AN EXPERIENCE IN CRITICAL THINKING AND WRITING

Abstract

We used three cohorts of students to comparetheir performance when asked to do a writing task. Senior,freshly graduated and experienced students were asked tosummarize some current research in computing topics.They had different levels to computer literacy and towriting tasks. The same instructions and issues werehanded out to both groups, they also were asked to handin their job in the same amount of time. Graduate studentswere allowed to form two members-teams, butexperienced students were asked to develop their workindividually. Also, while undergraduate and freshlygraduate students were working on applications directlyrelated to their career, master students were working onborder issues, where their master's subject acted as anenabling but not central technology. However, experiencein the profession (expertise) showed up as the definite skillwhere critical thinking is required.

Index Terms - Critical thinking, Soft skills, Transferableeducation, Writing skills.