Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Modern Approaches in Humanities and Social sciences
Year: 2023
DOI:
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Developing Critical Thinking Skills and Information Literacy in Japanese University Students
William Collins
ABSTRACT:
This paper reports the results of a two-year study on improving Japanese University EFL students’ critical-thinking and information literacy in a class focused on discussion and presentation skills. The course is designed to help students research complex and controversial issues like gender-equality, global warming, mass-migration and demographic changes, overpopulation, and competition versus cooperation. Students are required to gather data from websites such as Our World in Data and World Values Survey, learning how to interpret and describe data shown in graphs and survey results and use it to bolster or qualify their opinions. Given the intercultural component of the course, students incorporate data and survey results from different regions of the world to make cross-cultural comparisons. The presenter will show samples of student presentations and report the results of a student survey.
keywords: Information Literacy critical thinking data survey presentation discussion