Abstract
This qualitative study looks at the classroom pedagogical strategies of asking thought encouraging questions to promote critical thinking skills among the business students. General trends of Business education globally and in Pakistan suggest a preference for behaviorist rather than constructivist approaches, and needs to be replaced by critical thinking skills (Chun, 2010; Savery, 2009), for increased cognitive readiness for tasks that involve analysis and reasoning The study took Golding’s (2011) concept of ‘thought encouraging questioning’ as a model built on Richard Paul’s method of Socrates questions, to study if thought-encouraging questions can inculcate critical thinking among business students. A dialogic approach was taken to excite thought encouraging question by adapting Lipman’s (2003) concept of ‘community of inquiry’ into ‘community of critical thinkers’. Ideas for discussions were derived from a plethora of multidisciplines, experiences and readings. A sample of 41 students was taken from a business communication course. A 6-hour teaching/learning process was studied through observation and feedback during the stages of training, tasking and reflecting, using classroom observations, semi-structured interviews and qualitative questionnaire. The findings of the study suggest a need for explicit training in CT skills through thought encouraging questions, students’ preference for pedagogical interventions for enhancing critical thinking and increased quality time spent in formulating higher order questions.
aliya sikandar. (2018) ALIYA SIKANDAR, Pakistan Business Review, Volume 20, Issue 3.
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