University Applicants' Critical Thinking Skills: The Case of the Finnish Educational Sciences

This study investigates the quality of the critical thinking skills of applicants (n = 77) seeking entry to the faculty of educational sciences in a Finnish university and how these skills are associated with the applicant's age, previous higher education experience, and matriculation and entra...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scandinavian journal of educational research 2017-11, Vol.61 (6), p.629-649
Main Authors: Utriainen, Jukka, Marttunen, Miika, Kallio, Eeva, Tynjälä, Päivi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic Achievement
Age Differences
Argumentation
Cognition
College Applicants
College Entrance Examinations
Comparative Analysis
Correlation
Critical Thinking
Educational Experience
entrance examination
Entrance examinations
Epistemology
Finnish language
Foreign Countries
Grades (Scholastic)
Higher education
Multiple Regression Analysis
Persuasive Discourse
Prediction
Problem solving
Scores
Statistical Analysis
Thinking Skills
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This study investigates the quality of the critical thinking skills of applicants (n = 77) seeking entry to the faculty of educational sciences in a Finnish university and how these skills are associated with the applicant's age, previous higher education experience, and matriculation and entrance examination scores. The data consist of the applicants' responses to problem-solving tasks and their matriculation and entrance examination scores. Critical thinking skills were measured with comparison and argumentation tasks. The results indicate that comparison of the texts and analysis of the arguments they contained were more difficult tasks than putting forward arguments both for and against of one's personal standpoint. In addition, previous experience of higher education predicted participants' comparison skills and their matriculation examination grades predicted their argumentation skills. The feasibility of using critical comparison tasks in the entrance examination tests is discussed.
ISSN:0031-3831
1470-1170
DOI:10.1080/00313831.2016.1173092