Following Alice: theories of critical thinking and reflective practice in action at postgraduate level

This paper presents a flexible framework of principles for teaching critical thinking and reflective practice skills at the postgraduate level. It reports on a collaborative project between four UK institutions providing postgraduate programmes in deaf education. Through a critical review of current theories of critical thinking and reflective practice in higher education, the authors identified and constructed frameworks of principles for relevant skills. They selected a set of learning activities for the institutions to trial to target those skills. Students evaluated how successfully the activities promoted the skills. The investigators evaluate the methodology and provide a critique of the framework of principles. Findings reveal that the framework of principles is a robust model for the development, design and evaluation of bespoke learning activities targeting critical thinking and reflective practice skills.