Development of students' disciplinary literacy through reflective practice: Ukrainian case

Most studies on critical thinking concentrate on developing strategies for better results in learning and life. Not enough research considers critical thinking as one of the most important components of professional competency. Thus, this research investigates how developing critical thinking skills links with arising professional competency, which forms the disciplinary literacy. In particular, this study suggests that the application of reflective strategies in professional communication significantly evolves critical thinking skills. First, a conceptual framework of the importance of critical thinking in practice and life was synthesized from the academic and scientific literature. Then the level of reflection of the groups of students of Ukrainian universities was analyzed at the observation stage. After defining the poor results, the students were taught a reflective strategy course, which significantly increased the required critical thinking skills for their professional situations. Measures of correlation were used to describe the relationships between the reflective strategies and the improved results in critical thinking skills. The results provided support for the conceptual framework with the students' increased professional competency in problem communication issues within their professional setting. Learning reflective strategies may be an appropriate way to arise critical thinking skills with the students. The implications for academics, teachers, and researcher in this field is that the reflective strategies are one of the tools to improve the critical thinking and problem-solving skills as an integral part of disciplinary literacy.