Developing Critical Thinking Skills from Dispositions to Abilities: Mathematics Education from Early Childhood to High School

Abstract

In light of the importance of developing critical thinking, and given the scarcity of research on critical thinking in mathematics education in the broader context of higher order thinking skills, we have carried out a research that examined how teaching strategies oriented towards developing higher-order thinking skills influenced students’ critical thinking abilities. The guiding rationale of the work was that such teaching can foster the students’ skills of and dispositions towards critical thinking. In this article, we discuss ways in which critical thinking can be incorporated in mathematics instruction. In particular, we highlight how content taught in the probability strand can intentionally be focused on the development of students’ critical thinking. We report results of a study demonstrating improvement in secondary mathematics students’ dispositions towards critical thinking and abilities to think critically.