Critical reflection

Students will understand the policy implications of different schools of thought

Students be better at understanding different points of views and their underlying agendas

Students may be more readily alerted to situations when 'group think' is becoming dominant.

Is this something new? Surely this proposal is something most students are expected to do anyway and those who do not reflect are unlikely to absorm much of what is implied by their teachers.😎

Very much for this. Critical reflection is recognised in learning theory so it is pedagogically a sound criterion. It should be a compulsory requirement of genuinely pluralist programmes

I think this is crucial, this should leave the student with the knowledge and skills so that s/he can understand underlying assumptions of the methodology that is below the theory. Most programmes probably touch upon this with modules on the philosophy of social science. But I think that the link between the methodology and the school of thought should be made clearer and better understood.

I support the views of both David Chester and Nicholas Gruen who ironically offer points against "critical reflection". This is because I support the view of let "a thousand flower bloom" to allow students to develop their own schools of thought and not be slaves to intellectual giants who lived in a different reality from today. A reality that is changing at an accelerating rate to make past assumptions and theories increasing irrelevant;

Yes!!! and also encourage critical reflection about how much is really understood in the current analysis, and how much we really do not understand or really scape analytical understanding

I would much prefer "approaches" to "schools of thought" here. I don't think people should be encouraged to locate themselves within a school unless and until they think that makes sense. Personally I'm kind of in my own eclectic 'school' and I borrow where I can.

Critical thinking is a vitally important skill. It can be taught by getting students to examine different explanations - I prefer "hypotheses" to schools, paradigms, etc. But explanations of what? Of all the relevant evidence (not just statistical) about a particular event or phenomenon. The central focus must be on the evidence! And then, on the candidate explanations. It's what natural scientists do, and works really well.