Critical Thinking, Reflective Practice, and Adaptive Expertise in Engineering

This synthesis paper examines the concepts of critical thinking, reflective practice, and adaptive expertise as represented throughout academic literature. The academic community generally considers each of these skillsets to be desirable attributes of engineering graduates and practitioners. Despite the trend of engineering programs across the country to embrace critical thinking, reflective practices, and adaptive expertise through mission and vision statements, the development of these qualities through education may be falling short. Lack of explicit exposure to and discussion of each concept may be contributing to the common inability of engineering students and educators to effectively communicate their understanding of each. In an attempt to contribute to the improvement of the situation, this paper aims to provide an individual evaluation of each topic as represented in the literature, a review of current operationalization techniques, and the current state of each topic within the field of engineering. Additional discussion builds connections by exploring relationships among the three topics, considers issues related to the topics within engineering, and offers possible areas of future exploration. Introduction Mission and vision statements for universities and colleges across the country underline the importance of critical thinking and related skills in higher education today. Without explicitly using the phrase, sources such as ABET EAC and the National Academy of Engineering assert the need for engineers to be well trained in critical thinking skills. However, a number of researchers argue that many students show little to no gain in “critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills” over the course of their undergraduate educations. Despite consensus that one of the primary goals of college faculty should be to promote critical thinking, many professors fail to express a clear understanding of critical thinking or how to convey its use to students. This represents a glaring roadblock on the path to producing effective engineers. The difficulty in expressing a coherent understanding of critical thinking likely stems from the variability present amongst its numerous descriptions. The definitions that exist lack an empirical basis, but a review and analysis of the various concepts may provide a foundation for discussion. Further, two additional topics may contribute significantly to the exploration of critical thinking: reflective practice and adaptive expertise. Critical thinking, reflective practice, and adaptive expertise have each received considerable attention individually in the academic literature, however, there appears to be a strong and deep connection present between these topics. Typically, each topic has been discussed in isolation or only in passing with respect to one another, so previous instances attempting to relate and link the concepts remain limited at best. Ultimately, the goal of this paper is to begin a conversation about how a more thorough understanding of critical thinking, reflective practice, and adaptive expertise in conjunction with one another might contribute to the improved development of engineering students. To most P ge 24342.2 effectively construct these relationships and their importance to the field, the paper shall be organized using the following structure: first, as the current literature typically considers each topic in isolation, the standard definitions of each will be presented individually; next, because the only way to determine the efficacy of our attempts to foster these abilities within our students necessitates an ability to measure, the existing operationalization techniques for each concept will be provided; subsequently, since improvements rarely occur without knowledge of the present state of affairs, a review of each concept in the context of engineering and engineering education will be considered; finally, all of the aforementioned content will be collectively analyzed to explore the relationships between each topic, the potential shortcomings of engineering education to sufficiently develop desirable skills, and how these shortcomings may be addressed, as well as additional questions this analysis may have aroused. Definitions Critical thinking lacks a clear, exact, and consistent definition due primarily to its highly philosophical nature. Some experts attempt to give broad definitions, ranging from a problem solving methodology, to an information filtration process, to a simple ‘frame of mind.’ Meanwhile, others define critical thinking through lists of specific skills related to reasoning, logic, and strategies. While each individual’s definition and terminology differs, general trends tend to emerge. This is perhaps best illustrated by Facione’s Delphi report in which 46 participants produced a collaborative definition of critical thinking as “purposeful, self-regulatory judgment” for “interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference,” leading to a set of six main skills with corresponding sub-skills. In addition to skills, several experts recognize that critical thinking involves a component of disposition or spirit, which leads an individual to approach all phases of life with reason and inquisitiveness. The generalizability of critical thinking generates a greater degree of contention, but may be the most important consideration. Some experts believe critical thinking cannot be developed in the absence of context and may vary in form by subject. Alternatively, others claim that while background knowledge may facilitate the process, critical thinking may be taught in a neutral context. Reflective practices relate closely to the disposition component of critical thinking. Aristotle began discussions of reflective practices, but Dewey, Heidegger, and Schӧn receive the most credit for developing the theory. The most important concepts involve transforming an unfamiliar or unexpected situation or surprise into something familiar by improvising a response using a ‘reflective conversation’ – ‘reframing’ the situation, considering possible actions, and ‘listening’ to the situation’s ‘backtalk’ in an iterative loop. Schӧn suggested that individuals participate in non-reflective thought (or knowing-in-action), post-mortem reflection (or reflection-on-action), and in situ reflection (or reflection-in-action). P ge 24342.3 The well-known foundations laid by Dewey, Heidegger, and Schӧn, however, apparently lack critical analysis and ironically fail to reflect upon themselves. The call for a more reflective, critical analysis of reflective practice produced both practical and philosophical developments. These developments have painted a clearer picture of levels of awareness, forms of surprise, bases of improvisation, modes of reflection (based on levels of engagement, temporal aspects, epistemic purpose, ‘images’, and needs for extensions), and differences between reflectivity and the deeper, more self-aware reflexivity. Developments have also unearthed potential limitations related to the use and study of reflective practices: man tends to avoid error and suppress negative feelings; different cultures may possess different viewpoints toward reflection; the standard utilitarian mentality potentially prevents anything beyond a practical grounding of reflection; and finally, reflection may be fruitless if practiced individually rather than through discourse in a group setting. Despite these limitations, reflective practices are still considered extremely useful in research and professional development, as long as the practitioner employs it appropriately based on experience and background knowledge. Adaptive expertise consists of two core concepts: expertise and transfer. General or routine experts have extensive domain-specific knowledge and experience, making them efficient, accurate, and fast with specific types of problems. Transfer represents the ability of an individual to apply concepts learned in one context to a different, usually similar, context. Adaptive experts, therefore, are like routine experts, but with the ability to transfer their skills. While general experts possess strong procedural knowledge, adaptive experts also possess strong conceptual knowledge. Thus, adaptive experts utilize their understanding to flexibly adapt previous mental models to new situations. Adaptive experts are both highly efficient and highly innovative, while routine experts are merely highly efficient. This difference derives from the adaptive expert’s use of multiple perspectives and metacognition, as well as a disposition toward more rigorous learning. Unfortunately, time constraints within the learning environment may lead to preferential adoption of procedural knowledge over conceptual knowledge, significantly hindering the development of an adaptive expert. Operationalization In order to determine the degree to which engineers utilize critical thinking, reflective practices, and adaptive expertise and, more importantly, how engineering students develop these skills, measurement techniques for each prove necessary. A number of methods currently exist, though the lack of an empirical basis for what constitutes each topic imparts a degree of imprecision and uncertainty. Nonetheless, a quick review of the present operationalization techniques follows to provide background for subsequent discussion. Researchers and practitioners have developed a variety of operationalization techniques for critical thinking over the years. Several groups have developed guides, frameworks, rubrics, and models to represent the skills of critical thinking – some based on expert opinions, others P ge 24342.4 derived through surveys of faculty perception of students. Studies frequently measure student critical thinking through preand posttests of relevant critical thinking skills, though others use qualitative interviews and observations to determine the studen