Use of socio-scientific dilemmas for the development of critical thinking skills in pre-service teachers. Teachers' perceptions

Abstract

This paper presents a training programme for pre-service science teachers focused on the development of critical thinking skills, using socio-scientific dilemmas as a teaching strategy in different formats: written (headline, reading, opinions), audiovisual (video) and oral (roleplaying). The programme was implemented with 86 students from the Primary Education Degree and Master´s Degree in Secondary Education Teaching at the University of Málaga (Spain). The students' perception of critical thinking skills before and after their participation in the programme was analysed using as an instrument the CPC2 questionnaire (Santiuste et al., 2001). The results indicate that students in the two degrees start with a very similar perception of their critical thinking skills. However, after the programme, students in the Primary Education Degree seem to perceive a greater improvement in their skills than those in the Master´s Degree, as a greater number of questionnaire items with statistically significant differences were detected in them. This improvement is produced in skills related to the critical analysis of information, argumentation and communication.