Critical thinking: conceptual clarification and its importance in science education

Abstract

In different countries efforts have been made to integrate critical thinking into science curricula, recognizing that it is necessary to live in a plural society with citizenship competence. However, this objective has not been appropriately implemented in classrooms. One of the obstacles is the fact that teachers do not have a clear idea about critical thinking because the meaning ascribed to critical thinking in different contexts is rarely explicit. This paper attempts to clarify this concept, evincing its relationship with other concepts such as scientific literacy and to present and discuss a framework for promoting students’ critical thinking in science classrooms.