Abstract

RAMADA, José Piquer; SOLAZ-PORTOLES, Joan Josep  and  LOPEZ, Vicente Sanjosé. Disposition Towards Critical Thinking, Academic Level, Gender and Problem Solving in Secondary Education. sophia [online]. 2021, vol.17, n.1, pp.13-23.  Epub July 22, 2021. ISSN 1794-8932.  https://doi.org/10.18634/sophiaj.17v.1i.1040.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the possible influence of critical thinking disposition, academic level and gender (independent variables) on the problem-solving performance of high school students (dependent variable). A total of 114 Spanish secondary school students participated, 55 boys and 59 girls, from the 3rd and 4th years of Compulsory Secondary Education (ESO) and the 1st year of High School (9th, 10th and 11th grade, respectively). All of them were administered a questionnaire on critical thinking disposition and a problem-solving test (a PISA test problem). From the Pearson product-moment correlation matrix between variables and the backward stepwise regression analysis performed, the following conclusions have been derived: 1) the disposition towards critical thinking (i.e., the potential use of critical thinking) and gender seem to have an insignificant weight on problem-solving performance; and 2) academic level shows a very prominent contribution to problem-solving performance.

Keywords : thinking critical; educational level; secondary school students; problem solving; education.

        · abstract in Spanish | Portuguese     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )