Abstract:

Increasing the understanding of written information for everyday and professional life is one of the goals of the current Czech education system and lifelong learning in the 21st century influenced by society 4.0, processes of robotisation, automation, and digitalisation in all areas of application on the labour market. PISA research (2009, 2018) pointed to the long-term average of a lower level of reading literacy among fifteen-year-old Czech pupils, especially boys. The aim of the quantitative questionnaire research carried out at the Faculty of Education of the University of Ostrava as part of a student grant project (2023) was to find out what strategies and teaching methods are understood by the research sample of 425 pupils of secondary technical schools as effective, innovative tools that develop reading, critical thinking and understanding of various kinds of texts.

The sub-goal of the 2nd phase of qualitative research using the interview method with 18 pupils (aged 15-17) from 3 technical secondary schools in the Moravian-Silesian Region in the Czech Republic was to find out how pupils navigate school reading lists, what types of texts they read in their free time most often and for what purpose, what factors do students consider helpful in understanding written information, what teaching methods support critical thinking when reading diverse texts. From the selected results of the qualitative research, it is clear that students consider the brainstorming teaching method to be popular in engineering subjects, as it is a helpful procedure for finding relationships between the discussed and read information (e.g., "it helps me find the relationship of superiority/inferiority between information", "I think about words, what belongs to what"). Pupils consider the method of critical thinking "Cinquain" to be a five-line "shortcut", a "path", helping to understand information from the point of view of its pros and cons, e.g., in the case of "machinery". Pupils see the benefits of teaching using innovative methods in the possibilities of cooperation, critical dialogue, and discussion towards respect for opinions on the solved problem ("everyone can have their view on a problem that can be solved in several ways, including cooperation").

Reading different types of texts in engineering teaching brings students joy and fun but also defends against boredom (e.g., "reading is not boredom, but an adventure, ... it is a defence against stereotypes, boredom, stupidity"). Pupils consider their mother and teacher positive reading role models. Pupils who read more than five books in 1 year (fiction) consider reading to be fun (e.g., "I enjoy reading, it's fun"), a possibility to grow in knowledge ("I want to be smarter than before") and also school duty ("reading the recommended books is required by our teacher and school"). An interesting research finding is that almost 20% of respondents rank comic books as their favourite artistic texts, more than 60% of respondents prefer a hybrid or electronic form of texting in their daily reading of non-artistic texts, and 15% of respondents think listening to audio texts is reading non-artistic texts. Up to 70% of respondents consider brainstorming the most frequently used method for developing critical thinking in teaching technical subjects. It is alarming that almost 50% of respondents said they do not use methods that develop critical thinking in teaching technical subjects.

Keywords:

teaching methods and innovation, critical thinking, reading and comprehension of texts, school and leisure reading.