Pensamento crítico e prácticas científicas na formación do profesorado e a súa implicación na aula de infantil: indagando sobre a caída de obxectos

ESCOLA DE DOUTORAMENTO INTERNACIONAL DA USC Inés Mosquera Bargiela Tese de doutoramento PENSAMENTO CRÍTICO E PRÁCTICAS CIENTÍFICAS NA FORMACIÓN DO PROFESORADO E A SÚA IMPLICACIÓN NA AULA DE INFANTIL: INDAGANDO SOBRE A CAÍDA DE OBXECTOS Santiago de Compostela, 2021 Programa de Doutoramento en Educación TESE DE DOUTORAMENTO PENSAMENTO CRÍTICO E PRÁCTICAS CIENTÍFICAS NA FORMACIÓN DO PROFESORADO E A SÚA IMPLICACIÓN NA AULA DE INFANTIL: INDAGANDO SOBRE A CAÍDA DE OBXECTOS Inés Mosquera Bargiela ESCOLA DE DOUTORAMENTO INTERNACIONAL DA UNIVERSIDADE DE SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA PROGRAMA DE DOUTORAMENTO EN EDUCACIÓN SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA 202 DECLARACIÓN DO AUTOR/A DA TESE D./Dna. Inés Mosquera Bargiela Título da tese: Pensamento crítico e prácticas científicas na formación do profesorado e a súa implicación na aula de infantil: indagando sobre a caída de obxectos Presento a miña tese, seguindo o procedemento axeitado ao Regulamento, e declaro que: 1) A tese abarca os resultados da elaboración do meu traballo. 2) De ser o caso, na tese faise referencia ás colaboracións que tivo este traballo. 3) Confirmo que a tese non incorre en ningún tipo de plaxio doutros autores nin de traballos presentados por min para a obtención doutros títulos. 4) A tese é a versión definitiva presentada para a súa defensa e coincide a versión impresa coa presentada en formato electrónico E comprométome a presentar o Compromiso Documental de Supervisión no caso de que o orixinal non estea na Escola. En Santiago de Compostela, 21 de Decembro de 2021. Sinatura electrónica AUTORIZACIÓN DO DIRECTOR/TITOR DA TESE D./Dna. Blanca Puig En condición de: Titor/a e director/a Título da tese: Pensamento crítico e practices científicas na formación do profesorado e a súa implicación na aula de infantil: indagando sobre a caída de obxectos INFORMA: Que a presente tese, correspóndese co traballo realizado por D/Dna Inés Mosquera Bargiela, baixo a miña dirección/titorización, e a utorizo a súa presentación, considerando que reúne os r equisitos esixidos no R egulamento de Estudos de Doutoramento da USC, e que como director/titor desta non incorre nas causas de abstención establecidas na Lei 40/2015. En Santiago de Compostela, 21 de Decembro de 2021 Sinatura electrónica AUTORIZACIÓN DO DIRECTOR/TITOR DA TESE D./Dna. Paloma Blanco Anaya En condición de: Director/a Título da tese: Pensamento crítico e prácticas científicas na formación do profesorado e a súa implicación na aula de infantil: indagando sobre a caída de obxectos INFORMA: Que a presente tese, correspóndese co traballo realizado por D/Dna Inés Mosquera Bargiela, baixo a miña dirección/titorización, e a utorizo a súa presentación, considerando que reúne os r equisitos esixidos no R egulamento de Estudos de Doutoramento da USC, e que como director/titor desta non incorre nas causas de abstención establecidas na Lei 40/2015. En Santiago de Compostela, 21 de Decembro de 2021 Sinatura electrónica Inés Mosquera Bargiela 14 de despacho, Noa, Pablo, Sabela, Lucía e Borja; graciñas polos bos momentos e o voso acompañamento. Aos titores das escolas de verán de Ápice e ESERA, polas orientacións para mellorar este traballo. A Lucy Avraamidou, quen me acolleu e integrou no seu grupo de investigación dun xeito xeneroso. Moitas grazas por aportar a túa visión e coñecementos a esta investigación, así como presentarme a un grupo de persoas quen estou segura me acompañarán máis alá desta etapa. Para elas e aos que coñecín nesta etapa, Nuril, Athina, Theila, Betzabé, Camila e Miquel, entre outros, polas tan entretidas conversas, momentos compartidos e o apoio. Ao alumnado e ao profesorado que me permitiu acompañalos nas súas aulas, en especial a Ánxeles, quen durante un ano me abriu as portas para aprender do seu bo facer docente. Ás miñas amigas Jennifer e Laura por acompañarme tantos anos. Os nosos encontros e o voso cariño fixo posible superar esta etapa. A Joey, polas súas conversas e a súa compañía; por estar aí. Con moito agarimo á miña familia, en especial a meus pais, polo cariño e apoio incondicional durante todas as etapas da miña vida. Por último, a miña nai e a Flora, quen me inculcaron o amor pola ensinanza e coas súas conversas axúdanme a lembrar porqué escollín esta profesión. 15 SUMMARY This doctoral thesis aims to analyse scientific practices as well as critical thinking (from now on CT) performed by early year education students when learning science in the context of an inquiry-based task. Taking into account that CT has not been previously explored from an empirical perspective at this level of education, to address this general goal, a study that entails three levels of analysis was carried out: 1) scientific practices in the curriculum and teachers’ training programs in our region as well as the pre-service teachers’ educators views on CT notion and learning environments to promote it; 2) the role of an early childhood teacher, particularly the use of questioning as a teaching strategy that can enhance children’s inquiry and argumentation skills when they are involved in an inquiry-based task, and 3) the performance of CT skills and dispositions by the children. International reform documents have called for an emphasis on students’ engagement in core scientific practices, such as scientific inquiry and argumentation, from an early age (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, NASEM, 2018). Moreover, in the recent years, scientific practices have gained more presence in international and national curricular documents and have a large body of research. However, there is a scarcity of studies on scientific practices and CT in early childhood education. A search on the literature revealed that most of the research on inquiry have focused on students’ acquisition of inquiry skills (e.g., Burtscher, 2011; Hsin & Wu, 2011; Kambouri & Michaelides, 2014), whereas teachers’ guidance and how inquiry activities are Inés Mosquera Bargiela 16 implemented have not been deeply explored, what is necessary to shed some light on how students better perform inquiry and argumentation skills. This thesis attempts to investigate these aspects paying attention to teacher and students’ interactions. Argumentation and CT are very much interrelated; however they have not been deeply explored in early years. Most argumentation studies attend to argumentative dialogic movements prompted by drawings of stories (Dovigo, 2016) and the Philosophy for Children (P4C) program (Daniel et al., 2017) pays an emphasis on the importance of promoting CT at this stage. Drwaing from this gap on the literature this thesis investigates how scientific practices and CT were performed by early childhood students when learning science in the context of understanding scientific notions as gravity and air friction using an inquiry-based approach. The general goal of the thesis is specified in three research objectives and their respective research questions: O1. To characterize the state of art of scientific practices and critical thinking. RQ1) How are scientific practices integrated into the early childhood education curriculum? RQ2) How are these practices presented on initial and continuous training plans for pre-service and in-service early childhood teachers? RQ3) How critical thinking interventions studies in higher education are characterised? RQ4) What notion of critical thinking do pre-service teacher educators have? RQ5) What type of learning environments do pre-service teacher educators declare to implement in their instruction to promote critical thinking? 17 Summary O2. To identify didactic strategies, particularly teacher’s questions that favour the participation of early childhood students in scientific practices through the analysis of teacher-students’ interactions. RQ6) What is the nature of a teacher’s guidance in an inquiry-based learning activity? Specifically, what kinds of driving questions do teachers use to engage children in inquiry? RQ7) How does teachers’ driving questions affect students’ enactment of inquiry and argumentation skills? O3. To identify critical thinking skills and dispositions in students’ discourse in a science context. RQ8) How are the questions posed by the teacher that activate certain critical thinking skills and dispositions by early childhood students? RQ9) What is the relationship between the teacher’s questions and the practice of critical thinking by the students? Theoretical framework The theoretical framework can be situated within the studies in science education that focus on learning and teaching science and CT through scientific practices in early years. For that, the study is framed within three bodies of knowledge: 1) scientific practices in early years, 2) critical thinking in science education, 3) Teachers’ guidance in inquiry-based teaching, particularly the role of questioning in the activation of critical thinking and scientific practices. Scientific practices in early years Reports from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) disclosed that engaging in science since early years Inés Mosquera Bargiela 18 has affordances in later students’ achievement (OECD, 2012, 2017). This brings light to the importance of promoting science in early childhood education. In line with this situation is the growing concern in science instruction about how to promote it in conjunction with scientific practices. It is our understanding learning science implies participating in scientific practices. According to Reiser, Berland and Kenyon (2012) these practices imply the construction of scientific knowledge and the understanding of why it is constructed, examined, evaluated, and improved in a certain way. This view seeks to promote the participation of students in scientific practices, abandoning the idea of a mere acquisition of theoretical knowledge. In this study we focus on inquiry and argumentation, two of the three core practices that the term scientific practices encompass. Inquiry-based science has been introduced in most science education plans (OECD, 2007; Ramnarain, 2018; Rocard et al., 2007; Zhang, 2016), which derivate in multiple meanings. In this thesis, we follow the inquiry definition proposed by Bevins and Price (2016), who regarded inquiry as a question-driven, open-ended process of supporting students’ knowledge and investigating skills to find, and internalize, new concepts and solutions to the questions that have been formulated. This definition, inspired on Dewey’s roots and Kelly’s (2014) work emphasize the dialectical process that emerge in a situation where students try to reach a solution. Moreover, we concur with Evagorou et al. (2020), stating that other skills such as argumentation might be also developed when children engaged in an inquiry-based learning activity as both practices overlap in their territories of engagement. Research have addressed the acquisition of children’s inquiry skills when dealing with diverse scientific notions and and physical phenomena as: water cycle (Hsin & Wu, 2011; Kambouri & Michaelides, 2014), the changes of state of different substances and compounds (Cruz-Guzmán et al., 2017), meteorological phenomena and astronomical events (Burtscher, 2011) and the concept of shadow (Bayir, 2019). Nonetheless, attention to teacher’s guidance and how inquiry activities are implemented is necessary to shed some lights on how students better perform inquiry skills, which is what thesis aims to investigate. 