Staff profile

Keji is a postgraduate research student in the School of Education. She is supervised by Prof Beng Huat See and Prof Stephen Gorard. Her research centres on the critical thinking of Chinese students. She has an interdisciplinary background. Back to her undergraduate study, she majored in Chinese language and literature at Sichuan University (Weighted Average Mark: 90.1). Then, she came to the University of Edinburgh, majoring in education (with Distinction). With these experiences, she aims to investigate whether there is strong evidence to indicate a lack of critical mind among Chinese students and find out effective strategies to improve this situation.

The purpose of her empirical research is to examine the impact of infusing critical thinking in the school curriculum on Chinese students’ critical thinking skills and academic performance. She aims to develop a suite of teaching and learning resources that can be used in schools to support the development of critical thinking. The findings will have the potential to inform the current Chinese government policy reform to develop students with critical thinking capacity in order to compete in the global academic arena. If found to be effective, this model of training will have both policy and policy impact.

• Chinese international students
• Critical thinking
• Systematic review
• Randomised controlled trial

Book review

• Fan, K. (2022). Infusing critical thinking into your course: A concrete practical approach: by Linda B. Nilson, Stylus, 148 pp. $33.00 (paperback), ISBN: 978-1-64267-169-8. Educational Research and Evaluation, 27(5-8), 423-425. https://doi.org/10.1080/13803611.2022.2143132

Conference Paper

• Zhang, Y. (2022, October). Researching Chinese Students in the UK - the Use of Ethnography in Social Media Studies. Presented at Imagining Better Education 2022, Durham, United Kingdom
• Chen, W. (2022, October). Can Teaching Enthusiasm Partially Predict the Reading Attainment of Low-income Students in Secondary Schools in England?. Presented at Imagining Better Education 2022, Durham, United Kingdom

Conference Proceeding

• (2022, October). Imagining Better Education: Conference Proceedings 2022. Presented at Imagining Better Education 2022, Durham, United Kingdom

Journal Article

• Fan, K. (2024). Can the infusion teaching of critical thinking improve Chinese secondary students’ critical thinking and academic attainment? Findings from a randomised controlled trial. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 53, 101597. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2024.101597
• Fan, K., & See, B. (2022). How do Chinese students’ critical thinking compare with other students?: a structured review of the existing evidence. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 46, Article 101145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2022.101145