Supervisors' Feedback On Thesis Writing Of English Postgraduates From Critical Thinking Perspective——A Case Study

The importance of critical thinking skills(CTS)has been widely acknowledged,and many scholars point out the problem of English major students having inadequate CTS.CTS can be improved by writing,especially advanced writing such as thesis writing,and feedback is one effective way to improve writing and CTS.However,research combining the three elements is rare.Therefore,this study aims to investigate the effectiveness of supervisors' thesis writing feedback on training students' CTS.This study was a case study,in which participants were 10 postgraduates majored in English Applied Linguistics.Research methodology was mainly text analysis,supplemented by interview.In text analysis,we first coded feedback foci,and did quantitative analysis of the number of each feedback focus.Then,we analyzed feedback on CTS according to the Hierarchical Theoretical Model of CTS(Wen et al.2009).Interviews were conducted in the above 10 postgraduates,and each interview lasted about half an hour.Interview data was classified from two aspects: problems in CTS and the effectiveness of feedback on CTS improvement;and factors affecting willingness to revise in response to feedback.The findings are as follows:(1)Among all the supervisor's feedback foci,feedback on writing capacity is the most,followed by methodology and innovation & findings.This is because feedback on writing capacity covers language,organization,cohesion & coherence,argument and format,which is scattered throughout the whole thesis and thus the total number is most.It also implies that students have problems in all the above five aspects of thesis writing,and more feedback is found on language,organization and format.The feedback on writing capacity,methodology and innovation & findings are also closely related to students' CTS and reflect problems in students' CTS.(2)The analysis of feedback from CTS perspective shows that overall the supervisor's feedback focuses more on clarity and logic,although different feedback foci put emphasis on different cognitive aspects.The result means that students have most problems in these two cognitive aspects.The possible reasons may be the differences between Chinese and western thinking patterns,students' weak reader awareness in writing,inadequate research knowledge,lack of advanced English proficiency and insufficient training in logical thinking.(3)The interviews prove the positive effects of supervisor's feedback on students' CTS development.Feedback effectiveness is mentioned in improving students' clarity,relevance,logic and depth in writing,and students' cognitive skills to analyze,infer and evaluate.The above findings have some implications:(1)In terms of thesis writing,teachers can increase the amount of English writing tasks such as mid-term paper and term paper.(2)As for CTS,teachers should enhance the training of students' clarity and logic.In addition,reader awareness training can be added into the teaching of writing.(3)In light of the effectiveness of feedback on CTS improvement,teachers can give focused feedback in oral and written feedback to tackle students' problems in CTS.