19 Summary Argumentation is one of the scientific practices necessary to understand how knowledge, it is built, assessed, and communicated, as scientists provide arguments to link evidence with the conclusions through justifications (Brown et al., 2010; McNeill & Krajcik, 2011). Two skills students need to develop for the participation in the culture of science are constructing explanations and basing their arguments on evidence. As inquiry, it has been conceptualized in different ways depending which the focus is on. For the purposes of this study, we define it as a socio-di- alogical process that involves an interaction between children constructing claims and evidence and the establishment of a valid conclusion, explanation or other claims about the natural world (Berland & Reiser, 2011; Driver et al., 2000). Research findings suggest that by incorporating argumentation in science teaching, children might develop a stronger understanding of content knowledge and improve their ability to justify their own claims (McNeill, 2011). In argumentative classrooms, that is precisely what students do, they tentatively construct their claims supported by reasonable evidence either as individuals or as a group to present it later to their peers to seek critique or come up with alternatives. In this sense, the goal of argumentation is not only to interact through ideas but also to reach an agreement where teachers and students work together as a community to improve their arguments through cognitive conflict (Ford & Wargo, 2012; Walton, 1998). Research on argumentation in science education is relatively recent, focusing these early studies on exploring whether argumentation took place on the classroom (Jiménez-Aleixandre & Erduran, 2015). Often, findings pointed out children were not able to formulate sound arguments. In the last decade, scarce studies on argumentation skills were carried out in early years (e.g., Kultti & Pramling, 2020), usually focusing on children’s reasoning skills (Mercier, 2011) or in arguments posed by children in a mathematical activity (Breive, 2017) or contexts of play (Migdalek et al., 2015). As far as we know, Dovigo (2016) it is the only study that addresses how argumentation starts to get shaped in early years through the dialogical movements between the children and their teacher. Inés Mosquera Bargiela 20 Critical thinking in science education Critical thinking is considered as a seminal goal in education, and there is some consensus among educators about the need to establish it as a core skill at a curricular and teaching level (Binkley et al., 2012). Nonetheless, the multifaceted (Barnaby, 2016), and dynamic (Kuhn, 2019) character of this notion, makes difficult to achieve a unique definition, and discussions persist about the way CT can be achieved through education (Abrami et al., 2008; Niu, et al., 2013). Critical thinking has been conceptualized in various ways from philosophy, psychology, and education. Nonetheless, they present a common characteristic: CT requires a domain of context-specific knowledge to evaluate specific beliefs or statements (Greene & Yu, 2016; Puig et al., 2020). This thesis adopts this perspective, although it also considers important, especially at an early age, to attend to other factors that are part of the affective and social domain. In this study, CT definition is drawn from Facione’s (1990) and Facione and Facione et al.’s (1995) framework, agreed on an Erasmus+ European Project (Critical Thinking Across Higher Education Curricula, CRITHINKEDU) and refined in RODA, our research group (Jiménez-Aleixandre & Puig, in press). It is our understanding that CT is a set of skills and dispositions that enable students and people to guide conscious actions based on reasons and values, but also on independent thinking. Following these authors, we consider that CT involves considering empirical evidence, thus it can be developed through the practice of argumentation (Kuhn, 2019), but it contains also other components, some cognitive or metacognitive, as self-regulation, some dispositional, as willingness to reconsider and revise views, and affective. The notion of skills it is drawn from Facione (1990), understanding that they allow students development at a cognitive and personal level. Furthermore, we undertake the idea that dispositions consist of the internal motivation to act or respond in a certain way (Facione, 2000). To operationalize the definition of CT, researchers have identified a set of specific CT skills and dispositions, whose development must be exercised from an early age and in varied contexts that allow activating them (Facione, 1990; Facione et 21 Summary al., 1995). In science teaching, according to Jiménez-Aleixandre and Puig (in press), one way to achieve this objective is to involve students in processes of knowledge construction through scientific practices where teacher-student dialogic interaction takes place. Pre-service teachers’ educators, being responsible of the teaching of future teachers, have a key role on the CT development on pre-service teachers, which ultimately would have an impact on the children they will teach on the future. Despite literature points the crucial role of the educators in this process (Janssen et al., 2019; Pithers & Soden, 2000), scarce investigations have been carried out about educators’ CT skills and dispositions. The teaching-learning environment or the social climate of the classroom concerns the relationship between the characteristics of the group of students and the teaching methods used so that, ultimately, they can deepen their learning beyond the levels of reproduction (Fraser et al., 1982; Struyven et al., 2006). According to these authors, the interactions between teachers and students or the structural characteristics of the classroom, among others, could consequently determine their CT skills. At the core of learning environments, teaching methods and activities are central themes in empirical CT studies. There are several investigations focused on the teaching of CT, however, there are no conclusive results on what the best conditions for an instruction are to be successful in terms of its development (Tiruneh et al., 2014). In this study, Ennis’ (1989, 2016) framework for researchers and educators as well as Abrami et al. (2015) intervention approaches play a key role since they are also adopted as analytical frameworks. This thesis engages students in the practice of CT during an inquiry-based activity that aims to promote argumentation and inquiry skills. Critical thinking is usually associated with the other scientific practice addressed in this study, argumentation, since it largely involves the evaluation of statements or knowledge through the analysis of evidence (Giri & Paily, 2020). One of the most recent characterizations of CT in science contributed by Jiménez-Aleixandre and Puig (in press) includes a series of components related, on the one hand, to reasoned judgment, and, on the other hand, with the orientation to action. Although we agree Inés Mosquera Bargiela 22 with this vision, we understand that, in the early childhood education stage, CT should be promoted from a dialogic interaction in contexts that promote curiosity, the formulation of questions and the search for answers through experiments, as well as the construction of valid justifications refuting alternatives (Kuhn, 1993; Nussbaum & Sinatra, 2003). The integration of CT in science instruction at early years can be achieved in diverse manners. We believe that CT can be embedded in inquiry-based learning as a dialogic practice in a way that help students to mobilize diverse CT skills as analyse, explanation evaluation, etc., all along with diverse inquiry and argumentation skills. Nonetheless, scarce research has been carried out on CT in early years science and the existing studies, as far as we have been able to know, tend to focus on the development of certain skills by the students (Corral-Verdugo et al., 1996; Harbi, 2016; León, 2015, among others). Teachers’ guidance in inquiry-based teaching. The role of questioning in the activation of critical thinking and scientific practices. The actions of teachers are crucial in driving the thinking process during the enactment of an inquiry-based activity, bringing out meaningful learning. For this, the role of the teacher needs to shift from an information accumulator to an “active designer” (Gormally et al., 2009, p. 16). Nonetheless, teachers still face difficulties to implement inquiry-based activities and opt for more traditional approaches. Bevins and Price (2016) and Constantinou et al. (2018) point out as constraints the content-laden curricula, inappropriate assessment procedures for inquiry approaches as well as lack of resources and lack of knowledge about the amount of guidance. In recent years, scholars and educators have started to name inquiry-based teaching (IBT) as a way to bring key features of authentic scientific inquiry into the science classroom, offering the students experiences to develop the understanding of scientific concepts and connect them with everyday life (Constantinou et al., 2018). For the purpose of this study IBT is regarded as a motivational approach of learning science as it focuses on children’s interests and prompts active learning by enabling students to conduct their own investigations (Vorholzer & 23 Summary von Aufschnaiter, 2019). We concur with Furtak et al. (2012) in understanding IBT as part of a continuum of guidance from less to more guidance. Despite the importance of teachers’ guidance in inquiry-based teaching, very few studies have focused on teacher strategies to promote inquiry skills in early childhood education. Questions play a fundamental role in inquiry as it starts with a question (Herranen & Aksela, 2019) and are considered the backbone of classroom investigations (Kawalkar & Vijapurkar, 2013). Questioning have even been used to define inquiry as ‘question-driven learning’, since questions drive the lessons as students gather and interpret data to answer that question, construct an explanation, and communicate the results. Teacher questions play a critical importance in initiating various cognitive functions (Aschner, 1961; Carner, 1963) that teachers need to be professional questioners (Gall, 1984). Nonetheless, a set of studies has shown that questioning is a skill that is lacking in classrooms in early childhood (Asay & Orgill, 2010), Furthermore, teachers’ questioning empirical studies in early childhood are scarce and emphasise children’s conceptual understanding (Eshach, 2011) and conceptual change (Smith et al., 1993; Yip, 1998) not stressing the importance of the teacher’s role. It is also our understanding that the type of questions posed by the teacher anchor the investigation the children will be undertaking in a lesson, leading them to gather and use data to develop explanations of scientific phenomena. These questions are known as investigation questions and are sometimes referred in the literature as ‘driving questions’ (Krajcik et al., 1998). Methods, participants, and educational context The methodological approach is qualitative, appropriated to study educational process (Creswell & Creswell, 2014). It seeks to understand the participants’ meanings, and how they make sense about the experiences lived (Merriam, 2009). The design of the investigation followed an embedded case study as it considers multiples units of analysis that focus on different aspects of the case (Scholz & Tieje, 2002) enabling a mixture of qualitative research techniques to be incorporated into the overall Inés Mosquera Bargiela 30 and reflect on possible variables that might influence the development of the experiments, in particular, in regards of the experimental design. The comparison between the skills promoted by the teacher and those perceived in the students showed a concordance between both. In general, we can affirm that the questions guide student participation. Most of the skills developed by the students show a slight increase in their frequency with respect to the questions posed by the teacher. Nonetheless, this cannot be said in terms of dispositions, given that children’s enactment is lower. Conclusions The analysis of the first research objective, to characterize the state of art of scientific practices and critical thinking, regarding the scientific practices allowed us to stablish three conclusions: 1. Inquiry is the scientific practice that receives the most attention in Galicia’s early childhood education curriculum. 2. The least present scientific practice at the curricular level is argumentation. 3. Initial and continuous teacher training plans do not offer training in science practices. The analysis of the first research objective, to characterize the state of art of scientific practices and critical thinking, regarding the CT practices allowed us to stablish eight conclusions: 4. The literature reveals that most CT interventions are short-term and focus on skills rather than dispositions. 5. Most interventions do not make the CT teaching principles explicit, as opposed to a minority that combines implicit and explicit teaching. 6. The LDT (lecture-discussion teaching) strategy based on dialogue and supported by individual activities is the most common in the CT interventions analysed. 31 Summary 7. Educators agree in understanding CT as a notion that encompasses diverse skills and dispositions, however, the definitions they hold are varied. 8. The most valued CT skills by educators are inference and evaluation, while the dispositions receive less attention, which is in line with the results found in previous analysed studies. 9. Critical thinking is implicitly integrated into teacher training, which implies it is developed through practice. 10. Dialogue and discussions are considered of great importance by educators as a means of promoting the CT, which highlights the connection between CT and argumentation. 11. CT assessment is not explicitly integrated in educators’ instruction nor in the programs of their subjects, but it is regarded as another element of the summative assessment process. The analysis of the second research objective, to identify didactic strategies, particularly teacher’s questions that favour the participation of early childhood students in scientific practices through the analysis of teacher-students’ interactions, allowed us to stablish six conclusions: 12. The type of questions posed by the teacher are repeated thorough the activity, creating a guiding inquiry cycle emerged from the teacher’s experience and her interactions with students. 13. The most frequently asked questions show that the teacher stress the key processes for understanding the activity and the concepts for drawing conclusions. 14. There is a positive relationship between the type of questions asked by the teacher and the skills mobilized by the students. 15. The way questions are asked encourages certain inquiry skills. 16. The questions asked by the teacher promote to a greater extent inquiry than argumentation skills. 17. Scientific practices of inquiry and argumentation overlaps in their cognitive and procedural fields. 18. Questioning helps students to mobilize previously acquired scientific knowledge during the development of the activity Inés Mosquera Bargiela 32 The analysis of the third research objective, to identify critical thinking skills and dispositions in students’ discourse in a science context, allowed us to stablish four conclusions: 19. There is no pattern between the teachers’ questions and CT skills and dispositions articulated by the students. Teacher questions do not seem to give rise to a significant variation in the skills and dispositions of the students either in number or in variety. 20. The skill of explanation, linked to the scientific practice of argumentation, has been promoted and enacted frequently. 21. The skill of evaluation, of vital importance for the critical analysis of the information, is not promoted by the teacher and is not present in the discourse of the students. 22. Dispositions are promoted to a lesser extent than CT skills and questions have little impact on these in students’ discourse. Educational implications An educational implication related to the first research objective refers to the presence of scientific practices are present at a curricular level. Although they are present, being the inquiry that receives the most attention in our curriculum, the initial and continuous teacher training plans analysed do not include activities that allow their development. Given the importance of training teachers in scientific practices in order to achieve the effective transfer of these in the classroom, we suggest, in line with the proposal of Nordine et al. (2021) articulate teacher training plans that prioritize the development of a small and robust body of ideas through the enactment of scientific practices. Extending this approach to the entire education system at the curricular and training level requires the participation of various educational agents and institutions and greater research at this stage of education. Another educational implication regarding the first objective and CT practices deals with the fact that the most learning environments to promote CT according to educators involve processes of argumentation and debates, which reveals the connection between the CT and 33 Summary the argumentation. In this sense, we agree with Giry and Paily (2020) and Kuhn (2019) that argumentation must be integrated into a science learning environment to promote CT. Since both encompass higher order thinking skills, their teaching involves students exercising them through classroom practice. In addition, following the line of the previous implication, we believe that an active, with a specific purpose initial and continuous teacher training, that targets CT is of vital importance to activate their development by early childhood students. Finally, the review of the interventions and the interviews revealed that CT evaluation should be further investigated specially in the qualitative evaluation by means of instruments/rubrics that allow it. One implication is the need to develop studies that allow the development of useful tools for teachers that can be integrated into formal planning. An educational implication related to the second research objective derives from the findings that certain types of questions promote certain skills among children, which makes it easier to design activities and carry out strategies by teachers. Thus, questions such as “what do you think will happen?” or “how will it fall?” promote the ability to formulate hypotheses. When the teacher asked, “What do you think happened?”, after engaging on the experiment, this question served the students as a prompt to analyse and interpret the data. However, it should be noted that not all teachers have sufficient didactic knowledge about effective ways to promote CT and scientific practices. Sustained teacher training over time - in addition to experience - would play a crucial role in not only adopting this role, but also adapting it to the activity as students demand it. It is also worth noting the justification of answers, the most common skill, which is linked to argumentation. This could suggest that early childhood students are able to begin to justify the answers supported by the use of evidence, so adaptations of the CER model (Krajick & McNeill, 2015) in which the connection between these central elements of the argument are made explicit could be of great help at an early age. In particular, when students are not used to providing justifications and teachers’ guidance through questioning it is not enough. Inés Mosquera Bargiela 34 Related to the third research object an educational implication is related to the complexity of the CT practice, which prompts students to perform dispositions to a lesser extent than skills. One of these skills is the explanation, linked to the justification of answers and, therefore, to the scientific practice of argumentation. This reveals a gap with the curriculum, where this skill did not appear collected and with the literature where no research is known to address these aspects in early childhood education. Furthermore, the evaluation skill was not promoted by the teacher or performed by the students. We believe that since children are consumers of information from an early age, they should begin to develop this skill, linking it to the practice of argumentation and within the limits of their experience, as Delamain and Spring (2021) have shown in their study with students of this stage. Last, the analysis of the teacher’s and students’ discourse showed that the design and context of the task must be taken into account when promoting CT skills and dispositions, since their development depends largely on them. An inquiry-based and physics-related activity has its own characteristics and, as a result, students develop certain skills and dispositions that would surely vary if the task were different. That is, CT development is dependent on the context in which students are involved (Greene & Yu, 2016). This is of great importance because the unit and, therefore, the activities and concepts that are intended for children to learn, are not “simple” activities, but their design focus around phenomena, and may have integrated different scientific ideas using them as a central motivating and guiding element. Lowell and McNeill (2019) indicate that this type of design can help to encourage CT in elementary students and the role of teachers in this context is to ask questions about the phenomenon to guide students towards the draw of conclusions. THEORETICAL GROUNDING 37 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. Justification of the research This doctoral thesis focuses on analysing scientific practices as well as critical thinking (from now on CT, in Galician PC) performed by early year education students when learning science in the context of an inquiry-based task. To address this main goal, it is necessary to carry out a study that entails three levels of analysis, since CT is a notion that has not been previously explored in early childhood education, as far as the literature shows, from an empirical perspective. Thus, exploring how this notion is contemplated in the curriculum and by teachers’ educators at this educational level was necessary to address this general aim. The thesis encompasses the analysis of: 1) CT and scientific practices in the curriculum and teachers’ training programs in our context as well as pre-service teacher’s educators views on CT notion and how to promote it; 2) the role of an early childhood teacher, particularly the use of questioning as a teaching strategy and how this strategy can enhance the inquiry and argumentation practices by students can and 3) the enactment of CT by a group of early childhood students in an inquiry-based activity guided by a teacher with previous experience in inquiry-based teaching and CT development through scientific practices. International reform documents have called for an emphasis on students’ engagement in core scientific practices, such as scientific inquiry and argumentation, from an early age (National Academies of Sciences, Inés Mosquera Bargiela 38 Engineering, and Medicine, NASEM, 2018). A key component of science learning is to engage students in scientific practices. Research shows that involving learners in scientific practices leads to a more sophisticated understanding of key ideas and scientific models and of the nature of science (Lehrer & Schauble, 2015). For the purpose of this study, we draw from Reiser, Berland and Kenyon’s (2012) view of scientific practices that not only involves building the knowledge and understanding the reason of it, but also the social interactions that accompany this process. We define the operational definitions of inquiry from Eshach and Fried (2005) consisting of observing, asking questions, hypothesizing, representing data (tables, diagrams, etc.), interpreting data and formulating models. Modelling operational definitions involves students’ participations on the development, use and assessment of models (Schwarz et al., 2009) and, regarding the scientific practice of argumentation, we concur with Berland and Reiser (2011) that it implies learners’ engagement in a dialogic process in which they socially construct, critique and revise claims about the natural world. In the recent years, scientific practices have gained more presence in international and national curricular documents and there is a large part of the scientific community that accepts the metaphor of children as little scientists (Legare, 2012). Furthermore, these practices have a large body of research; however, few studies focus on early childhood education and the majority are quite descriptive. Currently, studies are being carried out about why early childhood and primary education fail to meet this new approach and authors as Early et al., (2010), Pell and Jarvis (2003) and Kallery and Psillos (2002) point out several factors related to in-service teachers such as lack of materials, low self-confidence, or lack of content knowledge to engage students in science practices. As the findings of this thesis will show, these difficulties become more prominent in our context since, on the one hand, pre-service teachers have scarce science-related subjects during the degree and, on the other hand, early childhood teachers have few choices to continuous training about science education these options do not contain any subject-matter knowledge. There is an agreement that CT can be developed through the enactment of scientific practices, nonetheless, research had focused more on 39 Introduction the latter. Critical thinking research has been mostly addressed from a theoretical standpoint and carried out in higher educational levels (Davies & Barnett, 2015). In addition, the notion of what CT entails for the teachers remains unclear, as each holds their own definition with a tendency to favour the skills (Bargiela et al., 2021). This leads to a situation in which there is not an agreement between researchers as well as educators to which teaching strategy would promote greater CT outcomes (Tiruneh et al., 2014). In a similar line, authors such as Smith and Holmes (2020) and Willingham (2007) have agreed that CT is better taught in the context of rich subject matter knowledge, nonetheless, there is not much investigation about which contexts are more favourable to promote it. Furthermore, Tiruneh (2016) affirmed the students’ level of knowledge on the activity they are engaged in would influence the development of CT skills and dispositions. Therefore, we affirm that in this thesis the context of an inquiry-based activity shapes the research as well as children’s skill and dispositions development. We argue that learning both, scientific practices, and CT from a young age through science learning is important as it supports children’s development in science and other developmental domains. The idea that children are innate scientists with a wide curiosity is accepted by most of the teachers and researchers, stating that this curiosity is not only satisfied when they engage in science learning, but also it helps them to make sense of the world they live in (Eshach & Fried, 2005; Greenfield, 2009, 2017; Katz, 2010). In addition, we believe children develop a positive attitude towards science (Gomes & Fleer, 2020; Mantzicopoulos et al. 2013), gains on the practices needed for doing science (Fusaro & Smith, 2018; Samarapungavan et al., 2015) and on specific scientific concepts (Hadzigeorgiou, 2015; Sackes, 2015). Science teaching in early years should be taught focusing on content knowledge relevant to children’s world (Adams, 2012), which they can experience and carry out investigations on. Therefore, we concur with Larimore (2020) that identifying a range of appropriate content, fostering children’s sensemaking while building a broader cognitive and non-cognitive foundation for them to connect with on the future would be appropriate. In this thesis, the in-service teacher addresses different physical phenomena to answer Inés Mosquera Bargiela 46 with an emphasis on inquiry and argumentation; (b) critical thinking in science education; and (c) teachers’ guidance in inquiry-based teaching. In the third, Methods, it is described the type of investigation that was carried out, meaning, a qualitative embedded single-case study design. Afterwards, the context, participants, data collection and data analysis process are addressed for each unit of analysis to answer the research questions. The following chapter, from fourth to seventh, corresponds to the findings. In the fourth, Integration of the scientific practices on the early childhood curriculum and the teacher training plans, includes the findings after applying content analysis to the early childhood curriculum of our province (Xunta de Galicia, 2009) as well as teacher training initial and continuous plans to know if and how scientific practices are presented on them. In the fifth, Critical thinking: from the literature to the classrooms, a systematic literature review was carried out to characterise CT educational studies in higher education. Furthermore, five pre-service teachers’ educators were interviewed to know their CT notion as well as the learning environment they implement on their own classrooms to promote it. In the sixth, Inquiry-based teaching: teacher role in children’s engagement in inquiry and argumentation practices, the questions posed by the teacher were analysed to consider also how they influenced to the children’s enactment of inquiry and argumentation skills. In the seventh, Critical thinking performance in a science activity, the questions posed by the teacher were analysed to explore how they influenced on children’s performance on CT skills and dispositions. Finally, in the eighth, Conclusions, educational implications and final considerations, the conclusions that derive from this study are indicated and discussed along with the educational implications, both for research and for educational practice. The last section of the thesis has been intended to comment on the limitations of the study and the future lines of research that emerge from the present study. 