Intellectual Autonomy – Meta-Component in Descriptors Defining Levels in the European Qualification Framework

Abstract

Descriptors of the European Qualifications Framework expect from higher education didactics to develop models oriented towards critical thinking, i.e. intellectual autonomy, or critical and scientific education, whereas its theoretical frame involves emancipatory didactics grounded on conceptual changes of pluralistic concepts in contemporary philosophy of science and knowledge. The intentions of the paper are in line with the aforementioned, and it is an attempt to consider the reaches of implementation of the elements of the Bologna process from the standpoint of the autonomy of a university according to a special aspect – the freedom and responsibilities of the university in the function of the development of critical reasoning of students. Structures of meta-cognitive abilities of students are observed, as well as the strategies of learning and critical thinking, as significant indicators of the intellectual autonomy of students. It is an explorative research, aiming at testing the thesis on poor intellectual autonomy of students.