Teacher Perceptions of Critical Thinking Among Students and its Influence on Higher Education

Abstract

The concept of critical thinking was featured in taxonomies a few decades ago. Critical thinking is a complex process that requires higher levels of cognitive skills in the processing of information. The teachers ’ perceptions of critical thinking among students influence their behaviors in the classroom. It has been found that teachers perceive they are teaching critical thinking to their students and believe that critical thinking will provide the intellectual stimuli that will facilitate critical thinking. The evidence of critical thinking among students was perceived to be their ability to explain to ideas and concepts in their own words. However, the ability to think logically and solve problems using new approaches paraphrase is not an indication of the students ’ higher-level cognitive skills but the process the student undertakes to gain understanding of the material presented. Teachers did not seem to understand the requirements needed to cultivate critical thinking among students. Although teachers perceive that they are encouraging critical thinking in the classroom, they are merely focusing on the comprehension of the subject matter. One of the on going debates in education research is whether students can learn to think critically through their own exploration or whether they need to be