Critical thinking subskills in project-based EFL learning: uneven salience and conditional activation.

Area of Science:

• Education
• Cognitive Psychology

Background:

• Critical thinking (CT) research in project-based learning (PBL) often focuses on overall improvement.
• Little is known about students' lived experiences of individual CT subskills during PBL tasks.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore how Grade 12 students describe their use of six CT subskills during intercultural PBL tasks.
• To understand the conditions influencing the activation and effectiveness of CT subskills.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative study involving twelve Grade 12 students in China.
• Semi-structured interviews conducted post-task.
• Hybrid thematic analysis of interview data.

Main Results:

• CT subskills were not experienced equally or simultaneously.
• Interpreting and analyzing were early, consistent skills; inferring and evaluating were variable.
• Explaining and self-regulating were late-stage skills, often impacted by time pressure.

Conclusions:

• CT subskills are unevenly distributed across PBL task phases.
• Fostering CT in intercultural PBL requires supporting variable and later-emerging subskills.
• Task conditions like stakes, rubrics, and feedback influence CT subskill effectiveness.