2023 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Evaluating the Quality of Critical Thinking of Junior High School Students in Design Activities
| Project/Area Number |
21K02527
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| Research Institution | Kyushu University |
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Principal Investigator |
LOH WEI・LEONG 九州大学, 芸術工学研究院, 助教 (50790432)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2021-04-01 – 2025-03-31
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| Keywords | critical thinking / design-based learning / design thinking / creativity / design and technology / technology / problem solving |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
The purpose of the research for this year is to clarify the specific intellectual standards for each of the 8 elements of reasoning to evaluate the quality of critical thinking of students during ideation phase. Based on design journals done by junior high school students in the Design and Technology subject in overseas, a framework for evaluating the quality of critical thinking during the ideation phase was developed. The research outcome for evaluating critical thinking of students was successfully presented and published in this academic year.
In addition, initial studies have also started to identify the key factors in implementing critical thinking evaluation framework into design-based projects in local Japanese school. But what was discovered during the research was that design-based projects are few in junior high school education. One of the possibility of implementing design-based projects is in Technology Education in junior high school. Other format of implementing design-based projects is through STEM/STEAM projects in junior high schools. But PI discovered that to implement design-based projects in the current Technology Education subjects several key challenges need to be solved. Some of the challenges are, 1) Teachers are not well equipped with teaching and learning strategies for design-based pedagogies, 2) There is a lack of relevant evaluation methods for design-based projects, and etc. Some of these findings have also been successfully presented and published as overseas conference proceedings.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
Currently, the framework for evaluating students' critical thinking can be used to clarify students' reasoning skills during the problem identification stage and ideation stage. But this framework is largely based on case studies in overseas design education at junior high school level. To implement the framework into Japanese education context, studies were able to be done with local junior high and high schools in this academic year and have completed to some extend. But at the moment, as design-based learning in Japanese junior high are less developed as compared to overseas. It is necessary to consider how design-based learning can be implemented into Japanese junior high school education before this critical thinking evaluation framework can be adopted.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
The next stage of the research will aim to implement the critical thinking evaluation framework developed in this study into Japanese junior high school education. One of the scopes of this research is to clarify how design-based learning can be implemented in Japanese Technology Education in junior high schools. With the implementation of design-based learning in junior high school education, I hope to apply the critical thinking evaluation framework in design-based learning to clarify the quality of critical thinking of junior high school students during complex problem solving projects. In addition, I also hope to explore how the critical thinking evaluation framework can be applied in Japanese high school education.
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| Causes of Carryover |
In this academic year, there was no personnel expenditure spent for this research. This was because the research focused on conducting field surveys, presentation and publication of research outputs. In the new academic year, the amount for the next fiscal year will be used for personnel expenditure to assist PI to implement the research outcomes into local school education.
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| Remarks |
A website is created to share research outputs from from this research as open source materials.
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