47 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK The theoretical framework of this thesis can be situated within the studies in science education that focus on learning and teaching science and CT through scientific practices in early years. Aligned with this approach, CT is considered a situated practice that involves a set of skills and dispositions enacted through dialogue in the science classrooms. Scientific practices and CT are considered interrelated activities that can be ac - tivated by the teacher through questioning. This section addresses the most relevant theoretical underpinnings that are used in this research. 2.1. Scientific practices in early years Reports from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) disclosed that engaging in science since early years has affordances in later students’ achievement (OECD, 2012, 2017). This brings light to the importance of promoting science in early childhood education. In line with this situation is the growing concern in science instruction about how to promote it in conjunction with scientific practices. Diverse European projects (e.g., S-TEAM; KidsINNScience) have focused on generating resources and teaching materials to work on scientific practices and analyse teaching strategies for their effective implementation. From these projects, and from recent research on teacher training, they derive reflections about the need to pay greater attention Inés Mosquera Bargiela 48 to the performance and transfer of scientific practices from an early age (Krajcik & McNeill, 2015). Learning science implies participating in scientific practices, which authors such as Kelly (2008, p. 99) define as “the specific ways in which members of a community propose, justify, evaluate and legitimize knowl - edge statements in a disciplinary framework.” Reiser, Berland and Kenyon (2012) point out that these practices imply the construction of scientific knowledge and the understanding of why it is constructed, examined, evaluated, and improved in a certain way. The notion of practice, according to the National Research Council (NRC, 2012), emphasizes the need to use not only skills, but also specific knowledge for each practice. This view seeks to promote the participation of students in scientific practices, abandoning the idea of a mere acquisition of theoretical knowledge. In this study we focus on inquiry and argumentation, two of the three core practices that the term scientific practices encompass. There is a need in science education to shift the focus on classrooms from memorizing facts to engaging students in an authentic scientific practice in which they use the data to shape evidence for the support of scientific claims (Chen et al., 2017; Sampson et al., 2011). There is a consensus in the scientific community that science learning should be promoted by students participating in scientific practices from an early age (e.g., Eshach & Fried, 2005; Trundle, 2015). Authors such as Larimore (2020) and Davis et al. (2020) support a change in science education to a more comprehensive approach that allow students to develop an understanding on how knowledge is built and acquired through the sustained participation in scientific practices and discourse. One of the proposals which has been presented with the aim of achieving this objective, is the idea of situating the use of knowledge in meaningful context for children. This helps them to make sense of real-world phenomena as they use evidence to construct and critique multiple explanations (McNeill, 2020) by engaging the children in a process skill and the science -epistemic- practice to understand what, how, and why it occurs the phenomena (Lehrer & Schauble, 2015). Nevertheless, despite the importance of introducing these practices and the existence of teaching resources designed to promote them, translating it into practice remains to be a 49 Theoretical framework challenge for teachers at different levels (Kelly, 2008; Reiser, Berland and Kenyon, 2012, among others). This thesis focuses on examining scientific and CT practices performed by early childhood education students when learning science in the con - text of an inquiry-based task about gravity and air friction. Inquiry and argumentation have presented diverse definitions in the literature. In the following paragraphs we frame out study in the notions of inquiry and argumentation as separated practices, nonetheless, we concur with Bell et al. (2012) that they are interrelated. Inquiry has its roots at the beginning of the twentieth century in the studies of Piaget (1929) and the insights of Dewey (1933), and Vygotsky (1978), which put the focus on the importance of the children’s curiosity, imagination, and their yearning to interact during the learning process. Nonetheless, it was not until Joseph J. Schwab’s work (1962) that inquiry began to take significance in science teaching in the United States of America (Bybee, 2011). In Spain, a reform on science education was carried out during that time, considering that scientific knowledge should be taught carrying investigations that reflect the ways scientists work (Crujeiras-Pérez, 2015). In this sense, inquiry would be the model that science education should follow. Years later, in the international context, there was a shift on the focus to processes of science, emphasizing students learnt specific processes such as observing, measuring, or inferring at the same time they acquire concepts (Bybee, 2011). However, this attempt led to favour the processes, thus, inquiry was introduced as a teaching strategy to stress the importance of learning science by practicing skills. Since then, inquiry-based science has been introduced in most science education plans (OECD, 2007; Ramnarain, 2018; Rocard et al., 2007; Zhang, 2016), which derivate in multiple meanings. In the 1990s, the National Science Education Standards defined the term in the following terms: Inquiry is a multifaceted activity that involves making observations; posing questions; examining books and other sources of information to see what is already known; planning investigations; reviewing what is already known in light of experimental evidence; using tools to gather, Inés Mosquera Bargiela 50 analyze, and interpret data; proposing answers, explanations, and predictions; and communicating the results. Inquiry requires identification of assumptions, use of critical and logical thinking, and consideration of alternative explanations. (NRC, 1996, p. 23) The National Science Education Standards (NSES) were published as a new set of standards for K-12 Science Inquiry (NRC, 2000) to promote students’ development of (a) necessary abilities to do inquiry and (b) understanding scientific inquiry. In other words, students should learn how scientists do their work and how scientific knowledge is developed, critiqued, and eventually accepted by the community. This process, as Lederman et al. (2019) pointed out, it is in its essence inquiry. The skills mentioned on the NRC’s (1996) definition were established as desirable for students to develop in the NRC (2012). It is in these standards and in Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS, 2013) where it is emphasized the “doing” of scientific inquiry, naming them practices. This approach based on scientific practices is starting to make some impact on different countries such as Canada (e.g., Öberg & Campbell, 2019), Taiwan (e.g., Cheng et al., 2021), Mexico (Bahamonde & Gómez- Galindo, 2016), the Netherlands (e.g., Prins et al., 2018), and Spain (e.g., Crujeiras-Pérez & Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2019). In some countries such as ours, the term scientific practices it is not explicitly used on the curricula. Nonetheless, in the official elementary education curriculum (Boletín Oficial del Estado [BOE], 2008) is possible to find some of the inquiry skills: “experimentation with objects and materials will basically allow the inquiry into and knowledge of the elements of reality from both a physical and logico-mathematical perspective, the two being inseparable at this age” (p. 1033). Inquiry has been characterized in several ways, sometimes oversimplifying it as hands-on activities. Furthermore, its features ranged from simple descriptions of students actively guiding their own learning with the teacher acting as a facilitator, to more elaborated lists of actions for the teacher, students, and curriculum (Curran & Kitchin, 2019; González- Rodríguez & Crujeiras-Pérez, 2016). The term inquiry is often used to refer to the scientific methodology, the learning process, or the teaching strategy (Minner et al., 2010). In this thesis, we follow the inquiry 51 Theoretical framework definition proposed by Bevins and Price (2016), who regarded inquiry as a question-driven, open-ended process of supporting students’ knowledge and investigating skills to find, and internalize, new concepts and solutions to the questions that have been formulated. This definition, inspired on Dewey’s roots and Kelly’s (2014) work emphasize the dialectical process that emerge in a situation where students try to reach a solution. In this way, more attention is on students’ as active learners, engaging cognitively to develop evidence-based explanations and not on an oversimplified hands-on activity (Hmelo et al., 2007). In addition, our view concurs with Evagorou et al. (2020), stating that other skills such as argumentation might be also developed when children engaged in an inquiry-based learning activity as both practices overlap in their territories of engagement. Biggers (2018) situated both teachers and learners at the core of inquiry’s definition, emphasising their participatory relationship and their enacted scientific practice. Lederman et al. (2014, 2019) elaborated a description of inquiry aspects K-12 students should develop an understanding about. Table 1 provides a brief overview of them. Table 1. Description of inquiry aspects K-12 students should develop in the classroom Feature Description Classroom investigations began with a question but might not test any hypothesis The NRC (2000) stated that for an investigation to be carried out a question about the natural world should be posed. No pre-defined sequence of steps is followed in investigations To get a better understanding of scientists’ work, a variety of methodologies employed should be employed in order to answer the question at hand. The inquiry process is guided by the question asked Students should understand the alignment between the question and methodologies to answer it. The same procedures carried out by different people might not get the same results Students need to understand data does not stand by itself; the scientist who explore the same data may come to different conclusions. Inés Mosquera Bargiela 52 Feature Description Scientific data and evidence are not the same Data are observations gathered during the investigation, however, evidence, is the product of data analysis and interpretation in relation to a specific question. Explanations are developed from the data collected and students’ previous knowledge As investigations are guided by current knowledge, it is interesting to understand conclusions take into account the new set of data analysed as well as the already accepted knowledge. We acknowledge the impossibility to compare the scientific inquiry to the school inquiry as the latter might suffer for some constraints such as time (Grandy & Duschl, 2007). Other difficulties when it comes to be implemented on early childhood education classes might be related to the amount of time spent on science lessons at this educational stage (Piasta et al., 2014; Tu, 2006). The reasons for this lack of time could be find because of the emphasis on language, mathematics, and literacy instruction in the early years (French & Woodring, 2012; Greenfield et al., 2009; Guo et al., 2016); teachers’ limited knowledge about science content (Kallery & Psillos, 2001; Tu, 2006) or self-efficacy (Gerde et al., 2018; Oppermann et al., 2019). Many studies have addressed the acquisition of scientific