Critical Thinking and Academic Writing in Higher Education: A New Approach to Teaching Design

Abstract

During the 2019-2020 financial year, it was estimated that international students generated over 37 billion dollars worth of revenue for Australia. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the number of international students enrolling to study has placed the Australian higher education sector at risk of significant loss of revenue. Thus, the tertiary sector would benefit from finding opportunities to effectively reclaim and enhance this market in the future. Innovative pedagogical approaches, based on understanding and meeting the actual needs of international students, would better equip these students to meet the challenges of the future. In turn, such approaches would provide the sector with a crucial point of difference. Reports that international students experience difficulty engaging in critical thinking and academic writing present an opportunity for pedagogical strategies that can close this gap. Considerable research has been conducted to explore the complexities of teaching critical thinking and academic writing yet few authors have investigated the connection between these constructs. Underpinned by academic literacies theory and Larsson’s critical thinking sequence (2017), this thesis presents a design for a new pedagogical approach to critical thinking and academic writing. Using an educational design research approach and a combination of qualitative data gathering methods, the study demonstrates that, with changes to teaching philosophy and classroom practice, international students can realise improvements in their critical thinking and academic writing. These findings present an opportunity to the higher education sector to consider new ways to understand the needs of international students and to better approach engagement with this unique segment of the student body.