Perceptions of critical thinking among banking academy of vietnam final year students

Banking Academy of Vietnam Faculty of Foreign Languages GRADUATION THESIS Perceptions of Critical Thinking among Banking Academy of Vietnam final-year students Author Le Vu Chung Thanh Student ID 20A7510155 Class K20ATCB Academic Year 2017 - 2021 Supervisor Dr Trinh Ngoc Anh Hanoi, May 2021 Tai ngay!!! Ban co the xoa dong chu nay!!! 17014128214121000000 Certificate of Originality I declare that the work in this thesis titled “Perceptions of Critical Thinking among Banking Academy of Vietnam final-year students” is my original work No part of this thesis was previously presented in any study All sources and citations were referenced in the bibliography _ Hanoi, May 2021 Le Vu Chung Thanh i Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to express my deep and sincere gratitude to my supervisor - Dr Trinh Ngoc Anh, for providing me invaluable guidance throughout this research It was great luck and an honor to work and study under her guidance Despite her busy schedule, she was always patient and spent time helping me complete this thesis Besides teaching me the methodology to carry out the research and to present it as clearly as possible, her dynamism, vision, and motivation have deeply inspired me I am extremely grateful for what she has offered me Second, I also thank the BAV lecturers in general and the Faculty of Foreign Languages lecturers in particular for their enthusiasm and inspiration in studying and in life experience for many generations of students, including me Thanks to them, I have found the direction for my future, and the day I finish this thesis will be the day I complete a part of my long-term plan Third, I would like to thank my family and friends for always being by my side, supporting, encouraging, and helping me improve myself day by day Thank Truc Quynh for always being a great friend; her positivity and warmth have helped me change the way I see the world Thank the friends from class K20ATCB, of the Faculty of Foreign Languages’ Youth Union and my dormitory roommates for supporting me a lot, they have made my student life at BAV more colorful and exciting There were times when the pressure and fear made me want to give up, but thanks to them, I could get up and finish this thesis Finally, I want to thank a special person for always being by my side and taking care of me over the past two years, even in my most desperate times I will never forget these priceless experiences Love you all ii Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Background of the study 1.2 Research questions 1.3 Scope and limitation of the study 1.4 Significance of the study 1.5 Structure of the study Chapter 2: Literature Review 2.1 Conceptualisation of Critical Thinking 2.1.1 Definitions of Critical Thinking 2.1.2 The role of Critical Thinking skills 2.1.3 Review of previous studies 2.2 Theoretical frameworks of Critical Thinking 13 2.2.1 The Revised Bloom's Taxonomy 13 2.2.2 Liu et al.'s framework of Critical Thinking 19 2.2.3 Some of the other frameworks 21 2.2.4 Summary 22 Chapter 3: Methodology 23 3.1 Research locale 23 3.2 Data gathering procedure 23 3.3 Research population and Sample description 24 3.4 Research instruments 26 3.4.1 Questionnaire 26 iii 3.4.3 Microsoft Excel 2019 27 3.4.4 SPSS Version 22 27 3.5 Statistical treatment 27 3.6 Reliability and validity 28 3.7 Summary 32 Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion 33 4.1 Findings 33 4.1.1 Awareness of CT among BAV final-year students 33 4.1.2 Final-year students' frequency of thinking critically 37 4.1.3 Frequency of facing difficulties when thinking critically 39 4.1.4 BAV final-year students' interest in Critical Thinking 41 4.2 Discussion 43 4.2.1 Perceptions of Critical Thinking among BAV final-year students 43 4.2.2 Final-year students’ frequency of practice and facing difficulties when thinking critically 43 4.2.3 BAV final-year students' interest in learning Critical Thinking 44 Chapter 5: Conclusion 45 5.1 Conclusion 45 5.2 Recommendations 46 Bibliography 48 Appendix 53 Appendix 1: Questionnaire on Perceptions of Critical Thinking among BAV final-year students (English version) (*Compulsory) 53 Appendix 2: Questionnaire on Perceptions of Critical Thinking among BAV final-year students (Vietnamese version) (*Compulsory) 59 iv Appendix 3: Encoding survey items 65 v List of Abbreviations Abbreviation Explaination BAV Banking Academy of Vietnam CT Critical Thinking SD Standard Deviation SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences RBT Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy vi List of Figures Figure Page Figure - Thinking Uncritically and Critically (Reid et al., 2014, p 31) Figure - The Knowledge Dimension of the RBT (Krathwohl, 2002, p 14 214 ) Figure - The changes of the Bloom's Taxonomy – Illustrated by me 15 Figure - Framework of Critical Thinking (Liu et al., 2014) – Illustrated 20 by me Figure - CT and higher-order thinking – illustrated by me 22 Figure - Data gathering process 24 Figure - Framework of data analyzing 28 Figure - BAV final-year students' awareness of CT 33 Figure - Sources of information from which participants know about CT 34 Figure 10 - Final-year students' awareness of being taught about CT while 35 studying at BAV Figure 11 - BAV final-year students' interest in learning CT 42 Figure 12 - Participants’ opinions on the importance of CT integration in 42 the BAV’s curriculums vii List of Tables Table Page Table 2-1 Philosophers' definitions of CT (Lai, 2011, p.6) Table 2-2 Psychologists' definitions of CT (Lai, 2011, p 8) Table 2-3 The Cognitive Dimension Process (Anderson & Krathwohl, 16 2001) Table 3-1 Participants' demographic 25 Table 3-2 Cronbach's Alpha coefficient of groups of research results 29 Table 3-3 Cronbach's Alpha coefficient of section 29 Table 3-4 Cronbach's Alpha coefficient of section (2) 31 Table 3-5 Cronbach's alpha coefficient of section 32 Table 3-6 Cronbach's Alpha coefficient of section (2) 28 Table 4-1 Perceptions of BAV final-year students towards the importance 35 of CT in their career, study, and daily life Table 4-2 Perceptions of BAV final-year students towards the importance 36 of CT in improving interpersonal skills Table 4-3 BAV final-year students' frequency of thinking critically 37 Table 4-4 Differences of practicing CT between English major and non- 38 English major students Table 4-5 Frequency of facing difficulties when thinking critically 39 Table 4-6 Differences of having difficulties when thinking critically 41 between English-major and non-English major students viii List of Appendix Title English version: Questionnaire on Perceptions of CT among Page 50 BAV final-year students Vietnamese version: Questionnaire on Perceptions of CT among 56 BAV final-year students Encoding survey items 62 ix