Higher Order Thinking in Graduate Studies: an Exploratory Study
Location
3031
Format Type
Paper
Format Type
Paper
Start Date
January 2016
End Date
January 2016
Abstract
University professors, especially at the graduate level, frequently ask themselves why their students are not capable of applying higher order thinking (HOT) skills to the problems they are assigned as part of their coursework. Many professors struggle to incentivize their students to use higher order thinking or scientific thinking (Vygotsky, 1978), but few problematize their pedagogy as the source of their students’ lack of HOT skills. Oftentimes, graduate students look for specific content to be memorized for the test or best practices that can be applied as remedies for their classroom practices and resist exercises and activities that they cannot specifically see as content that will contribute to their final goal. This study seeks to understand how graduate faculty members view their students’ higher order thinking skills. It also explores the faculty members’ description of pedagogical practices and techniques that will lead to the development of higher order thinking in their graduate students. In addition, the perspective of the student will be considered. Using a qualitative approach this exploratory study seeks to examine how graduate students and faculty describe/view/understand the relationship between pedagogical practices and the development of higher order thinking skills in graduate students.
Higher Order Thinking in Graduate Studies: an Exploratory Study
3031
University professors, especially at the graduate level, frequently ask themselves why their students are not capable of applying higher order thinking (HOT) skills to the problems they are assigned as part of their coursework. Many professors struggle to incentivize their students to use higher order thinking or scientific thinking (Vygotsky, 1978), but few problematize their pedagogy as the source of their students’ lack of HOT skills. Oftentimes, graduate students look for specific content to be memorized for the test or best practices that can be applied as remedies for their classroom practices and resist exercises and activities that they cannot specifically see as content that will contribute to their final goal. This study seeks to understand how graduate faculty members view their students’ higher order thinking skills. It also explores the faculty members’ description of pedagogical practices and techniques that will lead to the development of higher order thinking in their graduate students. In addition, the perspective of the student will be considered. Using a qualitative approach this exploratory study seeks to examine how graduate students and faculty describe/view/understand the relationship between pedagogical practices and the development of higher order thinking skills in graduate students.
Comments
In response to your query:
This is an in-progress study. We completed initial data collection and analysis, along with some preliminary findings. Our presentation would include a description of the methodology including data collection and analysis and findings to date.