Exploring critical thinking barriers: The role of EAP in fostering skills, dispositions and criticality

Kathryn Aston

Abstract

Developing critical thinking is a key role of the EAP practitioner. Although critical thinking is often treated pragmatically within EAP as a set of skills (Moore, 2019), it can also be regarded as the possession of certain ‘dispositions’ (Davies & Barnett, 2015, pp. 13–14), or as ‘criticality’, e.g., being a ‘critically engaged citizen of the world’ (Davies & Barnett, 2015, p. 16). Several psychological and sociological factors may impede critical thinking, for example, belief and confirmation biases (Kahneman, 2011), framing (Toplak et al., 2013), social pressure to conform (Norgaard, 2009) and poor assessment of probability and risk (Kahneman, 2011). For the purposes of my study, I ran a series of critical thinking workshops for EAP students, which explored such factors affecting critical thinking. Then, I interviewed participants to discover the effects of the workshops on their concept of critical thinking and any impacts they perceived on their own thinking. The data was analysed using thematic analysis and code development. The results suggest: i) an improved understanding of the critical thinking skills of questioning, analysing, seeing issues from multiple perspectives and argument building and ii) a new awareness of confirmation bias, the use of evidence and sources, framing, independent thinking and culture in relation to critical thinking. There was evidence of development in critical dispositions relating to the self (e.g., self-awareness) and to other people (e.g., respect for others’ views). The research has implications for the role of the EAP teacher in fostering critical thinking dispositions and criticality in their students beyond an instrumental focus on specific skills needed to complete academic tasks.