Percepción sobre el coste de pensar críticamente en universitarios chilenos y españoles

Abstract

Introduction: Our aim on this communication is to describe and compare the perception that Chilean and Spanish public university students have about the cost of critical thinking use (Study 1). In this scope, we have tested the hypothesis that thinking critically it is an activity perceived as costly and therefore it is activated as a task through motivational processes. In a second study, we evaluated the student perception change of this cost under a specific pedagogical intervention in critical thinking abilities (Study 2). Method: In these studies 429 university students of both sexes (84,9 % females) from Chile (169) and Spain (260) participated. They were evaluated on their perception of the cost of thinking critically in terms of effort, concentration, time and energy by means of a Lickert scale. Results: In the first study, the results reveal in all of the sub-samples that critical thinking is perceived as a costly activity, with no significant differences between Chilean and Spanish students. Moreover, in the second study we confirm that after the instruction, the cost perception is increased significantly. Discussion and Conclusion: The results support the thesis that motivational factors would be important for cognitive resources activation and the performances on thinking abilities. On the other hand, the increase in the cost perception could be explained by feedback on its way of thinking received in a critical thinking tasks context, and the clarification to the suitable process of reasoning during this pedagogical intervention. © Education & Psychology I+D+i and Editorial EOS (Spain).