Perceptions of the use of questioning to enhance critical thinking skills in English first additional language classrooms at FET colleges : a quantitative study / Nicolene Volschenk (original) (raw)

I want to thank the following people for their motivation, advice, guidance and support which helped me complete this study:  My Heavenly Father, for always being there, and for being the rock I could count on during the course of this study.  My study leader, Professor M.M. Grosser, for her kindness, guidance and patience throughout this study period.  Mrs Aldine Oosthuizen for her help with the capturing of the data, the statistical analysis and the technical editing of this dissertation.  Mrs Denise Kock for the language editing of this dissertation.  The staff at the Ferdinand Postma Library (Vaal Triangle Campus) for helping me find the information that I needed to complete my study.  My friends and family who offered their support, love and advice.  My college principal, Mr T.S Letho, for taking an interest in this study and always motivating and supporting me.  The students and lecturers who participated in this study.  My parents and friends who motivated and supported me. A special word of thanks to my husband, Ernie Volschenk, for his unconditional love, patience, support and motivation during the completion of this study. vi SUMMARY Students on all levels of education need to be able to think critically. This study investigated to what extent and how do lecturers at FET colleges in the Fezile Dabi District enhance their students" critical thinking skills by means of questioning in EFAL classrooms. A literature study was conducted in order to highlight the importance of critical thinking and which questioning types, strategies/techniques and tactics should be used for the effective enhancement of critical thinking skills in the classroom. The classroom environment, factors that hamper the enhancing of critical thinking skills, reasons for the use of questioning, the different questioning types, strategies/techniques and tactics and the importance of questioning in the English First Additional Language classrooms were explored. The literature review provided the conceptual framework for the study, as well as the framework for designing a questionnaire and the observation schedule to obtain the perceptions of lecturers and students regarding the enhancing of students" critical thinking skills. Quantitative, non-experimental descriptive survey and observation research by means of a self-constructed Likert-scale questionnaire, and observations by means of structured event sampling was conducted with a convenient sample of a purposively selected group of NQF Level 2 (Grade 10) lecturers (n = 4) and students (n = 142) at FET colleges in the Fezile Dabi District of the Free State Department of Education. The triangulation of student and lecturer data revealed differences and similarities in opinions relating to how lecturers make use of different questioning types, strategies/techniques and tactics in order to enhance students" critical thinking skills. The data revealed that to some extent, two of the four lecturers effectively enhance their students" critical thinking skills through their constant use of questions that develop higher order thinking. The responses did however not convincingly indicate to the researcher that the enhancing of critical thinking skills takes place frequently through the effective use of different questioning types, strategies/techniques and tactics. vii This study is concluded with recommendations to lecturers on how to enhance students" critical thinking skills through questioning. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS