New Perspectives in Science Education

The need to develop critical thinking skills in students is currently recognized at all educational levels [1]. This is especially relevant in the case of science education, since there is a clear relationship between the components of critical thinking and the processes involved in scientific practice [2]. From the cognitive psychological approach, the components of critical thinking that can be improved through education include the different forms of reasoning, decision making, and problem solving [3]. At the university level, it is normally assumed that reasoning skills have been developed at the school level and the choice is made to promote the development of skills for problem solving, decision making, and argumentation. However, it is necessary to investigate whether the process at the secondary education stage achieves the expected goals, especially if an effective transfer of the skills learned in a context of explicit teaching of them is achieved, towards contextualized situations in science teaching [4]. The objective of this work was to evaluate the level of transfer of inductive reasoning skills with fourth-level high school students from a Peruvian school. The students participated in a teaching module of different forms of inductive reasoning, including: inductive generalization, causal reasoning, analogical reasoning and hypothetical reasoning. Subsequently, the application of these skills was evaluated in the context of teaching a scientific topic. The results showed better achievements in the case of inductive generalization and in the other three cases an effective transfer was not achieved. This work is a good reference to improve the teaching strategies of reasoning skills and the transfer of these in situations of other disciplines, particularly in the teaching of sciences.

Keywords: Critical thinking, reasoning skills, secondary education

REFERENCES

[1] Maggio, M. “Habilidades del siglo XXI: cuando el futuro es hoy: documento básico XIII Foro Latinoamericano de Educación (1nd ed.)”, Buenos Aires: Santillana, 2018

[2] García-Carmona, A. “Scientific Thinking and Critical Thinking in Science Education Two Distinct but Symbiotically Related Intellectual Processes”, Science & Education, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-023-00460-5

[3] Saiz, C. “Pensamiento crítico y eficacia”, Madrid: Ediciones Pirámide, 2020.

[4] Ennis, R. “Critical Thinking across the Curriculum: The Wisdom CTAC Program”, Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines, 2013, (28), 2, 25-45.