Analysis of Thinking Skills in Report Writing Textbooks: for Writing Education for Foreign College Students

Abstract

This study analyzed how thinking ability, a core ability required in the 21st century, is promoted in foreign college students’ report writing textbooks. Analysis the questions and instructions of four foreign college student report writing textbooks in this study identified five thinking skills: factual thinking, reasoning thinking, analytical thinking, critical thinking, and creative thinking. In all textbooks, inferential thinking was the most common (32.9%), followed by analytical (25.7%), creative (17.3%), factual (15.7%), and critical(8.4%). There were slight differences in each textbook, but the treatment of thinking ability was found to be similar and similar types of thinking skills were taught. In addition, many studies have criticized textbooks as lacking creativity, but they were not compared to Korean textbooks, and failed to examine logical thinking. Therefore, more careful consideration of critical, analytical, and logical thinking skills as well as creative thinking is needed in these textbooks.