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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 19, Issue 1, Article 5 (Jun., 2018) |
At present, the development of critical thinking is relevant as, in many cases, questioning is avoided, which impedes distinguishing the veracity of arguments. Therefore, the existence of a non-critical attitude does not allow for one to have the elements to make well-supported decisions that lead one to act accordingly. For that matter, one of the challenges in training processes is related to the development of teaching strategies that promote critical thinking, (Torres and Solbes 2016).
With respect to this, many studies of psychology, such as the ones carried out by Ennis (1987); Facione, Facione and Giancarlo (2000), and Zoller and Pushkin (2007) have characterized critical thinking as a rational, logical, reflexive and evaluative way of thinking. Ennis (1987), who was a pioneer in studying the topic, defines it as that “way of thinking that decides what to do and what to believe in” (p. 10) and others like Halpern (2006) have related it with the development of abilities, for example interpretation, argumentation, probability, problem-solving and decision-making. But, from other fields such as philosophy, contributions regarding this way of thinking are highlighted in order to maintain a sceptical attitude regarding the dominant dogmas and discourses, and to expose the consequences of being led by unidirectional discourses which do not allow one to understand multiple cultural and social phenomena (Habermas, 1971; Marcuse, 1991; Adorno and Horkheimer, 2002).
Critical thinking has not only been the object of reflection for philosophy and psychology, but also for critical pedagogy, which describes teaching as a process of individual and collective emancipation in order to transform today’s society (Giroux, 1988; Freire, 1996), and for the teaching of science, based on the history and the epistemology of science. For example, Popper (1970) highlighted the importance of the formation of critical thinking in a university environment. Therefore, from the contributions made by philosophers of science and scientists, said way of thinking has fostered the formulation of judgments based on evidence through which their validity can be proved. Critical rationalism and a sceptical attitude should also be applied to the dominant dogmas and discourses (Marcuse, 1991). From this perspective, one of the main characteristics of this way of thinking has been the possibility to question and establish counter-positions, in the presence of opinions that have been taken for granted. At the same time, the epistemological approach (Popper, 1970; Haack, 2007; Kuhn, 1962) has contributed to questioning the scientist concept of science which it considers to be correct, problem free, and unquestionable.
The contributions of the history and sociology of science show that science is methodologically critical, but for some of their elements to be considered as critical thinking, and to act socially as such, socio-scientific issues (SSIs) have to be addressed. At the same time, proving a hypothesis is a necessary condition of critical thinking, but it is not enough (Torres and Solbes, 2016). Although several research projects have shown the effects of promoting scientific argumentation from the use of SSIs (Topcu, 2010; Albe, 2008), therefore, this work shows how work shows how (SSIs) can contribute to develop critical thinking in a group of students of a science teacher training program.
As SSIs involve scientific topics that have a social incidence (Topcu, 2010; Day and Bryce, 2011; Çalik and Coll, 2012), they favour learning processes and facilitate the creation of spaces for the debate, discussion, and defense of points of view (Passmore and Svoboda, 2012), relevant aspect not only for promoting scientific argumentation, writing and defending points of view, (Solbes and Traver, 2003), but also for the development of critical thinking (Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2010; Torres and Solbes, 2016). SSIs can create an opportunity to participate in scientific reasoning, writing and defending points of view, and participating in counter-arguments on subjects disseminated through the media. They can also be useful to fulfill the objective of education for the citizenry through scientific education (Barrue and Albe, 2013).
Thus, SSIs are a social practice that implies the exercise of critical thinking in classroom scenarios that allow the students to understand the meaning of scientific concepts and to what extent they can be used for social issues (Dawson and Venville, 2010; Tytler and Prain, 2010). From this perspective, taking into consideration the contributions of philosophy, psychology and the teaching of the science, in this research project critical thinking is seen as a set of “capacities that people have in order to structure their own way of thinking which allows them to distinguish the veracity of arguments, take a stance in view of social situations in order to have an active role in cultural and scientific decisions taken based on social responsibility” (Solbes and Torres, 2012, p. 248).
But, how is the incidence of SSIs in the development of critical thinking assessed? With respect to this, we have considered several theoretical perspectives (Ennis, 1987; McMillan, 1987; Facione et al. 2000; Halpern, 2006) that associate critical thinking with abilities, ways of thinking or competences, and considering that the concept of competence involves both the above, because of their complexity and that they require the articulation of skills, attitudes, and dexterities. In this sense, the authors of this article see critical thinking as a set of competences and affirm that SSIs are built into contexts so as to practice critical competences, that according to diverse authors could be: I. Understanding the nature of science (NoS) as a human activity and with multiple relations with STS (Lederman, 1992; Solbes and Traver, 2003); II. The analysis and questioning of information, rejecting conclusions that are not based on proof, detecting argumentative fallacies (McMillan, 1987; Yager, 1993; Vieira, Tenreiro-Vieira and Martins, 2010; Osborne, 2010); III. The comprehensive study of SSIs involving scientific, technical, cultural, economic and political dimensions (Solbes and Vilches, 1997; Sadler, 2004); IV. Carrying out ethical evaluations of the impact of technological and scientific development (Sadler and Zeidler, 2004) and V. Making decisions on fundamental aspects in the development of critical thinking and acting consequently (Ennis, 1987; Nickerson, 1994; Facione et al. 2000; Halpern, 2006; Osborne, 2010; Aikenhead, 1985). Said competences were considered in this research and are presented in Table I.
Thus, the study responds to the following research question: How and to what extend did SSIs contribute to the development of critical thinking competences? Its main objective was to analyze the implications of SSIs in the development of critical competences in students from a science teacher training program showing the pre-test and post-test results to the research. At the same time, several research studies have shown that students from different levels, from primary (Malamitsa et al., 2009) to university students (Ekahitanond, 2013) can develop projects aimed at fostering the abilities of critical thinking.
