Understanding and fostering the development of critical thinking education and competences

For centuries, Western philosophy and then science has promoted rationality, understood primarily as logical reasoning. A gradual modern development of scientific methodology, attitudes and science institutions has contributed with the development of scientific practices. These include the use of experiments as well as the use of control groups and variables. Practices that draw on the use of reliable data and proven facts, shared knowledge and procedures. The recent two centuries can be characterised as a period when a new regime of knowledge production arose. A regime that builds on the development of scientific discourses and the use of disciplinary methods, related to evidence based rational reasoning, and rooted on reliable and robust methods and facts; practices of using models and simulation through mathematical or logical frames or machines. After the Second World War, the dominant knowledge production regime comprising scientific practices and institutions had become the pillar of the political, social and economic order. An order based on the development of technoscience and the use of rational practices in innovation, engineering and management (Pestre, 2003). During the roughly last [...] 200 years [...] science has provided incalculable knowledge and innovative tools that have improved people's lives, permitted the pursuit of the general welfare as articulated in the Constitution, and allowed many citizens to enjoy a bountiful existence. (McNutt & Crow, 2023) In democratic regimes, legitimate knowledge is justified solely by the scientific way of knowing. This is the case in all fields of socio-economic and political action. In democracies in the Western philosophical tradition, which are driven by individualism and the development of knowledge societies, the science model of reasoning has been progressively incorporated within pedagogical and participative political traditions under the umbrella concept of critical thinking. This relatively new concept was initially articulated among education scholars in the US in the first half of the 20th century (Ennis, 1991) and is used broadly in education since a couple of decades. It has been promoted first through efforts by international institutions such as the OECD, for promoting project and entrepreneurship education linked to creativity. A recent increase in attention to, and promotion of, critical thinking in education, for promoting public understanding of science, as well as the deliberative participation of citizens, is taking place at the same time as there is a spectacular development of the role of new social media in the public sphere and for citizenship. Critical thinking includes the component skills of analyzing arguments, making inferences using inductive or deductive reasoning, judging or evaluating, and making decisions or solving problems. Background knowledge is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for enabling critical thought within a given subject. Critical thinking involves both cognitive skills and dispositions. These dispositions, which can be seen as attitudes or habits of mind, include open- and fair-mindedness, inquisitiveness, flexibility, a propensity to seek reason, a desire to be well-informed, and a respect for and willingness to entertain diverse viewpoints. (Lai, 2011) The thematic first part of this issue of the European Journal of Education illustrates this conceptualisation of critical thinking by articles focused on reasoning or deliberating about competencies in education; also, by addressing ways to enhance skills and competencies that could be transferred in practice to everyday work and citizenship. In 2018 the world's most economically advanced nations, [...] began a project to study how critical thinking can be taught and assessed in support of a growing consensus that formal education should cultivate the creativity and critical-thinking skills of students to help them succeed in modern, globalized economies based on knowledge and innovation. (Haber, 2020) Another other well-known reason is that there is a threat to democracy. In particular, the models of authority in democratic regimes are questioned, due to the loss of social trust for elites and institutions (Sexton, 2019). A third reason are pleas from prominent scientific authorities to improve cooperation between democratically elected leaders, science leaders and people. This is needed, because of increasing complexity in the sciences, government and administration processes. [...] whereas scientific censorship used to come from the top (cf. Lysenko/Stalin, with ‘proper’ genetics enforced by the government, or Nazi Germany, which decried ‘Jewish physics’, driving many great physicists out of the country), now the ‘cancellation’ begins on the bottom, with social media sites and readers pressuring journal editors or publishing companies, sometimes resulting in the rejection of sound papers because they contravene an established ideological narrative. And there is also policing of language. This kind of ‘cancellation’, of course, has to come ultimately from the top, but is propelled by disaffected people on social media. (Krylov et al., 2022, p. 12) [...] errors in judgment continue to plague us at the individual and societal levels. Worse, our inability to evaluate the information contained in our myriad pocket ‘libraries of Alexandria’ in terms of its veracity and credibility means we are just likely to believe false information and draw incorrect conclusion from such ‘facts’, some of them fed to us by those who understand the fans in human reasoning well enough to manipulate us. (Haber, 2020, p 34) When misinformation or disinformation undermine the credibility of scientists and political leaders, public trust is weakened, the progress of science is inhibited, and democracy itself is destabilized. For science, which focuses on generating knowledge and improving decision making, misinformation scrambles the meaning of knowledge as well as its ability to further the public good. The speed of change in science is increasing, as is the complexity of informing the understanding of citizens; as a result, the norms of previous