Critical thinking? Perish the thought

Critical thinking is seen as key to reforming Thailand's education system and improving Thailand's global economic competitiveness. Thailand's "Higher Education and Training" ranking (especially the quality of education sub-ranking) in the World Economic Forum's latest Global Competitiveness Report is again low, unsurprisingly to many educators.

In 2013, the Programme for International Student Assessment revealed the 2012 test results for 15-year-old students in 67 participating areas, with Thailand among them. The test was meant to gauge critical thinking and literacy in mathematics, science and reading.

For Thailand, the mean score in all three categories hovered around the 25th percentile. Level 5 and 6 performance (indicative of higher-order cognitive processes) could only be achieved by 2.5% of the Thai students for mathematics, 1% for reading, and 0.9% for science. More than half of the students could not make it past Level 3 — which suggests they were only capable of solving straightforward problems. Why are Thai students struggling so much in critical thinking?

Studies have shown that critical thinking can grow and continue to flourish from early childhood, but that it is adults who crush it. Some specific behaviours have been established as obstacles to the development of critical thinking, and many of these behaviours, described below, are common and pervasive in Thai society and education.

The basic problem is suppressing curiosity by asserting the educators' words as the absolute authority, which sends a message to children that questions are not welcomed. Next, pushing dogma — a risk under any authoritarian government — by never explaining the reasons and evidence behind actions and decisions, limits children's ability to learn and apply them in other situations.

Moreover, rejecting alternative viewpoints, interpretations and explanations gives Thai children the impression that there is only one way to approach a particular problem. In addition, over reliance on well-structured problems, which are solved by algorithms and yield only one correct answer, never reflect the complexity of ill-structured problems in the real world.

Finally, spoon-feeding knowledge produces passive learners and hampers their development of self-directedness.

There really is not much chance of trying to build a foundation that has been repeatedly dismantled since early childhood. A reform programme that does not address these obstacles will be wishing on a star.

But, critical thinking is not beyond Thai students. As a medical student at Khon Kaen University, an admittedly privileged position, I had a chance to join the English Debate Club, a bastion of critical thinking. It was clear from the years I spent in the club that with the right ethos and training methods, critical thinking could begin to develop even in someone who had begun as late as at university.

The experience, combined with suggestions from extensive reading, led me to develop a course in critical thinking for first-year students at my faculty. The resulting basic concepts could guide the Education Ministry on how curriculum reform should be conducted for Thai students to be able to think critically.

First, it is necessary to start early since children in kindergarten can understand and exhibit basic forms of critical thinking. Critical thinking also does not develop overnight, but gradually develops over a period of years, again highlighting the importance of starting early. The reformed curriculum should start with considerations for Grade 1 and smoothly progress into the university years. Emphasis should also be placed on how the current students can be trained from the grades they are in.

Second, there is a need to focus on relevant knowledge. It is simply impossible to think critically about a social phenomenon if one does not have basic understanding of that phenomenon. And, since a person can only grasp so much content in their school years, lessons should be streamlined to cover the essential, relevant knowledge.

Next, educators need to allow enough time for self-study. Another advantage of trimming the content is that it frees up time for students to learn by themselves. Two important aspects of critical thinking are self-directedness and self-regulation. Students still have to be trained on how to take control of their own learning, but such effort will never work out if all the time slots in their lives are in use.

Fourth, educators should not waste classroom time on didactic content. Classroom time should be spent fostering higher-order cognitive processes using methods such as case discussion, problem solving, debate and skills training workshops. If you can get something just by opening a book, it is not worth spending classroom time on. Students can get such content on their own — if taught the love of reading early on and provided with a literature-rich environment.

Finally, examples need to be drawn from real-world, ill-structured issues. A good portion of critical thinking skills simply cannot flourish using straightforward, well-structured problems.

The ability to interpret, analyse, evaluate, infer and explain are all best developed using ill-structured problems because they embody the nuances and complexities of the real world.

Even subjects that appear as straightforward as maths and science still contain multiple perspectives and approaches to reaching a solution.

This reform will require substantial investment in money as well as manpower, and we may not see significant outcomes until several years later.

But one common scheme for many leading international corporations is to repeatedly make investments by making short-term sacrifices, thus enjoying the benefits further down the road when a steady stream of long-term gains begins rolling in.

The Education Ministry needs to plan similarly if we are to create a modern education system.