Enhancing university students’ critical thinking via teaching economics-related disciplines
2019
Strelets, I., Moscow State Inst. of International Relations (MGIMO Univ.) (Russian Federation)
The twenty-first century introduces new demands to the higher education. It goes without saying that students should be professional and competitive at labour market. With information on the rise globally, each profession embraces various information-related skills and competencies. Thus, critical thinking plays an important role in the educational process. The study examines the role of critical thinking and the possibilities of economics-related disciplines in enhancing university students’ critical thinking. As there is a variety of definitions and understandings of critical thinking, the author introduces the concept of critical thinking, based on different approaches, defines critical thinking and skills it includes. The author conducted a survey covering students of economics from Russian universities. The aim of the survey was to find out university bachelor students’ perceptions of critical thinking and their evaluation of critical thinking development in courses of disciplines. For this purpose, the author used two questionnaires. The participation in the questionnaires was anonymous and voluntary. Comparative analysis method was applied to analyse the results. The findings support the hypothesis to encourage students’ critical thinking not only special critical thinking courses are important, but other disciplines as well. Teaching critical thinking along with professional skills (via economics-related disciplines) may give a significant educational result. To stimulate students’ critical thinking, more attention should be paid to active teaching methods (discussions, case studies, simulations, projects, team-work, Internet based assignments, problem solving). The aim of the study is to discover the possibilities of enhancing students’ critical thinking via different methods of teaching economics-related disciplines.
显示更多 [+] 显示较少 [-]