In December 2024, BBC News online ran a story with the headline ‘Universities enrolling foreign students with poor English’. The article’s authors claim that universities are lowering standards to admit international students who pay uncapped fees, but whose language skills mean they struggle and that this is driving academic malpractice. Drawing on doctoral research, I, as a PhD candidate in Education at the University of Manchester, argue that such reporting is unhelpful as it is one-sided and overlooks the complexity of educating staff and students in critical thinking. In this blog post, I provide some constructive next steps.

A deficit view 

BBC Radio 4’s investigation into The International Student Scandal presents a series of talking heads to support the claims being made about international students. These include a student, trade union representative, think-tank employee and a ‘whistleblower’ from a private study provider. 

Of particular interest to my research is the ‘anonymous Russell Group professor’ who tells us that precisely ’70 per cent of his international students don’t have the language skills they need. As evidence, he says his international students use ‘translation apps’ to decipher the famously clear language of many academic papers. Sometimes, he even has to ‘adapt his teaching techniques’.

The number of international students in the UK has increased significantly over the past four decades. The demographics of the students have led to significant changes in teaching practice, so it is important for UK lecturers to adjust their teaching strategies to some extent in line with international educational purposes. One such area of practice affected is critical thinking.

Critical thinking (CT) – a common term in Western academia – is a good example for Chinese international students because CT is a ‘borrowed’ phrase that only began to appear in post-1970s China (Wu et al., 2015) and is not common parlance; CT might not exist in the native language of Chinese students. Similar situations may happen in many other countries, with other terminology. I argue that understanding why Chinese students use ‘translation apps’ is more helpful than criticising them, which is a slightly less critical viewpoint.

Thinking critically about critical thinking 

‘Chinese international students are often portrayed in Britain as lacking critical thinking. However, it is rarely questioned whether such claims are true.’

Sadly, the kind of deficit narrative towards international students highlighted by the professor quoted in the article is all too common. For example, Lomer & Mittelmeier (2021) find that Chinese international students are often portrayed in Britain as lacking critical thinking. However, it is rarely questioned whether such claims are true.

My doctoral research aims to challenge these claims. It is a longitudinal case study using multi-modal data (such as interview, drawing and writing samples) to investigate how international Chinese students conceptualise, develop and apply CT in general and writing practice. This project draws on the experiences and expertise of Chinese international students to reflect on CT education in England. I hope global institutes worldwide can draw on this case to strengthen their understanding of students’ trajectory of CT in an overseas environment.   

A better way forward

My research offers several practical solutions for educators to better understand international students’ perspectives and experiences. Universities should be actively cultivating teachers’ awareness and pedagogical approaches to bridge CT in theory, and practice in particular. One way of doing this would be to encourage lecturers to reflect on the expectations of international students to operate under a Euro-American-centred CT framework (Zhou, 2024). Most of CT’s definitions are from Euro-American scholars in literature and there is limited understanding of Chinese scholars (Zhou, 2024) or other Asian countries or marginalised ethnic groups’ or nations’ conceptualisation of CT. Therefore, ‘different is not deficient’ (Heng, 2018), and what Chinese students conceptualise as CT might be different from their British lecturers.

A second solution would be to expect higher education institutions to collaboratively develop CT teaching training for lecturers, enhancing management, supervision and feedback. For example, lecturers are expected to be inclusive and open-minded enough to sympathise and help international students, reflecting and avoiding judging or shaming them. Inclusion and compassion are also integral parts of CT. When lecturers’ overall CT levels improve, it also benefits student learning.

In conclusion, we need teaching practices that facilitate the development of critical thinking, especially during master’s courses. That way, we will empower international students to succeed academically, improving international education’s fairness, inclusiveness and diversity.  

References  

Heng, T. T. (2018). Different is not deficient: Contradicting stereotypes of Chinese international students in US higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 43(1), 22–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2016.1152466

Lomer, S., & Mittelmeier, J. (2021). Mapping the research on pedagogies with international students in the UK: A systematic literature review. Teaching in Higher Education, 28(6), 1243–1263. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2021.1872532

Wu, H., Wu, X., & Zhang, Z. (2015). First exploration of critical thinking. CNPeReading.

Zhou, L. (2024). ‘Exploring justifiability, inequalities and inclusiveness of critical thinking’s education in Anglocentrism’: Chinese international postgraduates’ conceptualisation of critical thinking and academic identity: a longitudinal study. In Boston: Boston College, Center for International Higher Education. Manchester Institute of Education.