Abstract

Critical thinking is a stated priority of higher education reform in China, yet its enactment in everyday teaching remains uneven. This study investigated how lecturers of ideological and political theory courses (IPTCs) understand and value critical thinking, and how they report teaching it. To our knowledge, few studies have modelled lecturers’ conceptions, attitudes, reported practices and contextual constraints jointly within these courses. An explanatory sequential mixed-methods design was employed. A validated questionnaire was completed by 362 IPTC lecturers across 20 universities in Anhui Province, and semi-structured interviews were subsequently conducted with 34 lecturers. The survey data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics, including multiple and moderated regression, whereas the interview data were examined thematically. Although lecturers endorsed critical thinking strongly as a general educational aim, they rated its place within IPTCs considerably lower, and they conceptualised it predominantly in terms of logic and reasoning. Reported classroom enactment fell below the scale midpoint. Conceptions did not predict practice; attitudes predicted it only weakly (standardised β = 0.13), and contextual constraints did not moderate the attitude–practice relationship. The regression models accounted for almost none of the variance in reported practice. These findings indicate a broad belief–practice gap that is shaped by structural conditions rather than by individual beliefs. The single-province, self-report design constrains wider generalisation. The findings direct reform attention towards assessment design and sustained, practice-based professional learning, since belief change alone appears unlikely to alter classroom practice.

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