Critical Thinking: Discussion from Chinese Postgraduate International Students and Their Lecturers

The ability to undertake critical thinking is required for a student to do well at university in the UK; Asian students are regularly criticised by lecturers because of their lack of critical thinking skills. This project seeks to understand Chinese postgraduate international students ’ experience of critical thinking while they are studying for their Masters degree in Tourism and Hospitality Management at the University of Plymouth. It investigates the students ’ perceptions of critical thinking and the problems they might have in applying critical thinking skills; meanwhile it evaluates educators ’ suggestions on applying critical thinking in tourism and hospitality subjects. Eventually it is intended to develop a strategy to facilitate the students ’ experience. Several general conclusions are drawn from this study. Firstly, due to the students ’ differing backgrounds, they have a different understanding of critical thinking and corresponding difficulties in applying it to their studies. Secondly, lecturers who are teaching the students have different views on critical thinking therefore they produce different procedures for the students to apply critical thinking in their work. However common procedures can be drawn from lecturers ’ suggestions. Based on those common procedures, a strategy is developed to facilitate the students ’ use of critical thinking skills in their study