I have frequently taught Research Methods and Design to college students at several institutions. I love teaching this course. One reason, of course, is that I enjoy thinking about research methodology (方法学) and sharing it with others. The other reason, however, is the obvious impact that it has on students. Every term, one (if not more) student tells me how taking this course has affected him/her: “I used to just read articles and believe what they said, but now I find myself asking ‘Is this true? How do they know? Is this a well designed study?” That is what I want the students to achieve in this course.

This brings to mind something written by Dorothy L. Sayers in 1948. One of her books, The Lost Tools of Learning speaks to Sayers’ thoughts on education. “By teaching our young men and women to read, we have left them at the mercy of the printed words. By the invention of the film and the radio,we have made certain that no dislike for reading shall protect them from the constant battery of words, words, words. They do not know what the words mean: they are victims to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intelligence.”

We are well past the 1940s, but her observation is still relevant. Sayers’ point is well taken. In the world of 24-hour news and social media that often resembles (类似) the Wild West, the ability to carry out evaluations has never been more important. In order to resist the distortions with which we are constantly bombed in the media, as well as be able to present a persuasive argument, we must be able to reason well, and think and give a judgement carefully.

When my students begin the Research Methods and Design course, they are generally not content to read all those research article I give. However, by the end of the course, they are excited about their newly obtained abilities.

Few people doubt the value of developing students' thinking skills. A focus on critical thinking is common in education. In the Australian Curriculum, critical thinking and creative thinking are known as “general capabilities”. The US has a similar focus through their “common core".

Many approaches to developing critical thinking are based on Philosophy for Children. One strategy that has a large impact on students' ability to analyse and evaluate arguments is argument mapping, in which a student's reasoning can be visually displayed by capturing the inferential pathway from assumption to conclusion. This type of argument-based intellectual engagement can show high outcomes in terms of the quality of thinking in any classroom. Research also shows deliberate attention to the practice of reasoning in the context of our everyday lives can be significantly improved through targeted teaching.

Teachers at one high school in Australia, who have much training in critical thinking teaching methods, developed a task that asked students to determine Australia's greatest sports person. Students needed to construct their own criteria for greatness. To do so, they had to analyze the Australian sporting context, create possible evaluative standards, explain and justify why some standards would be more acceptable than others and apply these to their candidates. They then needed to argue their case with their classmates to develop criteria that were solid, defensible, widely applicable and produced a choice that seized significant and relevant aspects of Australian sport.

Researchers looking at the gains made in a single term of teaching critical thinking with argument mapping said the critical thinking gains measured are close to those that could be expected to result from three years of undergraduate education. Students who are taught to think well also do better on subject-based exams and standardized tests than those who do not.

In terms of developing 21st century skills, which includes setting up students for lifelong learning, teaching critical thinking should be core business.