This is a draft of the presentation that will be given at the HEA Social Sciences annual conference - Teaching forward: the future of the Social Sciences. For further details of the conference: http://bit.ly/1cRDx0p Bookings open until 14 May 2014 http://bit.ly/1hzCMLR or external.events@heacademy.ac.uk Part of the 'Apocalypse Now' conference theme, which requires the presenter to imagine their own future world scenario. IMAGINED WORLD A New Conservative Dynasty: Choice and Private Enterprise dominate HEA - Today’s students are the first generation to have grown up surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones and other digital media, consequentially they have a different thinking and learning style and different brain structures to previous generations (Prensky 2001). Social science academics are thus teaching in a changed world where traditional lecture/seminar pedagogical practices may no longer be applicable to the teaching and learning needs of contemporary students. This fact combined with the rise of the student as consumer has triggered a shift where private enterprise rules and students pick and choose which aspects of teaching they will engage with. This presentation’s research indicates that already techniques seen as not applicable to their needs are bypassed by students offering an explanation for attendance, participation and low engagement issues and the failure of students to develop independent problem-solving skills. This presentation provides a survival guide for social science academics by identifying the gaps between staff and student perceptions and discussing techniques for teaching the core skills needed in critical thinking and problem solving; adapting pedagogical practices to the contemporary student. ABSTRACT What is critical thinking and to what extent do social science students develop analytical problem solving skills through traditional social science teaching? This paper presents the results thus far of an ongoing research project which identified that law and social science students are often not learning the analytical skills that staff think they are teaching. Most social science academics doubtless consider critical thinking to be an integral and inherently embedded aspect of their pedagogical practices. Yet research suggests that contemporary students do not learn this skill through traditional teaching methods and teaching has not adapted to their specific needs.

1. Postgraduate Course Feedback
Critical Thinking: A Crisis in the Social
Sciences
The Gaps in Staff and Students Student Perspectives
on the teaching of analytical thinking and (socio-legal)
problem solving skills: a research discussion
Dr Angus Nurse
Email – a.nurse@mdx.ac.uk

2. Contemporary students
• A New Conservative Dynasty: Choice and Private
Enterprise dominate HEA
• Today’s students are the first generation to have
grown up surrounded by and using computers,
videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell
phones and other digital media, consequentially
they have a different thinking and learning style and
different brain structures to previous generations
(Prensky 2001).

3. Background to the Research – How
is Critical Thinking Taught?
• Academic and student views of critical/analytical
thinking: gaps in perspective
• Critical Thinking Research: students may not be
developing the skills that teachers think they are
• Collaboration, motivation, innovation: student
views, preferences and information to develop
effective strategies

4. Research Questions
• What is critical thinking and how is it taught
or developed in Social Science teaching?
• How do students develop their critical
thinking skills?
• How do students think they should be
taught these skills and what assistance or
materials do they need to develop them?

5. What is Critical
Thinking?
The Delphi Experts (1990) defined Critical
Thinking as:
“purposeful, self-regulatory judgment which
results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and
inference, as well as explanation of the evidential,
conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or
contextual considerations upon which that
judgment is based.”

6. Teaching Critical Thinking
• The Development of critical thinking skills
requires:
• dedicated effort with this in mind
• reflection on thinking skills, practice and
procedures, not subject specific content
• similar effort and formal training to the
development of research students

7. Teaching Critical Thinking
• ‘If we want our students to become good reasoners, we
must become concerned to help them begin to notice the
inferences they are making, the assumptions they are
basing those inferences on, and the point of view about the
world they are taking – hence the systems in which they are
thinking. To help our students do this, we need to give them
clear examples of simple cases, and lots and lots of practice
analyzing and reconstructing them.’
(Paul, 1993
05/05/2014Slide 7

8. Student problems in applying critical/analytical
thinking skills
• What are the main problems that students
have in answering problem-type questions
or applying critical or analytical thinking
skills?
• Discussion

9. Student as Consumer: Research
Results
Student Comments:
• Lectures generally aren’t useful unless they have an interactive element.
• [Students] whinge about skills teaching but if you give them a choice on
learning the skills and having practical skills most students would
welcome it as an addition to the pure academic consideration.
• Teaching viewed as non-essential to passing the degree or preparing
students so that they could actually go and do a job tends to be avoided
by students; why turn up if its clear you don’t need to and can pass
anyway?
• There needs to be more practical application; you should be taught how
to read cases, analyse policy documents etc. If student essays are good
but they’re not analysing, evaluating etc. this should be flagged up so
that the student is given the skills you need.
• Low take up on electives demonstrates the popularity of lecturers but not
their personality, their ability to teach the material and help students
learn the material.

10. Teaching Critical Thinking
– student comments
• Students do not agree that this is achieved
through ‘traditional’ teaching
• lectures seen as ‘delivery mechanism’,
informative but outmoded
• teaching may not reflect their needs in absorbing
information
• teaching methods and perceived value impacts
on attendance

11. Student Views – Developing Skills
• Practical Simulated Learning – e.g. clinics, practical case work,
workshops highly valued
• Longer in-depth work aids understanding
• Collaborative working through workshops and exploration of faulty
reasoning and processes necessary?
• Reflective practices and not just right or wrong answers.

12. Resolving the Staff-Student Perception
Gap
• Discussion

13. Research Contact
• Dr Angus Nurse
Middlesex University
WG27 School of Law
The Burroughs
Hendon
NW4 4BT
Email –
a.nurse@mdx.ac.uk