The Use of Variation Theory in Developing Students' Critical Thinking Skills

This dissertation, "The Use of Variation Theory in Developing Students' Critical Thinking Skills" by Siu-po, Eve, Kwong, 鄺小寶, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract This study is an attempt to use variation theory to develop critical thinking skills of students in form of phenomenographic approach. This study was held in the Secondary 2 EPA lessons of a girl EMI school with 85 students involved in the study. Permission was granted and the lessons in the study were instructed in Cantonese. The object of learning were the capability of looking at poverty in multiple perspectives manner and evaluate definitions of poverty and forming definition with the use of multiple perspective of poverty. Its effectiveness was evaluated with the use of data collected from different sources including pretest-posttest, interviews, worksheet and lesson observation. Students' qualitative different conception of poverty were categorised into 5 levels of conception. Results of the study supports the use of variation in the sense that students are able to look at poverty with multiple perspective manner and they have the ability to evaluate definitions of poverty with the use of multiple perspectives of poverty. The discussion starts from analysing how students' lived object of learning has built up from enacted object of learning in lessons. The discussion is followed by the implication of using variation theory in students learning. The choice of patterns of variation and the effectiveness of variation theory in helping students develop skills of seeing poverty in multiple perspective way was discussed, the result of the study shows that students were able to attain higher levels of conceptualization of poverty after variation theory is practised in the lessons. Then, the discussion goes to study the limitations involved in the study. Finally, the potential for further study which leaves the space for future research study in the area of thinking skills and application of variation theory in other areas. iii DOI: 10.5353/th_b3554207 Subjects: Phenomenological psychology Critical thinking Social sciences - Study and teaching (Secondary) - China - Hong Kong