Educating students to be critical thinkers is a vital component of meaningful teaching and learning. A number of international reports on skills required in the 21st century have recommended the fostering of critical thinking (CT) in higher education; i.e., a combination of cognitive skills - interpretation, analysis, inference, evaluation and self-regulation and having the disposition to employ them. In English language learning, students need to apply CT skills when performing tasks such as reading beyond the literal, comparing ideas, forming conclusions, distinguishing between facts and opinions, accepting or rejecting data, and expressing opinions with adequate supporting evidence. Nonetheless, much obscurity still remains regarding CT and its practical role, especially in an era of digital teaching and learning. This problem is gaining more significance as globalization trends include international student mobility, with visiting students often bringing with them divergent local learning conceptions and practices.
The goal of this study was to examine from a sociocultural perspective the way CT is conceptualized and experienced by instructors, local students, and Chinese students at a university in Israel; and accordingly, design a culturally-inclusive theoretical framework for CT cultivation in the digital era. The study applied an integrated dual-analytic approach, where data was collected via a survey and semi-structured interviews. The findings show that many instructors and students lack a comprehensive understanding of CT. Moreover, the Chinese students were more familiar with CT in theory and practice than the local students. The study presents a technology-enhanced instructional framework that integrates individual learning with collaborative assignments.