Fostering Specific Dispositions of Critical Thinking for Student Engagement in Engineering

摘要

Recent international reports highlight the need for developing engineering students' soft skills to a greater degree for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In particular, critical thinking and creativity are the main focus as their enhancement were found to be difficult when using traditional logical-scientific approaches in engineering. In this study, we investigate different methods of fostering specific dispositions of critical thinking in engineering students that could enhance student intellectual engagement. These attributes are namely: (i) self-awareness; (ii) open-mindedness; (iii) attentiveness towards different situations, and (iv) broad perspective view. To achieve these objectives, two different activities -dialogue seminars and online discussion boards- were incorporated into the classroom. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the approach, rubrics designed with critical thinking frameworks were used. The results obtained show the chosen cognitive tools can be highly effective for the development of higher ordered thinking skills.