Thanks to both Anthony Haynes and Theresa Summerfiled for their mails.
This is a topic I have used some energy on during the last years. My
experience is that the technology we have taken into use - which should
help both students and teachers to understand more and produce better
research - seems to work contrary to critical thinking. The technology
seems to render the students more passive and unreflected. When I
deliver a rather critical lecture in sport sociology using my PC and
Power Point, most of the students just lean comfortably back in their
seats, and just watch "the show". The most important question for them
seem to be "Will this lecture be downloaded to Fronter?". When they use
Internet, they uncritically use the first sites that pop up, without
evalutating the information and discussing the result, as both Anthony
and Theresa point at.
So far I think the main reason for the students' lack of critical
thinking skills is the change we can observe in the lecturing itself.
May be should we abandon the technology for a while. May be should we
force the students to hear, take notice and reflect upon what comes from
the lecturer's mouth. It will in my opinion be premature to write
critical textbooks before they are trained to critical. If not trained,
they will more likely use the more easy texts on the Internet, than a
critical and lengthy books in sport sociology, when preparing for the
exams. To sum up; three conditions are necessary: less use of the
technology during lectures, good advise of using Internet (Theresa's
site is a very good example) and good and critical textbooks (provided
for by Anthony) are available when students are in the process of
acquering critical thinking skills.
Best wishes
Jan Ove Tangen
Professor - sport sociology
Telemark University School
NORWAY
Den 15.11.2007 18:05, Anthony Haynes skrev:
> For over a year now I've been finding out how sport is studied in higher
> education. I've been doing this because I'm commissioning a new series of
> textbooks in the subject. I've visited campuses and met lots of lecturers.
> I'm consistently hearing from them there is a good deal of frustration over
> students' critical thinking skills - or, rather, lack of them!
>
> Common examples of complaints are:
> * students "google" information and then trust information from sources that
> aren't peer-reviewed and lack scientific validity
> * students relay the findings of a research article without assessing or
> even questioning the strength of the research eg the methodology employed
> * relying on single sources - and even plagiarising them.
>
> This is frustrating for the lecturers and limits the grades that the
> students themselves can achieve.
>
> Other editors tell me two things: (a) there are similar concerns in other
> disciplines; and (b) books about critical thinking are selling well. This
> suggests to me that there's a need for a book for sport students
> specifically on how to think critically.
>
> I'd welcome thoughts from JISC list members on any of the following:
> * what are the problems in the area of students' lack of critical thinking?
> * what would you want in a such a book?
> * who should write it? (Don't be shy if the answer is you!)
>
> Thank you in advance for any responses - they'll certainly help me in my
> work and I hope in due course they result in a book that solves some problems!
>
> Anthony Haynes
> The Professional and Higher Partnership
> [log in to unmask]
>
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________________________________________________________________
Jan Ove Tangen
Professor, dr. philos.
Høgskolen i Telemark
Avdeling for allmennvitenskaplige fag
tlf +47 35952759
3800 Bø i Telemark
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