Teaching and Assessing Critical Thinking in English-Medium Instruction Courses: Perspectives from Japan

2021 Fiscal Year Research-status Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K00753
• Research Institution: Sophia University
• Principal Investigator: KOYAMA DENNIS 上智大学, 国際教養学部, 助教 (60817980)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-04-01 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: Critical Thinking

Outline of Annual Research Achievements

Five one-hour interviews were recorded and conducted on Zoom. Two of the recorded interviews have been transcribed, and codes for key concepts that facilitate or act as barriers to the instruction and assessment of critical thinking skills in the university EMI classroom are being identified from the data. These codes will be further developed from the remaining interviews with the purpose of cataloguing essential pedagogic and institutional conditions that promote or hinder the teaching and assessment of critical thinking.

An extensive literature review from the fields of educational studies, philosophy, and cognitive science has been drafted. By integrating the information from the literature review and the data collected from the interviews, the struggles and barriers for teaching and assessing critical thinking in EMI classes at Japanese universities are starting to emerge, as are the successful pedagogic approaches and administrative mechanisms that facilitate such teachings. These results and findings have been accepted for presentation at two international academic conferences in 2022: The International Conference on Bilingual Education and the CELC Symposium in Singapore, "Teaching English Language and Communication in a Changing Landscape: Innovations and Possibilities". After receiving feedback and input from the audience, the presentations will be redesigned and developed into an academic article about teaching and assessing critical thinking in EMI classrooms.

Current Status of Research Progress

4: Progress in research has been delayed.

Reason

The COVID-19 pandemic continued to cause delays and shifts in the focus of this research project, but some progress was made this year.

I completed five interviews, and have completed an extensive literature review of teaching and assessing critical thinking. Although the results and findings from the interview will be presented at two international academic conferences in 2022, more interviews are needed, and if possible classroom observations should be made.

Strategy for Future Research Activity

I will conduct more interviews and collect more data from teachers who assess critical thinking. I plan to collect more information from teachers via an online survey, which hopefully will help identify potential interviewees. After collecting such data, I plan to make academic presentations and write up reports for publication in relevant academic journals.

Causes of Carryover

The COVID-19 pandemic caused many conferences to move to remote presentations. In the coming academic year, I may need to fly to other countries for academic presentations, which may also require hotel fees for quarantine.