What is critical thinking? Pre-commencement perceptions of enabling students

Critical thinking is an implicit skill expected of students entering university, and yet many students are uncertain about what it means to be a critical thinker and how to apply this skill within their units of study. This is particularly evident within enabling programs as students who enter university through an enabling skills pathway often present with lower level academic skills and confidence. This is due to a multitude of reasons, some of which include being away from the educational environment for a number of years through to not achieving well in their high school years. Ultimately, this can have negative implications in their confidence to handle academic study because once students have transitioned into the undergraduate arena, they are expected to engage critically with a vast body of knowledge and then proceed to analyse, synthesise and evaluate arguments (James, 2016). Critical thinking is a skillset that is an implicit expectation, yet often not an academic skillset that is explicitly taught. This paper will share the preliminary findings from a research project that is piloting a critical reflection instructional booklet. The findings from this paper are drawn from an initial survey that was completed prior to students starting their first term of study in the Skills for Tertiary Education Preparatory Studies (STEPS). The participants in this study initially completed a standardised critical thinking test that gauged their conceptions of what critical thinking means to them and how they expect to apply it within the course. They then undertook a practical activity where they critically analysed a short excerpt. The data, which was analysed using thematic analysis, and the resulting findings are shared within this paper.