knowledge or skills (e.g., Cruz-Guzmán et al., 2018; Valls-Bautista et al., 2021) or the expressed perceptions of pre-service teachers (e.g., van Katwijk et al., 2021). Furthermore, inquiry has been researched at a high school level through the lens of diverse teaching approaches and activities such as cooperative (e.g., Crujeiras-Pérez & Cambeiro, 2018) or mobile learning (e.g., Liu et al., 2020) as well as laboratory activities (e.g., Wardani et al., 2017; Sesen & Tarhan, 2013). Diverse studies have addressed the examination of children’s inquiry skills when dealing with diverse scientific notions and physical phenomena as: water cycle (Hsin & Wu, 2011; Kambouri & Michaelides, 2014), the changes of state of different substances and compounds (Cruz-Guzmán et al., 2017), meteorological phenomena and astronomical events (Burtscher, 2011) and the concept of shadow (Bayir, 2019). These studies reported on similar results: students’ insights into the scientific notions increased along with their inquiry skills such as 53 Theoretical framework predicting, manipulating materials, collecting, and interpreting data as well as drawing conclusions. Monteira and Jiménez-Aleixandre’s (2016) study reported that children were able to use observation and evidence in sophisticated ways as to revise their initial ideas, to decide between alternative ideas or to propose explanations, when studying the behaviour of snails. We agree with Cantó et al., (2016) that the acquisition of scientific skills (e.g., hypotheses formulation, carrying out experiments) is of great importance at this educational stage and we believe that implementing inquiry-based activities could promote children’s inquiry skills, as previous studies have shown. Nonetheless, attention to teacher’s guidance and how inquiry activities are implemented is necessary to shed some lights on how students better perform inquiry skills, which is what thesis aims to investigate. Argumentation roots can be found in Greece under the name of rhetoric. The philosopher, Aristoteles, was recognised as the father of the argumentation theory (Walton, 1996). He defined it as a mode of logical reasoning that start from a premise. This reasoning is produced through the rhetoric understood as the art of “good talking”. For this philosopher a good argumentation consists of convincing of something true and verifiable by logical procedures, therefore, emotions do not have room on it (Plantin, 2005). Trying to advance beyond the traditional initiate-respond-evaluate (IRE) practices of the early twentieth century, the framework proposed by the NCR (2012) made some recommendations. Argumentation is one of the scientific practices necessary to understand how knowledge, it is built, assessed, and communicated, as scientists provide arguments to link evidence with the conclusions through justifications (Brown et al., 2010; McNeill & Krajcik, 2011). Two skills students need to develop for the participation in the culture of science are constructing explanations and basing their arguments on evidence. In the European context, the OECD also includes argumentation as one of the competencies, linking it with the analysis and evaluation of “data, claims and arguments […] to draw appropriate scientific conclusions” (OECD, 2017, p. 15, 21-24). These approaches emphasize analytical and reflective skills; thus, it is interrelated with CT (Hand et al., 2018). Inés Mosquera Bargiela 54 Scholars differ widely on its definition (van Eemeren et al., 2014; Wagemans, 2019; Allchin & Zemplén, 2020). For instance, argumentation can be characterized as a scientific practice that is used to “solve problems and advance knowledge” (Duschl & Osborne, 2002, p. 41). For the purpose of this study, we define it as a socio-dialogical process that involves an interaction between children constructing claims and evidence and the establishment of a valid conclusion, explanation or other claims about the natural world (Berland & Reiser, 2011; Driver et al., 2000). The ability to use scientific evidence to support claims is considered a core skill to participate in scientific argumentation (Henderson et al., 2018) and is a key practice to identify the argument’s weaknesses and strengths in order to look for the best explanation of a phenomena (NRC, 2012). As Crujeiras-Pérez et al. (2020) stated, to achieve this goal, it is necessary to introduce this practice continuously in the classroom. Several researchers have proposed dialogic teaching strategies to foster argumentation in the classroom. Osborne (2012) suggests the creation of learning opportunities that favours students’ social interactions among themselves and with their teacher. On a similar line, Duschl (2008) recommends the use of conversations to deepen students’ understanding of the relationship between the evidence and explanation, taking on a wide range of applications. Gilles and Buck’s (2020) work revealed the need to analyse students’ argumentative discourse practice as it was demonstrated that are highly dependent on those of their teacher. Despite all these benefits, argumentation have not been incorporated as a usual practice in the classrooms. Some difficulties teachers might face are related with the creation of an authentic inquiry environment through questions and guidance (Hundal et al., 2014) as well as the re-framing of the classroom to a more dialogic and student-centred interaction (Berland & Hammer, 2012). On a more personal level, teachers might not feel confident enough regarding the (a) understanding and application or argumentation (Braund et al., 2013; Christolodou & Osborne, 2014) and (b) how to frame an argumentative question (McNeill & Knight, 2013). Students, specially from upper educational stages, also face challenges such as a low level of interacting with evidence (Berland & Reiser, 2009; Hundal et al., 2014; Yun & Kim, 2014) or lack of CT skills as well as low 55 Theoretical framework conceptual understanding (Choi et al., 2015; Herrenkohl & Cornelius, 2013). Research findings suggest that by incorporating argumentation in science teaching, children might develop a stronger understanding of content knowledge and improve their ability to justify their own claims (McNeill, 2011). In argumentative classrooms, that is precisely what students do, they tentatively construct their claims supported by reasonable evidence either as individuals or as a group to present it later on to their peers to seek critique or come up with alternatives. In this sense, the goal of argumentation is not only to interact through ideas but also to reach an agreement where teachers and students work together as a community to improve their arguments through cognitive conflict (Ford & Wargo, 2012; Wallon, 1998). There is a big body of research on argumentation science education. Most studies focus on the analysis of students’ arguments, particularly the quality of students’ oral or written argumentation (e.g.,Ageitos & Puig, 2021; Evagorou & Osborne, 2013). Evagorou and Osborne (2013) aimed to identify how middle schoolers co-construct written arguments when working in pairs when presented with an instructional approach within an SSI. Chin and Osborne (2010) investigated the written and oral students’ questions as a probe for initiating collaborative argumentation. Cooper and Oliver-Hoyo (2016) investigated the use of written and oral arguments construction as a technique to foster higher education students’ understanding of noncovalent interactions based on McNeill et al.’s (2006) and Sandoval’s (2003) framework. Research on argumentation in science education is relatively recent, focusing these early studies on exploring whether argumentation took place on the classroom (Jiménez-Aleixandre & Erduran, 2015). Often, findings pointed out children were not able to formulate sound arguments. In the last decade, scarce studies on argumentation skills were carried out in early years (e.g., Kultti & Pramling, 2020), usually focusing on children’s reasoning skills (Mercier, 2011) or in arguments posed by children in a mathematical activity (Breive, 2017) or contexts of play (Migdalek et al., 2015). Inés Mosquera Bargiela 62 didactic strategies. Torres Merchán and Solbes (2016) or Santika et al.’s (2018) work showed the positive impact of didactic interventions using socio-scientific issues with university students. Yuliati et al. (2018) focused on the use of authentic problems of daily life in higher education students. A common characteristic of these studies is that they focus on students’ CT development, leaving aside the figure of the teacher and his/her impact on this process. The investigation of Tenreiro-Vieira and Vieira (2006) address the training of teachers in CT and the impact of the teaching intervention on the students’ CT performance. The authors developed a training project in which they involved elementary science teachers to promote the development of CT skills on the students. In a similar vein, Vieira and Tenreiro-Vieira (2014), through an action research methodology, implemented a model (Vieira et al., 2010) for the formulation of questions which is based on the interrelation of components such as scientific knowledge, skills, dispositions, as well as criteria such as rigor, precision or validity. This model showed a positive impact on CT skills development and scientific literacy in primary school students. On a similar venue, Semilarski et al. (2019) as well as Eren and Akinoglu (2013) examined the effect of a problem based (PBL) approach intervention; Fitriani et al. (2020) a combination of PBL with the predict-observe-explain (POE) model; and Hasnunidah et al. (2020) implemented an argument-driven inquiry (ADI) learning model. Ruiz et al. (2013) recommended the use of discussions, and Sinaga and Feranie (2017) reported a development on skills through the use of writing tasks. These works provide data of great interest in the matter; however, argumentation does not constitute a dimension to be analysed. In addition, teachers’ need to develop CT in the classroom were identified in the literature. The needs found are: (a) specific teacher training on how to effectively promote and implement CT in the classroom (Dominguez, 2018; Petek & Bedir, 2018), and (b) a framework for its teaching, since it is understood that this would help teachers foster it (Fahim & Eslamdoost, 2014). This thesis aims to contribute by analysing the educators’ conceptualization of CT and the learning environments they declare to promote it. Furthermore, we aim to show the role of a kindergarten teacher with 63 Theoretical framework a long tradition on teaching science through scientific practices, help students to develop CT. There are several investigations focused on the teaching of CT, however, there are no conclusive results on what the best conditions for an instruction are to be successful in terms of its development (Tiruneh et al., 2014). Ennis (1989) tried to provide a framework for researchers and educators by presenting four instructional approaches. The general approach occurs when skills and dispositions are taught separately from content knowledge, while in the infusion approach instruction occurs within the subject combined with explicit teaching of general principles. The immersion approach integrates the CT into the subject instruction, but with the assumption that students will acquire the skills once they engage in subject instruction. Finally, the mixed approach, proposed by Sternberg (1986), consists of a combination of the general approach with the infusion or immersion approach. Abrami et al. (2008) investigated the effects of different CT instruction methods using the approaches proposed by Ennis (1989) and, in a later work, Abrami et al. (2015), provided a more detailed approach by developing a set of four instructional strategies, which are described in Table 4. Table 4. Description of critical thinking intervention Category Description Individual Study This includes instructional techniques and learning activities that are based on students’ individual work. Among the activities are reading, active listening, reflecting, and solving problems on the learners’ own. Dialogue This instructional intervention has its roots in the Socratic method, hence why the didactic strategy used to integrate the dialogue is the discussion. This discussion can adopt multiple forms, such as whole-class debates, within-groups discussions and/or online discussion forums. Authentic instruction In this category, students are presented with authentic problems that may or may not be related to daily-life issues that engage them and stimulate them to inquiry. Simulations, role-playing and dilemmas are included as possible methods. Inés Mosquera Bargiela 64 Category Description Mentoring Mentoring is one-on-one interaction between someone with more expertise and someone with less expertise. Tutoring, coaching, apprenticeship, or modelling are examples of mentoring. Source: Adapted from Abrami et al. (2015) The study by Abrami et al. (2015) revealed that the most effective type of intervention to promote CT skills was a combination of authentic instruction, dialogue, and mentoring. Likewise, these authors, in a previous study (Abrami et al., 2008), affirmed that training actions focused specifically on the teaching of CT helped teachers to achieve more effective pedagogical results. In a similar line, Ennis (2016) proposes two basic teaching methods to promote it: discussion-based teaching (LDT) and problem-based learning (PBL). LDT consists of a talk -usually accompanied by a reading from a textbookfollowed by a discussion. Nonetheless, the PBL method requires addressing an issue that generally requires researching, developing, testing and discussing hypotheses or solutions and possible alternatives. This thesis engages students in the practice of CT during an inquiry-based activity that aims to promote argumentation and inquiry skills. Drawing from Kuhn (2019) CT is considered as a dynamic activity that can be developed through the practice, however as Puig et al. (2021) suggest, its exercise might vary in complexity depending on the topic and the context. For instance, assessing the arguments produced by classmate in peer negotiation may pose less difficulties than assessing information presented by the teacher. Furthermore, CT is usually associated with the other scientific practice addressed in this study, argumentation, since it largely involves the evaluation of statements or knowledge through the analysis of evidence (Giri & Paily, 2020). One of the most recent characterizations of CT in science contributed by Jiménez-Aleixandre and Puig (in press) includes a series of components related, on the one hand, to reasoned judgment, and, on the other hand, with the orientation to action. Although we agree with this vision, we understand that, in the early childhood education stage, CT should be promoted from a dialogic interaction in contexts that promote curiosity, the formulation 65 Theoretical framework of questions and the search for answers through experiments, as well as the construction of valid justifications refuting alternatives (Kuhn, 1993; Nussbaum & Sinatra, 2003), as this is the case of the present study. We concur with Giri and Paily (2020) that argumentation should be integrated into the science learning environment to promote CT. Since both, CT and argumentation, require higher order thinking skills, their teaching involve strategies to be practiced by students (Mason, 1996). Nonetheless, early childhood education presents challenges since the belief that students at this stage are not capable of developing abstract thinking or to pose sound arguments, despite the existence of studies that contradict this idea with data (Jiménez-Aleixandre & Erduran, 2015; Zembal-Saul, 2008). The integration of CT in science instruction at early years can be achieved in diverse manners. We believe that CT can be embedded in inquiry-based learning as a dialogic practice in a way that help students to mobilize diverse CT skills as analyse, explanation evaluation, etc., all along with diverse inquiry and argumentation skills. However, teachers might face some difficulties as the number of students, the number of hours of teaching, the curriculum and their own training and knowledge on CT instruction, among other elements (Puig & Jiménez Aleixandre, in press). According to Vincent-Lacrin (2019), the consideration of CT as a practice that requires time to developed and the acknowledgment that CT can be taught from early years to higher education, might motivate educational institutions and teachers to dedicate more time for their students to cultivate CT. Research on CT in science instruction in early years is scarce. The existing studies, as far as we have been able to know, tend to focus on the development of certain skills by the students (Corral-Verdugo et al., 1996; Harbi, 2016; León, 2015, among others). Corral-Verdugo et al.’s (1996) work involved 64 5-year-old children in a task that requires discerning between facts and opinions about the crisis caused by the generation of waste. Harbi (2016) incorporated some of the principles of Edgar Morin’s educational philosophy in a comic that was used as reading material in a discussion group of children. The results suggested that the use of comics may be a suitable means of developing CT and introducing complex Inés Mosquera Bargiela 66 and abstract concepts to children. León (2015) identified the different aspects of CT in five kindergarten classrooms and the strategies used by teachers in the development of this type of thinking in children. The data revealed that the students developed CT skills by promoting curiosity, questioning, discussion and reflection during class time. Other studies such as that of Kuhn (1999) proposed a model for the development of CT addressing metacognition and epistemic knowledge. Finally, other research focuses on examining the impact of programs such as Philosophy for Children (P4C), where CT plays a central role. Daniel et al. (2017) implemented P4C-based activities in 28 classrooms aged 5 to 12 in four different countries. The results showed that these activities promoted the cognitive development of the students, in addition to providing indications of the modes of thought and epistemological perspectives that are involved in the development of the dialogic CT. A common characteristic of these studies is that they focus on the role of the student, not paying attention to the teacher’s role and how it influences the learning process. It is the study by Dovigo (2016) the only one, as far as we know, that links argumentation and CT, analysing how argumentation begins to take shape in children through dialogic movements between teachers and children as well as between peers. In this context, we agree with Evagorou et al. (2020) that attention to dialogue and argumentation can also be promoted through inquiry contexts, since both practices share characteristics and overlap in their procedures when implementing them. We concur with the perspective of Dovigo (2016) understanding that to develop CT at an early age it is necessary to analyse the dialogic practice between teachers and students. 2.3. Teachers’ guidance in inquiry-based teaching. The role of questioning in the activation of critical thinking and scientific practices There is a wealth body of research about teachers’ guidance in different contexts and approaches such as inquiry-based teaching. Nonetheless, examining the literature, it is not clear under what circumstances the teacher activates more effectively inquiry skills on children. Kirschner 67 Theoretical framework et al. (2006) stated inquiry-based learning is less effective than direct instruction as the teacher provides minimal supervisor, whereas Chinn (2007) considered it to be more effective if sufficient and appropriate scaffolding is given. Furtak et al. (2012) conclude from their meta-anal- ysis that teacher-led activities had a greater effect on students’ outcomes. Lazonder and Harmsen (2016) investigated the role of guidance in inquiry-based contexts. The findings revealed positive effects of guidance on learning activities, as well as students’ performance and learning outcomes. Two conclusions can be draw from the literature: (a) it still remains unclear which teaching strategies might have greater learning outcomes; (b) in many studies the terms “guidance” and “scaffolding” are used indifferently. It is our believe that both notions need some clarification. Scaffolding refers to provide tailored support to students’ needs, implying a fading in the responsibility from the teacher to the learner (Fernández-Monteira et al., 2020). Guidance stressed the degree of autonomy given to the students, establishing four levels of inquiry -verifi- cation, structured, guided, and opendepending on if the teacher allow them to come up with the research question, collect the data as well as interpret the results by themselves. This work is situated on a guided inquiry given that the teacher presents a structured activity that, on the one hand, allows her to generate her own inquiry cycle and, on the other hand, allows the students to come up with their own ideas and interpretations during its development. To enact inquiry-based learning successfully, the actions of teachers are crucial in driving the thinking process that, in turn, will bring out meaningful learning. For this, the role of the teacher needs to shift from an information accumulator to an “active designer” (Gormally et al., 2009, p. 16). Crawford (2000) identified how different tasks required the teacher to assume different roles, some of them with a high level of expertise. Among roles can be find motivator, diagnostician, guide, innovator, experimenter, researcher, modeller, mentor, collaborator, learner. However, the implementation of the inquiry-based context does not come without challenges. Schwab (1958) identified four reasons teachers opted for a more traditional approach: (a) it is time-consuming, and content would have to be left uncovered; (b) presenting the students with a Inés Mosquera Bargiela 68 wide array of options could potentially create more doubts; (c) pressure from industry for the acquisition of certain skills; (d) they believed it would be too costly. Bevins and Price (2016) and Constantinou et al. (2018) point out as constraints the content-laden curricula, inappropriate assessment procedures for inquiry approaches, lack of resources, lack of knowledge about the amount of guidance, and the tendency to opt for recipe-type activities due to a lack of confidence in their skills or pedagogical content knowledge. In recent years, scholars and educators have started to name inquiry-based teaching (IBT) as a way to bring key features of authentic scientific inquiry into the science classroom, offering the students experiences to develop the understanding of scientific concepts and connect them with everyday life (Constantinou et al., 2018). For the purpose of this study IBT is regarded as a motivational approach of learning science as it focuses on children’s interests and prompts active learning by enabling students to conduct their own investigations (Vorholzer & von Aufschnaiter, 2019). This term encompasses the teaching of specific science process skills (teaching of inquiry) and the scientific concepts of using inquiry process skills (teaching through inquiry). We concur with Furtak et al. (2012) in understanding IBT as part of a continuum of guidance from less to more guidance. Despite the importance of teachers’ guidance in inquiry-based teaching, very few studies have focused on teacher strategies to promote inquiry skills in early childhood education. Given this scarcity of literature in what follows, we provide an overview of some studies carried out in the context of elementary education, assuming that given the age proximity, specific insights would be still relevant for this study. Curran and Kitchin (2019) and Zimmerman (2007) have stated that children at early ages have well developed abilities to engage in scientific reasoning when the activity is adapted to them, and the teacher provide appropriate learning support or scaffolding. Particularly relevant for the purposes of this thesis is the study developed by Jenns and Mills (2009), who followed a single cohort of students from kindergarten to fifth grade with the aim to investigate how teachers and children co-con- structed a discourse of inquiry. The authors point to the critical role of 69 Theoretical framework the teacher answering students’ questions and comments in ways that allowed them to deepen their inquiries as collaborative learners, a key aspect for our study. Another study aligned with the focus of our research, the relationships between teacher talk and children’s practices, carried out by Studhalter et al. (2021), points to the importance of language in inquiry-based instruction in early science instruction. The authors conceptualized the role of teacher talk within both a scaffolding and guidance framework, what this study supports. Regarding the type of scaffolding provided by the teachers, Herrenkohl et al. (2011) illustrated teachers’ pedagogical practices around the teaching scientific inquiry through a web-based system called Web of Inquiry (WOI). This website scaffolded students as they worked together developing hypothesis, designing experiments, collecting, and analysing data about physical, earth, and life science content. Results pointed out to instructional explanations, dialogues, scaffolding, the used of WOI and peer-dialogue as key practised. In addition, teachers guided students in developing more sophisticated connections between theory, formulating alternative hypothesis, experimental design, and data analysis. A relevant study was developed by Eshach’s (2011), who proposed a range of didactic strategies that early childhood education teachers can consider when implementing an inquiry-based approach, such as using similarities, repeating children’s answers, voicing the beginning of terms, providing gesture hints, and questioning. Questions play a fundamental role in inquiry as it starts with a question (Herranen & Aksela, 2019) and are considered the backbone of classroom investigations (Kawalkar & Vijapurkar, 2013). Questioning have even been used to define inquiry as ‘question-driven learning’, since questions drive the lessons as students gather and interpret data to answer that question, construct an explanation, and communicate the results. Teacher questions should help students to develop different cognitive functions in a classroom discourse. In addition, questioning should help students to solve experimental problems and scaffold the knowledge acquired (Wells, 1993), structuring discursive and analytic attitudes (Crawford, 2000). The role of the teacher in increasing student talk (e.g., Günel et al., 2012; Martin & Hand, 2009), guiding the negotiations (Kawalkar & Vijapurkar, Inés Mosquera Bargiela 70 2013), implementing argumentation (Martin & Hand, 2009) and