Technology teachers’ disposition towards critical thinking in terms of their habits of mind

Abstract

The South African Department of Basic Education (2011) has articulated the need for learners to think critically. The development of critical thinking skills has therefore been explicitly included in various education policies, such as the National Curriculum Statement Grades R-12. Technology, a relatively new subject in South African schools, provides many opportunities to foster critical thinking skills through, for example, problem solving. Technology offers a wide spectrum of problems – ranging from well-structured to illstructured problems. Well-structured problems are constrained problems with convergent solutions and are the most commonly found problems in schools and universities, but ill-structured problems have multiple possible solutions and solutions paths, which often lead to uncertainty about, for example, the concepts, rules, and principles required to solve the problem. This is particularly true with regard to teaching technology, where there is the added complexity resultant from the designing of solutions (artefacts) to ill-structured problems. This calls for teachers with certain habits of mind, who will be able to nurture a positive disposition toward critical thinking in learners. Facione (2000) points out that engendering the desire to use critical thinking as a means of problem solving prepares the ground for teaching and learning critical thinking skills. Teachers, however, must be willing to use these opportunities to cultivate critical thinking skills in the classroom. While much research has been done on Critical Thinking skills, there is a paucity of literature about teachers’ disposition toward Critical Thinking. This study sought to investigate technology teachers’ disposition toward critical thinking with reference to their habits of mind. Profiling technology teachers’ disposition toward critical thinking can enhance our understanding of the extent to which they are positively or negatively disposed toward critical thinking (CT) in terms of their habits of mind. Such understanding can inform, inter alia, teacher training and curricula in order to reciprocally enhance critical thinking skills and the required habits of mind needed to teach technology The study used a survey design to investigate South African Technology teachers’ disposition toward CT. Grades 8, and 9 technology teachers were targeted; they were invited via an email to participate in the study in which standard ethical protocols were followed. A link in the email directed the participants to an online survey collecting data with 42 statements. Participants were asked to rate their level of agreement with each statement on a six-point scale. The statements were derived from the seven habits of mind as identified by Facione. These are: Self-confidence, Inquisitiveness, Systematicity, Analyticity, Truth-seeking, Open-mindedness and Maturity of Judgment. Half of the statements were formulated to express a clearly favourable disposition toward CT, while the other half were framed to be clearly unfavourable. The frequency of responses in terms of each scale for each statement was counted in order to reveal trends regarding their habits of mind. The research findings reveal that this sample seems to be positively disposed toward CT. The habits of mind that recorded the highest scores were Self-confidence, Inquisitiveness, and Systematicity. The habits of mind that recorded the lowest scores were Open-mindedness and Maturity of Judgment. Females outperformed males in four of the seven habits of mind. Male and female participants scored an equal balance percentage toward Self-confidence and male participants outperformed females in Truth-seeking and Analyticity. Further research is needed to investigate how the disposition and practice of technology teachers encourage critical thinking skills in the classroom.