Browsing by Subject "CLA"
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(2015)Goals. Generic skills are skills that are needed in every field of study and occupation. The term generic skills has been used widely especially during the past few decades because of the rapid change in society and working life. Thus, skills mentioned above are also important study skills that every student needs during the higher education studies. The aim of this study was to find out what kind of text-related generic skills first year class teacher students have. Methods. The data used in the study was gathered as a part of the Learning Generic Skills during University Teaching and Learning research project (Hyytinen, Toom & Lindblom-Ylänne 2012). Generic skills were studied using the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) that is a standardized testing instrument designed to test critical thinking, analytic reasoning, problem solving, and written communicational skills. The data consisted of 45 CLA answers written by the first year class teacher students in University of Helsinki, and it was gathered in Fall 2013. In order to examine students' writing skills in a more specific way, the answers that got the highest and the lowest scores in the CLA analysis were studied using Rich feature analysis. Results & Conclusions. The study showed that the generic skills among the first year class teacher students were mediocre: the amount of the answers with low or average CLA scores were high, whereas answers with high scores were rarely found in the data. The most significant problems were found in the synthetisation of given information, but also the skills of argumentation were generally poor. The rich feature analysis showed that uses of conjunctions and different theme structures varied between the answers with high and low CLA scores, and that these had impact on the logic and the coherence of the texts. There were also differences between the two studied groups regarding to the dialogic occurring in the texts. In the answers with high CLA scores the elements of dialogic (reporting clause, summary and interpretation) could always be pointed out; in the answers with low CLA scores the dialogic was not always clear and the elements of dialogic could not always be distinguished.
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(2018)Aims. From an individual student’s perspective, the changing work and working environments demand academic expertise based on a comprehensive knowledge base and flexibility. Generic skills learned during university studies are thus essential in this process. Previous research has shown that critical thinking, as one of the generic skills, is in itself a prerequisite for the development of other areas in academic expertise. Recent studies have reported extensive variation in university students’ critical thinking skills since the beginning of university studies. These studies have highlighted the area as central for developing academic expertise. Deliberate thinking, often described as conscious and controlled, has close connections to critical thinking. Although this conceptual link has been noted in recent literature, only few studies have combined the areas and examined them from the viewpoint of developing academic expertise. To address this issue, this thesis explores the relationship between critical and deliberate thinking and clarifies how they could be accounted for while developing academic expertise. Methods. The study was conducted by analyzing written CLA performance task responses by 18 first-year teacher students. CLA tasks are designed to measure critical thinking by presenting open-ended questions about a real-world situation together with selected documents. Three core skills of the student’s critical thinking, namely analytic reasoning, problem solving and argumentation, were assessed using a theory-based scoring matrix. The deliberate thinking embodied by the responses was identified and categorized by the use of deductive content analysis. Finally, the results of the two analysis methods were combined in order to depict the connection between critical and deliberate thinking. Results and conclusions. In line with previous studies, remarkable variation in the students’ critical thinking skills was found in the study. Regarding deliberate thinking, it was possible to point out the strengths, weaknesses and distinctive characteristics from each student’s response. The comparison of critical and deliberate thinking clarified the relationship between the concepts. It also indicated that it is possible to combine these areas both on a theoretical and empirical level, it provides meaningful results and it builds a more detailed picture of the students’ problem-solving processes.
Now showing items 1-2 of 2