Abstract
In recent years, there have been numerous attempts to improve the quality of higher education in Africa, but there is limited knowledge about the impact of these initiatives on student learning. The results of a study published in 2015 offered some initial data in this regard by identifying a lack of improvement in the critical thinking ability of students enrolled at three of Rwanda’s public universities, despite extensive pedagogical reforms across the sector. However, subsequent analysis of the study data suggests that this lack of improvement is not a general phenomenon, as students graduating from the KIST Faculty of Architecture and Environmental Design appear to exhibit deeper approaches to learning and stronger critical thinking skills than graduates with similar backgrounds from other Faculties involved in the study. This paper examines the factors that appear to have contributed to this outlying Faculty’s success and argues that departmental culture has played a crucial role, by fostering the conditions necessary for pedagogical innovation.
Highlights
In recent years, there have been numerous attempts to improve the quality of higher education in Africa, but there is limited knowledge about the impact of these initiatives on student learning
The marked contrast in academic experiences between Faculty of Architecture and Environmental Design (FAED) and the other five faculties in the sample suggested the need for additional analysis of the data pertaining to the FAED case, in order to determine if the apparent differences in pedagogy within FAED had any impact on student learning
The ‘learning facilitation’ orientation evident across FAED, in contrast, is well-suited to the constructivist pedagogical approaches most likely to foster critical thinking skills and is likely to be fostered through the faculty’s collective emphasis on supporting students to explore what is unknown in their field
Summary
Critical thinking is viewed around the world as a crucially important outcome of a university education (Davies and Barnett 2015). Open-ended assessments which ask students to demonstrate their own understanding content by applying their knowledge to new situations can help to encourage the use of critical thinking skills, provided students have ample opportunity to practice similar activity in low-stakes circumstances and are given sufficient feedback to help them understand their current level of ability in relation to the outcomes they are striving to reach (Entwistle and Entwistle 1997; Tsui 2002) Such educational experiences can be introduced within individual modules, the evidence suggests that it is more likely that critical thinking will be encouraged when they are infused throughout the curriculum. To date, little is known about the impact of such reforms on student learning outcomes
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