improving the reasoning skills (Benus et al., 2010) resonates in their pedagogical development (McNeill & Pimentel, 2010; Oliveira, 2010; Pimentel & McNeill, 2013). Teacher questions play a critical importance in initiating various cognitive functions (Aschner, 1961; Carner, 1963) that teachers need to be professional questioners (Gall, 1984). Nonetheless, a set of studies has shown that questioning is a skill that is lacking in classrooms in early childhood (Asay & Orgill, 2010), in favour of collecting data (Forbes et al., 2013). Furthermore, teachers’ questioning empirical studies in early childhood are scarce and emphasise children’s conceptual understanding (Eshach, 2011) and conceptual change (Smith et al., 1993; Yip, 1998) not stressing the importance of the teacher’s role. It is also our understanding that the type of questions posed by the teacher anchor the investigation the children will be undertaking in a lesson, leading them to gather and use data to develop explanations of scientific phenomena. These questions are known as investigation questions and are sometimes referred in the literature as ‘driving questions’ (Krajcik et al., 1998). The role of the teacher in early years at these contexts would be based on providing guidance to students and formulating questions that stimulate their thinking (Eshach & Fried, 2005). As mentioned before, we consider questioning to be a powerful tool that helps educators learn about students’ ideas, formulate hypotheses, elaborate explanations, evaluate evidence, justify statements, and help children build scientific knowledge (Chin & Osborne, 2008). These are inquiry skills collected in educational documents (NGSS, 2013; NRC, 2012) and noted in the literature (Eshach & Fried, 2005; Metz, 2008), since inquiry involves students in research on natural phenomena through experimental and conceptual explorations, as well as in collaborative discussions to communicate scientific ideas to develop a consensus on the topic under discussion. Therefore, exploring what the teacher does, says, and thinks alongside children’s interactions is critical to determining how their participation changes over time, but also to understanding student thinking and participation in scientific practices (Fleer & Robbins, 2003), as well as the strategies that the teacher uses to promote these practices and the development of other skills such as CT. METHODS Inés Mosquera Bargiela 78 Figure 1. Units of analysis in the embedded single-case study A main strength of the case study research lies within the possibility to experience real-life situations directly in relation with the phenomena as they unfold in practice, providing a detailed description (Flyvbjerg, 2006). In addition, the ability to triangulate data by using a mixture of methods is seen as an advantage (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004) and can also add to the credibility of a study (Robson, 2011). Nonetheless, some limitations of the methodology need to be addressed. Cohen et al. (2007) and Yin (2009) have questioned that case designs lack rigour and findings cannot be generalised. Stake (1976) have argued that there are two kinds of generalizations, one related to a rationalistic approach and other more intuitive, empirical, based on personal direct and vicarious experience. The author asserts that case studies may not add much to the former but to the latter are considered a powerful means for building them. We concur with this perspective as well as Guenter and Falk’s (2019) viewpoint, who concluded that the knowledge derived from small qualitative investigations is as valid and useful as the others since the 79 Methodology creation of new knowledge is an iterative process, in which claims of truth are disputed and confirmed based on evidence and theories. 3.2. Research context: contexts, participants, data collection and analysis In this section we present the context, participants, data collection and analysis process regarding each unit of analysis. Below, in table 5 we present a relationship of the units of analysis and each research objective and research question. Table 5. Research objective, questions, object of analysis and its unit of analysis Research objective Research question Object of analysis Unit of analysis O1. To characterize the state of art of scientific practices and critical thinking RQ1) How are scientific practices integrated into the early childhood education curriculum? RQ2) How are these practices presented on initial and continuous training plans for pre-service and in-service early childhood teachers? Early childhood education curriculum; pre-service teacher training and in-service teacher formative plans. 1 and 2 RQ3) How critical thinking interventions studies in higher education are characterised? Characterization of critical thinking intervention studies on the literature 3 RQ4) What notion of critical thinking do pre-service teacher educators have? RQ5) What type of learning environments do pre-service teacher educators declare to implement in their instruction to promote critical thinking? Identification of CT notion and learning environments declared by pre-service teacher’s educators 4 Inés Mosquera Bargiela 80 Research objective Research question Object of analysis Unit of analysis O2. To identify didactic strategies, particularly teacher’s questions that favour the participation of early childhood students in scientific practices through the analysis of teacher-students’ interactions RQ6) What is the nature of a teacher’s guidance in an inquiry-based learning activity? Specifically, what kinds of driving questions do teachers use to engage children in inquiry? RQ7) How does teachers’ driving questions affect students’ enactment of inquiry-based skills? Teacher’s questions and their influence on students’ engagement on inquiry and argumentation skills 5 O3. To identify critical thinking skills and dispositions in students’ discourse in a science context RQ8) How are the questions posed by the teacher that activate certain critical thinking skills and dispositions by early childhood students? RQ9) What is the relationship between the teacher’s questions and the practice of critical thinking by the students? Teacher’s questions and their influence on students’ critical thinking skills and dispositions 6 3.2.1. Unit of analysis 1: Early childhood curriculum The first unit of the analysis refers to the early childhood education curriculum of Galicia (Xunta de Galicia, 2009) in order to characterize the state of art of scientific practices and critical thinking and specifically, to answer the first research question: RQ1) How are scientific practices integrated into the early childhood education curriculum? The Spanish curriculum set the basic competences, contents, and dimensions that all children should develop, and the provinces have autonomy to add or modify some aspects. In the case of Galicia, both documents are very similar having the same content areas, among other dimensions. The analysed curriculum was downloaded from the official website of Xunta de Galicia, the local government, to be more specific, from the education department. The research familiarized herself with 81 Methodology the official document through different cycles of reading. After that, a search on the literature about the scientific practices of inquiry, modelling, and argumentation was conducted to identify the descriptors of said practices. A set of descriptors were identified in the NRC (2012) document as well as on Gilbert and Justi (2016) and Erduran and Jiménez- Aleixandre (2007) studies. A content analysis was carried out, understanding this analysis strategy as a process of identification, codification, and categorization of the primary patterns on the data (Patton, 2002). We analysed the content of the curriculum of our province (Xunta de Galicia, 2009), focusing on the inquiry, modelling and argumentation practices present in the prescriptive elements. A rubric was built based on the descriptors identified in the literature and in interaction with the data (table 6). The analysis was carried out by two of the authors and contrasted by a third. Table 6. Inquiry, modelling, and argumentation operations Scientific practices Operations Inquiry Observe Ask questions Formulate hypotheses Design experiments Experiment - Manipulate Investigate Explore Collect data Interpret information Modelling Explain (natural) phenomena Represent entities or phenomena through drawings, models, etc. Use of models Argumentation Use and identify evidence Justify answers Draw conclusions In the analysis of the curriculum, the scientific practices and operations that were part of these were identified in the first place in the prescriptive elements (objectives, contents, and evaluation criteria). This was done for each of the three content areas of the curriculum, which Inés Mosquera Bargiela 82 are: 1) self-knowledge and personal autonomy, 2) knowledge of the environment, and 3) languages: communication and representation. The first two areas were subdivided into four blocks, and the last one into three. The second area is linked to all those aspects related to science, namely: i) physical environment: elements, relations, and measurement, ii) approximation to nature, and iii) culture and life in society. Afterwards, the data were classified according to the indicators previously presented, counting the total number, and classifying the operations according to scientific practice and the prescriptive element in which it was found. 3.2.2. Unit of analysis 2: Initial and annual teacher training plans The second unit of analysis deals with the identification of the scientific practices on the initial and continuous teacher training plans, corresponding to the 1st research objective, to characterize the state of art of scientific practices and critical thinking, specifically the second research question: RQ2) How are these practices presented on initial and continuous training plans for pre-service and in-service early childhood teachers? Our province, Galicia, has three universities and all of them offer the Early Childhood Teacher Education degree. We analysed the pre-service teacher training plans of the three universities to identify the number of subjects related to science education. Nonetheless, there is not an actual curriculum for the degree, therefore, the researcher explored on the degree website of each university the published syllabus of each subject. Two subjects from each university were identified as related to science education, and content analysis was applied focusing the analysis on three dimensions: 1) number of subjects related to science education, 2) components of the curriculum and 3) explicit mention of scientific practices in the subject program. The professional development for early childhood in-service teachers is offered through the education department of the Xunta de Galicia. 83 Methodology Specifically, there are several centres such as the Autonomic Centre of Training and Innovation (CAFI in Spanish) and the net of Centres for the Teacher Training (CFR in Spanish) are scattered through the province and offer online as well as face-to-face training activities. In the past, the Xunta de Galicia used to publish a compilation document in which these activities for teachers of all educational levels were specified. The analysis was carried at the end of 2016; however, the annual in-service teacher plan of that year has not been published yet by that time. Therefore, we opted to analyse the document of 2015 (Xunta de Galicia, 2015) in order to identify which science training activities in-service early childhood teachers, have access to. The was carried out through content analysis and comprised three phases: 1) identification and counting of the number of training actions, 2) identification of the recipients and how many of these actions were aimed at in-service teachers of early childhood education and 3) identification of the competences included in the actions and whether or not there were explicit references to scientific practices. 