ABSTRACT
After engaging in quick scanning and skimming to find specific details or pieces of relevant information, the next step is to read in more depth and subject the material to critical analysis. Critical thinking is a valuable skill to learn for university study, as students need to be able to subject the ideas, opinions, arguments and sources they come across in their reading to scrutiny. Academic writing centres throughout the UK tend to experience low student take-up, so a study that can show that the provision is effective could lead to greater enrolments or ‘engagement’ by students. This means that the underlying motivation behind the study might not actually be improving student achievement. One of the main problems with theoretical approaches are their lack of grounding in reality, but there may also be problems with the theories themselves.
