Critical Thinking Education Research Proposal 2022

Running head: CRITICAL THINKING EDUCATION 1
Critical Thinking Education
Name
Institution
Author’s Note

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Using Mind map to facilitate students’ critical thinking on managing preliminary
investigation
Introduction
Mind mapping can be best described as a visual technique with the capability of
adequately exploiting the way people are capable of thinking under various circumstances
through various forms of synaptic connections together with nonlinear associations (Zubaidah et
al., 2017). The use of mind mapping has been able to gain a lot of popularity in this modern
society since people have been able to use it in different areas to attain various goals and
objectives within an appropriate time frame (Rajapriya & Kumar, 2017). A lot of people have
been able to attain various objectives associated with critical thinking.
Background of the study
Since the implementation of mind mapping is capable of giving various practitioners the
access to different conditions of subconscious observations together with connections, it is
viewed to be one of the most fundamental thinking tools that positively contributes towards
different situations within the education sector (Yang et al., 2016). In most occasions, the use of
mind mapping is always connected to the critical thinking of a specific target group (Carter et al.,
2016). This further determines the capability of such people to be able to solve different
situations in their lives. As a result, the use of mind mapping is something that can be applied on
a daily basis within the life of an individual to come up with appropriate decisions (Putra et al.,
2016). The use of mind mapping to facilitate students’ critical thinking in terms of managing
preliminary investigation one of the most fundamentals steps that most academic institutions are
currently beginning to take into consideration (Liu et al., 2016).

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Problem statement
Thinking critically has become one of the biggest problems across various students most
so when it comes to the management of preliminary investigations. As a result of this, a good
number of students normally end up make wrong decisions which further prevents them from
meeting their future objectives. On the other hand, these students don’t have a vast knowledge
regarding the use of various parameters like the mind maps to scale up their level of critical
thinking thus making them to end up in the same position. Critical thinking is an essential aspect
that should be implemented by nearly every student but once s student is not able to do so, there
are higher chances of making wrong decisions.
Aim
This research proposal aims towards scaling up the critical thinking capacity of various
students through the use of mind maps that will provide them with a perfect opportunity to
manage different conditions of preliminary investigations. At the same time, it also aims towards
carrying out a critical thinking awareness across various students within different learning
institutions.
Objectives
The following objectives are fully attached to the research proposal;
(1) Creating awareness across different students
(2) Provide an explanation of how mind maps can be implemented to scale up the critical
thinking of various students

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(3) Making good use of ethical consideration during critical thinking process when handling
preliminary investigations
(4) Changing the perception of students for them to be able to think critically when dealing
with various issues in their daily lives
Research Questions
(1) What are the benefits of mind maps in terms of facilitating students’ critical thinking?
(2) Can students manage preliminary investigation without taking into consideration the
aspects of critical thinking?
(3) How do students view the use of mind maps in facilitating the level of their critical
thinking?
(4) To what extent can the use of mind maps change the critical thinking behaviors of
students as far as decision making processes are concerned?
Literature Review
Critical thinking skills mainly entail the processing of different types of information
through an adequate and reliable analysis, synthesis, explanation and even comparison of
different types of data. Moreover, a good percentage of the critical thinking skills are always like
common sense since their appearance is not that common (Siew & Mapeala, 2016). A good
number of studies have been able to postulate that about 70% of high school graduates are totally
deficient and only 28% of four year college graduate students are known to be having different
types of excellent skills. Across the entire world, a good number of the university educators
make good use of the lecture format backed up with power point slide as the major delivery
method (Santiago, 2011). As a result, more than a generation of various students has greatly
suffered “death by PowerPoint”, a special term that gives a description of the use of slides

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cluttered with texts that always appears to be irrelevant under certain conditions. An individual
by the name McClain clearly proposed the implementation of mind maps within the boundaries
of optometric education. She was able to recommend that various students should be given a
skeletal map at the beginning of a lecture. At this point, every student would then be required to
fill the blanks as they focus on the lecture (Miranti & Wilujeng, 2017). She further postulated
that the use of mind maps would allow the teachers to adequately stay on task and go as far as
allowing the students to add their personal ideas to the topic of study thus increasing their level
of comprehension.
Paykoc et al. was also able to describe the successful use of mind maps by faculty
members in the entire process associated with brainstorming curricular changes. This made the
map to be projected to the group thus making the whole progress of discussion to be fully
reflected in the mind map (Lovelace et al., 2016). Farrand et al. came up with a study that
majorly focused on the efficacy of mind mapping in order to enhance the performance in a fact-
recall test that was attached to a variety of medical students. As an additional variable, they were
able to ask the students to come out clearly and self-rate their motivation. Within the study, there
was a control group that decided to make use of their preferred study technique (Wilson et al.,
2016). The experimental group was further instructed to implement the use of mind mapping.
Both groups were then tested with a factual test that mainly consisted of fifteen different
questions. Additionally, they were also tested a week after the occurrence of the initial exposure.
Generally, those students who were allowed to implement their personal study techniques
appeared to be more motivated compared to the ones who were told to use mind mapping.
However the mind mappers were able to show adequate and reliable performances compared to
the non-mappers on matters associated with immediate recall test. In this current society, the

