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Fostering Critical Thinking Through Collaborative Group Work pp 11–33Cite as

The Research on Group Work, Critical Thinking and Confucian Heritage Culture: What Does a Thematic Review Tell Us?

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Abstract

Group work and critical thinking are well-established areas of study in educational research. Given the abundance of academic publications dealing with these two independent domains, it is not possible to adequately review and summarise all of the work pertaining to them here. Thus, this chapter constitutes an exploratory study (Robson in Real world research: a resource for social scientists and practitioner–researchers. Blackwell publishers, UK, 2002) of the existing literature through the employment of a thematic review strategy, a useful strategy for organising various empirical studies on the two research topics and for interrogating those studies with regard to the research questions they pose. This review is divided into five sections. Following this brief introduction, the next section seeks an understanding of the group work concept and its effectiveness in student learning. Relevant articles are assembled, and their results subjected to rigorous analysis. The third section then shifts focus on the concept of critical thinking, with particular emphasis on a review of several developmental models, including those of Ennis (Educ Leadersh 43:44–48, 1985) and Kuhn (The skills of argument. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991). The fourth section examines the influence of Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC) on classroom learning, as cultural considerations represent a significant component of the research reported herein. Finally, the fifth section explicates and justifies the conceptual framework of that research.

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    Dennis Chun-Lok Fung & Tim Weijun Liang

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Fung, D.CL., Liang, T.W. (2019). The Research on Group Work, Critical Thinking and Confucian Heritage Culture: What Does a Thematic Review Tell Us?. In: Fostering Critical Thinking Through Collaborative Group Work. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2411-6_2

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