Exploring Cultural Differences in Critical Thinking: Is it About My Thinking Style or the Language I Speak?

Running head: CRITICAL THINKING
CRITICAL THINKING
Student’s Name
University Name
Author’s Name

2CRITICAL THINKING
Article used:
Lun, V.M., Fischer, R. & Ward, C. (2010). Exploring cultural differences in critical thinking:
Is it about my thinking style or the language I speak? Journal of a School of
Psychology and Centre for Applied Cross-Cultural Research, Victoria University of
Wellington. 20(6), 604-616. Retrieved on: 31 July 2018. Retrieved from: https://www-
sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.cqu.edu.au/science/article/pii/S1041608010000816a
1. Introduction (Research Background)
Critical thinking have had an exemplary influence on learning of students particular in
this era when they are exposed before so many information databases. In the chosen article,
the authors tend to reflect most essential viewpoints regarding how cultural biases
differentiate the way in which students acquire knowledge and explore the various
information databases. The viewpoints expressed by various critics of International literature
indicated that perhaps the Asian students lack the critical perception of study compared to
their Western counterparts. IN this context, all major and supportive findings that have been
discussed in the concerned article have been highlighted in the course of this article analysis.
Various hypothetical testing parameters of International Education literature have also been
applied in the course of this study in order to understand the objective measures that the
European and the Asian students have attained at the end of the tests.
2. Discussion
Research Problem
The primary concern of this article is exploring whether the Asian students explore
typical knowledge base and gain much more generalised knowledge compared to the western
students or not. In fact Jerrim (2015), have opined that the curriculum of classroom
discussion is very less practiced in the Asian classrooms. The mode of conveying educational

3CRITICAL THINKING
knowledge from the end of the teachers is mainly through monologues. The students on the
other hands are rarely expressive in classrooms and hence their spirit of critical thinking is
not developed. This is the primary research problem in this article. In this context, the
conception of critical thinking have also been explored and in what ways are the western
students ahead in critical analysis and learning of the topics they study than the Asian
students have also been questioned in this article.
In international education, critiquing and debating the principles or the theories
described in the classroom is highly appreciated and invited from the professor’s ends. In fact
the kind of classroom awareness and the quality of questions raised by the students’ during
the tenure of discussion regarding a certain topic is analysed by the teachers to conclude what
level of understanding has the student achieved in terms of the concerned topic. In the views
of Prevoo et al. (2016), critical thinking on the part of the students is not despised by the
teachers in the western countries. However the classroom structure and the lecture patterns
that is practiced in the Asian classrooms do not provide much scope to the students for
reflection of doubts or confusion, or expression of alternative perception. However, in the
Western education system, cognitive skills of the students are high. They play the role of a
critical thinker in the classrooms. In the words of Bleidorn et al. (2016), in the college level,
critical thinking has a very significant place in education. The certain aspects of critical
thinking that have been identified by Hallinger and Chen (2015), are the ability of the
students to identify the assumptions behind the formulation behind any argument, making
smart and relevant inferences from the interpretation of databases and also critiquing the
merit of a conclusion that the author reaches at the end of the derivation. Another important
hypothesis made by this article is that the lack of English language proficiency is directly
related to the lack of critical thinking skills among the Asian students. In this context, the
Cognitive Load Theory have been utilised in this concerned article. The Lack of proficiency