Defining and Developing “Critical Thinking” Through Devising and Testing Multiple Explanations of the Same Phenomenon

Abstract

Most physics teachers would agree that one of the main reasons for her/his students to take physics is to learn to think critically. However, for years we have been assessing our students mostly on the knowledge of physics content (conceptually and quantitatively). Only recently have science educators started moving systematically towards achieving and assessing this critical thinking goal. In this paper we seek to show how guiding students to devise and test multiple explanations of observed phenomena can be used to improve their critical thinking.