generations are being eroded. More importantly, poorly informed discretion inhibits the policy processes and investment logics that drive efforts to produce and apply knowledge. (McNutt & Crow, 2023, p. 14) From all perspectives—scientific, educational, political, economic and social points of view— a key issue is the negative role of social media, fake news and irrational beliefs in conspiracies (American Library Association, 2017). There is a need to educate students, trough critical thinking pedagogies and programmes. However, there is little proof that social media and fake news increase irrationality. For example, the famous physician, epidemiologist and professor of health studies, Hans Rosling, in a best-seller book titled Factfulness: ten reasons we are wrong with the world (Rosling, 2018) shows that people throughout the world are increasingly acting rationally, primarily because schooling has proliferated. In another perspective, the writings of Alberto Acerbi show the positive role of social networks (Acerbi, 2020), in contrast to many journalistic or political narratives or everyday discourses about the post-truth era and fake news. Critical thinking, if we define it as the attempt to emancipate people through rational reasoning and research inquiries or problem solving, is an old question for education, e.g. as part of curricula and approaches to education in the US. In the wake of globalisation, there have been efforts for a couple of decades worldwide to develop higher education standards. Organisations that have contributed to these efforts include the OECD, the European Commission, and different iterations of EU Erasmus programmes. There is renewed interest to critical thinking as it relates to fields beyond pedagogical practices and scientific reasoning. Critical thinking is understood to play a key role in meeting the demand of enterprises to develop capacity for an innovation driven economy. Also, critical thinking plays a key role in responding to challenges that manifest in a public sphere that increasingly takes place in digital networks—challenges associated with a crisis in democracies and social discourses. Critical thinking is not primarily a theoretical concept, but a designation of dynamic competencies that are very much situated in pedagogical and social action processes. This illustrates the relationship of critical thinking to active pedagogy traditions. These include experiential learning, contemporary collaborative and project-oriented programmes using approaches such as design thinking, or narrative approaches within the humanities and social sciences. The thematic part of this issue builds on the outlined background to provide both analytical frameworks related with education, case studies and surveys aiming to understand and foster the development of critical thinking education and competencies. Three of the articles, following mainly public policy approaches, one linked with international (OECD) and two national (China and France) assessments present secondary analysis on critical thinking that draws on recent large-scale surveys. In his article, Fostering and assessing student critical thinking: From theory to teaching practice, Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin elaborates on how teachers can empower students to develop their critical thinking. Building on the premise that critical thinking matters both for democratic forms of governance and the economy, he gives a definition of critical thinking that accords particular attention to its links to creativity. The article also proposes a set of recommendations that are easy to implement and can support the design or redesign of lesson plans, teacher observation and formative assessment, as well as standardised assessments. The article also argues that critical thinking should be used in all parts of curricula because it can lead to a deeper understanding of subject matter content. Dirk Van Damme, Doris Zahner, Olivia Cortellini, Teresa Dawber and Kelly Rotholz use a similar perspective in their article, Assessing and developing critical-thinking skills in higher education. The analysis builds on conclusions from their recent comparative survey published by the OECD on critical thinking in higher education. In particular, the assertion that generic skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, and communication are essential for students' success in higher education and their careers. The authors highlight that generic skills can be measured in a cross-cultural context and assessment of these skills can be an essential component of best practices in higher education. Despite strong variations between countries and lower impact than expected, higher education contributes to the development of generic skills for students, between entry and exit. In that perspective, consideration of various background variables such as gender, ethnicity, parental education, and primary language matter. Qinggen Zhang, Zhiyuan Liu and Hong Shen evaluate in Challenges to improving higher education students' critical thinking capacity in China the value-added effects of critical thinking ability in higher education in China. The analysis builds on international frameworks and statistical analysis. Using data from the 2016 National Assessment of Collegiate Capacity in China, the authors demonstrate three points. First, that critical thinking ability is malleable and can be improved through higher education. Second, the value-added effects of higher education on students' critical thinking ability are heterogeneous, and only half of the value-added effects produced by higher education institutions are positive. Third, the size of value-added effects does not align with the ranking of higher education institutions. Highly ranked universities do not always produce notable value-added effects on critical thinking ability. The study shows multiple disparities within Universities and recommends support to the development of generic skills at higher education institutions in China. Two of the articles in the thematic part of this issue focus on science literacy and science education. In their article, Designing learning environments to promote competent lay engagement with science, Clark Chinn, Susan Yoon, Huma Hussain-Abidi, Kyle Hunkar, Noora Noushad, Amanda Cottone and Thomas Richman recall that an important goal of science education is promoting scientific literacy. Scientific literacy is the competence to interact with science as laypeople to solve problems and make decisions in personal and community lives. In the article, the authors discuss how to design learning environments for science education that can help students attain scientific literacy. Chinn and colleagues argue that science curricula should encompass lessons with two distinct foci. One focus engages students in understanding the reliability of science-based statements. The second focus engages students as laypeople in interacting with science in the public sphere. Taking another point of view in their article Critical thinking as the ability to sort and qualify the information available, to form one's own judgement, Elena Pasquinelli and Olivier Richard examine how the general public in France relate to critical thinking in matters of scientific information, knowledge and debates. The analysis builds on the first prominent national survey, carried out in 2022 by the science centre Universcience. The science centre Universcience is a prominent institution for the promotion of public scientific literacy in Paris that brings together two previously established science centres, the Palais de la découverte and the Cité des sciences et de l'industrie. The rationale behind the study is a definition of critical thinking as the ability to sort and qualify available information, to form one's own judgement, to question one's opinions but also to trust reason. In practice, this refers to the ability to discern between information sources to judge which are more likely to be accurate and trustworthy. Critical thinking is thus considered a precondition for correctly assessing scientific information. Meanwhile, critical thinking is supported by knowledge about science, its processes of knowledge production, and the sources that are more likely to provide correct information in the scientific domain. The article elaborates on the vision of Critical Thinking on which the Barometer tool and associated study build. Also, it discusses the reasons for why developing scientific literacy—knowledge about scientific facts, methods, practices and sources—is crucial for fostering critical thinking relevant to scientific information, knowledge, debates, and beyond. Two of the articles focus on education practices, specifically by examining the obstacles and pedagogical possibilities to foster critical thinking in education. In their article, Fostering critical thinking: Features of powerful learning environments, Jan Elen and An Verburgh recall—as almost all the papers of this issue—that critical thinking is widely acknowledged to be important, difficult and complex. Hence, in their perspective, powerful learning environments should support students to develop critical thinking skills, to become critical thinkers. Such environments only come about if they are systematically designed. Elen and Verburgh review and discuss the literature on fostering critical thinking. They identify some of the challenges and complexities in defining critical thinking. Building on a previous research protocol, they develop a point on the importance of incorporating critical thinking in the curriculum. The authors propose that implicit approaches to foster critical thinking will probably be less effective than approaches that make critical thinking explicit in relation to subject matter specific knowledge. That is, approaches that infuse critical thinking into subject matter instruction, so that students are explicitly trained to apply critical thinking skills. The article Valuing adolescent students' street smarts to foster critical thinking by Maree Davies, Yan Xie and Patrick Girard draws on qualitative research conducted in the preparation of a recent curriculum update in New Zealand in 2022. This curriculum refresh includes increased expectations in all secondary school curricula for the development of critical thinking skills. One of the problems for implementing these new goals is that New Zealand has a history of inequitable opportunities for students to learn critical thinking, particularly for minority students. The article reports on a developing framework of critical thinking in New Zealand that has been especially designed for adolescent learners to make critical thinking equitable and accessible. Davies and colleagues present an analysis of their research results; specifically, descriptive statistics on critical thinking indicators. The results show that students benefitted from teaching practices where teachers had allowed students to share their stories and experiences on controversial topics relating to power structures; in particular, students categorised in the low academic ability group demonstrated deeper cognitive features in their discussions. The authors conclude that more time and opportunity should be given to adolescent students, particularly minority students and students in low academic ability classes, to share their narratives and stories before discussing controversial topics. In their article, Patterns and purposes in the uses and misuses of the term ‘critical thinking’ in the social sciences, Tamar Bregvadze and Karim Medjad investigate the uses and representations of the term critical thinking in the social science literature. Their qualitative content analysis draws on a review of titles, abstracts and keywords retrieved from the SCOPUS database for Germany, France, and Russia over the last two decades. Their main findings are counterintuitive. First, the use of the expression critical thinking is siloed and prominent notably in education. Second, the term has been used mainly instrumentally, rather than analytically. Third, most of the articles that used the term did not use a critical perspective. Geographic variations are also significant. The authors show that the dominant academic discourse on critical thinking is weak and makes a paradoxical use of the term critical thinking in that the term is used for signalling an absence of deviation from mainstream tradition. 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