within African universities.