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development of science fully demands students in order able to compete by perfectly developing
various skills and knowledge (Tiruneh et al., 2016). Additionally, the learning method through
the use of mind mapping is majorly designed with the aim of developing students’ knowledge
with a vast range of creative activities thus composing the main idea of a concept into the entire
mind map. This makes it much easier for the students to understand and even analyze what is
taking place. The use of mind mapping further allows students to explore the association that
exists among different concepts. Additionally, it is also connected to the personal relationship of
an individual to the entire coursework (Koszycki et al., 2016). Under various circumstances, it is
likely to take place through an interaction that information is well stored by the permanent
memory of the student in order to be able to mirror some of the major concepts that are
connected to personal memories or even events (Anggrianto et al., 2016). Concept mapping is a
fundamental tool when it comes to the development of critical thinking in nursing education. A
vast range of studies have been able to indicate that concept mapping greatly enhances different
problem solving skills or even the course achievements that are associated with students who are
attached to different learning institutions. On the other hand, one major reasonable goal that can
be linked to critical thinking is the learners’ awareness of their personal thinking process
(Anggrianto et al., 2016). The use of mind maps appears to be one of the most powerful tools
that can always be used in the development of metacognition across various students. At the
same time, the most powerful of all the visual mapping tools are known to be driving from the
general systems thinking. From the look of things, the use of mind maps has greatly changed the
way various operations are being carried out across the whole world.

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Methodology
The use of mind maps has been able to gain much popularity across different learning
environments in this modern society. It’s a geographical technique that perfectly represents
different ideas and concepts (Fuad et al., 2017). Within the classroom environment, it has always
been used as a visual tool which focuses on restructuring of different types of information thus
helping the students to adequately analyze, comprehend, synthesize and be able to generate a
vast range of new ideas (Lee et al., 2013). Since this research will focus on the use of mind map
to facilitate the critical thinking of various students in terms of managing preliminary
investigation, an adequate and reliable methodology will be implemented and will consist of the
following that will be put into consideration;

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1. Identifying problem
This is the most ideal part of the methodology since it will help to come up with the
desired outcome in relation to the research proposal. As a result, a pretest will be carried out
in the entire class to come up with an appropriate result of various students as far as critical
thinking is concerned. Moreover, the pretest program will be conducted to students who will
be further divided into different groups.
Identification of the problem will also involve an observation of the class under various
circumstances. This will further provide a perfect opportunity to monitor the behaviors of the
students thus making it much easier to highlight the intended problem that they are likely to
encounter.

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2. Selection of area:
The entire scenario will be fully based on preliminary investigation in terms of coming up
with a new banking system. Again, in order to come up with an appropriate and reliable area, all
the students will be allocated for grouping allocation to make sure that any confusion that is
likely to emerge during the selection of the area is minimized as much as possible. Again, the
selection of area will fully depend on a lot of ethical considerations in order to be able to
distinguish the boundary that exists between what should be done together with what should be
avoided.
3. Collection data
An appropriate and reliable data collection will be carried out at this stage. Two different
groups will therefore be taken into consideration and their voice will be recorded. This will
provide a perfect opportunity to be able to revisit some of the essential information that is
discussed within the groups. It will be one of the most efficient data collection techniques since it
is very cheap and reliable.
4. Organizing of data
The posttest experiments will be carried out within the classrooms to come up with the
required data of creative thinking skills among the students thus making it much easier to
organize and understand the data more accurately. Additionally, this stage will also involve the
analysis and interpretation of various forms of data that will have been collected in the initial
stages. This will make it much easier to develop a clear understanding of what is taking place.
Finally, appropriate and reliable action will be taken into consideration at this stage to make sure
that all the target objectives are met within an appropriate time frame.

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Data analysis
The data analysis will mainly consist of the quasi experiment study that will put much focus
on the manipulation of an independent variable. One of the main reasons as to why quasi
experimental study will be implemented is because it will be a little bit tiresome to carry out a
random selection that will provide appropriate information for the entire research. Additionally,
there will be the use of Jefferson style for transcription process; this will be majorly obtained
from recording of group discussion. At the same time, it will also involve a series of ethical
considerations that will make sure that the right actions are well taken into consideration to
minimize the occurrence of any bias conditions that will be able to emerge.

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