Chinese international master’s students’ experiences of a retreat to support critical thinking: a positioning theory approach

We report on a case study using Positioning Theory as the basis for the design of a course to support Chinese international master’s students understand and apply critical thinking (CT) within the context of higher education (HE) in the United Kingdom. Our aim was to understand the extent to which students found this helpful in their understanding and use of CT. Drawing on previous research, the retreat included direct teaching of positioning in relation to use of CT, as well as more general information on the conceptualisation and application of CT. One hundred and twenty-eight students took part in the retreat, and 14 agreed to be interviewed about their experiences. Thematic analysis of group interviews at the end of the retreat generated three themes related to the efficacy of this approach in supporting CT: early (mis)understanding of CT and self-positioning, pedagogical approaches and perceived teacher-positioning, student aspirations to be positioned as practitioners or critical researchers. Our findings support the limited calls in the literature for direct teaching of CT early in the master’s degree, taking account of the pedagogical approaches used to support this. While our students reported a linguistic misunderstanding of the term CT, the broader role of culture was also evident in their approach to CT.