3.2.3. Unit of analysis 3: Systematic literature review The third unit of analysis aims to answer the 1 st research objective, to characterize the state of art of scientific practices and critical thinking, more precisely the third research question: RQ3) How critical thinking interventions studies in higher education are characterised? A broader systematic literature review was carried out within the CRITHINKEDU project scope; therefore, the researcher and her supervisors met with other CT experts to discuss and agree on the steps they should be taken in order to stablish a systematic process regarding the search, selection, as well as data extraction. These steps are discussed below, nonetheless, as it is noted on step (c), our study only focus on the articles that belong to the education field. Inés Mosquera Bargiela 84 a) Database and Keywords identification: the papers were searched in national and international databases, with content published both in English or in Spanish. The databases used were: Web of Science, SCOPUS, EBSCO, ProQuest, ERIC, JSTOR, RCAAP, ESCI, SCIELO, Index Copernicus, RACO, Dialnet, and Google Scholar. The keywords selected for the search were: critical thinking, higher education, and interventions. Other terms related to these keywords were included and connected with Boolean operators (or, and) to extend, define, and refine the quality of the search. A total of 276 studies were found. b) Selection of papers as well as inclusion and exclusion criteria: the selected papers had to be peer-reviewed articles regarding CT interventions in HE and empirically based research. Book chapters, proceedings and theses were excluded from the initial corpus. Moreover, the studies must present some kind of instructional intervention, which involves either teacher-led classroom instruction or computer-based instruction, or any other some sort of instruction by the teacher or researcher (Tiruneh et al., 2014). This resulted in 27 papers. c) Sample refinement: the 27 papers were carefully read and classified according to their area of knowledge. Given this study deals with pre-service teachers, only studies in the scope of the education field were selected. This resulted in a total of 12 articles, which will be indicated with an asterisk (*) on the bibliographic references section. d) Data extraction and analysis: for the characterization of CT interventions, a rubric was built jointly on the literature on CT interventions (e.g., Abrami et al., 2015; Ennis, 1989, 2016; Facione, 1990) and the data, in discussion with international CT experts. The rubric comprises 7 dimensions described below: 1. Type of study. It comprises three methods used for research design and draws by Creswell and Creswell (2014): quantitative, when the study aims to test CT by examining the relationship among variables that can be measured on instruments, allowing 85 Methodology for numeric data to be analysed; qualitative, if the study explores the meaning that participants (individuals or groups) ascribe to CT; and mixed methods, when the study combines elements of qualitative and quantitative approaches for the purposes of breadth and depth of understanding. 2. Critical thinking aims. The categories have been drawn from the APA Delphi Report (Facione, 1990) as well as Facione et al. (1995), including skills, dispositions, and a combination of both elements. 3. Critical thinking approach. We draw from Ennis’ (1989) and Sternberg’s (1986) categories of CT instruction that include: the general approach, in which CT is taught separately from the content of an existing subject-matter. The infusion approach attempts to integrate CT instruction into standard subject-mat- ter instruction and makes the general principles of CT explicit to the students. The immersion approach tries to incorporate CT within standard subject-matter instruction, although the general CT principles and procedures are not made explicit to students. Last, the mixed approach, consists of a combination of the general approach with either the infusion or the immersion approach. 4. Type of interventions. The categories have been taken from Abrami et al.’s (2015) categorisation of instruction interventions. Self-study includes instructional techniques and learning activities that are based on the students’ individual work. Dialogue encompasses learning through discussion. Authentic instruction consists of presenting students with real problems, or problems that engaging and stimulate them to enquire. The category other includes any interventions that do not fit in the previous categories as described by Abrami et al. (2015). 5. Teaching strategies. This dimension includes the two teaching methods for fostering CT as described by Ennis (2016): Lecturediscussion teaching (LDT) and Problem-Based Learning (PBL). It should be noted that a combination of both or other strategies could be included in this dimension. Lecture-discussion Inés Mosquera Bargiela 86 teaching consists of a lecture (usually accompanied by some textbook reading) presenting one or various aspects of the subject matter, followed by a discussion section. Problem-Based Learning deals with a subject-matter issue, which usually requires researching, developing, testing, and discussing hypotheses or solutions and possible alternatives. 6. Teaching materials. This corresponds to items or activities used in CT interventions and includes four emerging categories from the data analysis. 7. Reported difficulties. It includes emerging categories in the intervention studies from the data analysis. 3.2.4. Unit of analysis 4: Pre-service teachers’ educators The fourth unit of analysis refers to the first research objective, to characterize the state of art of scientific practices and critical thinking, specifically, the fourth and fifth research question: RQ4) What notion of critical thinking do pre-service teacher educators have? RQ5) What type of learning environments do pre-service teacher educators declare to implement in their instruction to promote critical thinking? The researcher and her supervisors contacted potential participants working in the Faculties of Education (Santiago de Compostela) and Teacher Training (Lugo) from a Galician public university as it is our understanding their importance lies within; they are the ones that are transferring their knowledge to pre-service teachers who in a future will teach children. They were informed about the purpose and the procedure follow for the development of interviews and ask their availability to participate in the study. Five pre-service teachers’ educators were selected on the following basis: (a) that they were educators in graduate or postgraduate teacher training courses, (b) that they come from different 87 Methodology domains, and (c) that the promotion of CT is explicitly mentioned in the syllabus of their courses. All the teachers who are presented below, boast extensive experience implementing active pedagogies in their own classrooms, and while their research interests differ, they all include CT. Below, we present a more detailed description of the participants: · T1 is interested in CT in relation with the Didactics of Social Sciences through a place-based learning approach. He also works closely with other teachers who implement innovative activities in their own classrooms, and as such, he is able to present examples of their activities in the faculty. His research interests include the way in which CT can be linked with the social representations and identities of students as well as with heritage in education. · T2 is from the industry, which means that she is able to bring a new perspective to teaching Pedagogy and Training Processes. In the classroom, she implements CT through the concept of democratic classrooms; a system in which everyone has the right to have and express their own voice. Her research interests include tutoring and teaching E-learning, and she is also interested in the ways in which bridges can be created between the university and the workforce. · T3 teaches developmental and educational psychology. In the classroom, she uses the Socratic Method to make the ideas and reasoning of students explicit through questioning and discussion. Her research interests include creativity and CT using the SEM model. · T4 implements CT in his Sociology lessons from a gender and activism perspective, and his classroom activities encompass a wide range of topics: co-education, gender violence, social change, social and ethnical problems, to name just a few, and the relationship that these topics have with education. · T5 also uses place-based learning to teach the Didactics of Social Sciences, specifically history, by visiting places to elicit emotions in his students. He also incorporates CT in the classroom from an activism perspective. His areas of interest include the social and Inés Mosquera Bargiela 94 reflecting back to the results, and so on. This process was executed multiple times to deepen the analysis. Nonetheless, as the second and third objective have particularities, they will be presented and discussed on the next subsections. 3.2.5.1. Teachers’ questions and inquiry and argumentation skills enacted by early childhood students The analytical process that the fifth unit of analysis had followed, to explore the students’ and teacher interventions through their discourse, consisted of a set of steps summarised on the next paragraph. First, the researcher organised the data corpus and familiarised herself with it. After that, it was decided the audio was going to be transcribed to answer the research objectives. The researcher came back to the listening-transcription process time and time again, given that qualitative research advances and questions changed (Moore & Llompart, 2017). The data was transcript as literally as possible, respecting the participants’ first language (Galician, Spanish) and expressions used. For analytical purposes, the unit of analysis defined was the utterances. This comprised each intervention of the participants in which different statements, questions or skills were reflected in it. After several readings and getting a comprehensive idea, turns can be compiled into episodes. Some episodes might be made up of several turns related to the same discussed issue or the same skill developed (Gee, 2015). In this unit of analysis, the episodes were defined by the object students tested. A total of 13 episodes were identified. Two different coding frameworks were developed to code the utterances to address the two research questions, respectively: teacher’s questions posed to engage children (RQ6) and how teacher’s questioning influence children’s engagement in the practices of inquiry and argumentation (RQ7). For the RQ6, 100 utterances were identified in Anne’s discourse, distributed unevenly in the episodes. The analysis focussed on the type of questions posed by the teacher during the activity. It needs to be highlighted that in the same utterance, more than one question can show; 95 Methodology therefore, different categories and a greater number of questions than utterances can appear. The analysis on teacher’s questions followed an inductive and iterative process, in which categories emerged in interaction with data and literature review (Mills et al., 2010). The coding scheme comprised the inquiry and argumentation questions that emerged from teacher’s discourse. After interpreting individually, the type of questions formulated by the teacher, results were further refined and finalised through group discussions among the authors and in collaboration with Prof. Lucy Avraamidou. Regarding the RQ7, 104 utterances were identified in children’s discourse, distributed unevenly in 13 episodes. To identify the different kinds and patterns of interaction in classroom talk, we traced the question asked by Anne, the responses they prompted on the children, and how she followed-up on them. For the analysis, we first identified the inquiry and argumentation skills enacted by students, in correspondence to the same categories defined for teacher’s questions; and then, we compared in each episode the number and type of questions posed by the teacher with the number and variety of skills enacted by the students. 3.2.5.2. Teachers’ questions and critical thinking skills and dispositions developed by children The analytical process that the sixth unit of analysis also comprised the students’ and teacher interventions through their discourse, therefore, the transcription process followed was the same as the described in the 3.2.5.1. subsection. Furthermore, both units of analysis share the utterances as analytical unit as well as the same criteria and number for the definition of episodes. An analytical framework for the coding of the utterances was developed based on the CT skills (Facione, 1990) and dispositions (Facione et al., 1995) theoretical framework (see section 2 of the chapter 2) to address the two research questions, respectively: the teacher’s questions posed to the students (RQ8) and the relationship between said questions and the CT skills and dispositions developed by the children (RQ9). Inés Mosquera Bargiela 96 For the RQ8, 99 utterances were identified in the teacher’s discourse, unevenly distributed in the 13 episodes. The analysis focused on the questions posed by the teacher during the activity. It should be noted that more than one question can be shown in the same utterance; thus, different CT skills and dispositions may appear. The analysis of the teacher’s questions followed an inductive and iterative process, in which the categories emerged in interaction with the data and the literature review (Mills et al., 2010). After individually interpreting the type of questions asked, the results were refined and finalized through group discussions among the authors. Regarding the RQ9, 101 utterances were identified in the children’s discourse, unevenly distributed in the episodes. For the analysis, we first identified the skills and dispositions expressed by the students, and then we examined the relationship between the number and type of questions posed by the teacher and the number and variety of skills and dispositions enacted by the students. 3.3. Ethical considerations Empirical research involves interfering in educational settings that otherwise would be engaging in teaching or learning. Therefore, the researcher should ask herself whether it is or not culturally and ethically acceptable to meddle in the everyday lives of educators and their students. Educational research entails finding out what we do not know and is dependent on a clear question, purpose, and methodology. Ethical rig- or, then, demands that it seeks the trust and integrity on the researched and the education community (Clarke, 2006; Limes-Taylor Henderson & Esposito, 2017). This thesis involves analysing data obtained from official documents, interviews with higher education teachers, and an early childhood classroom’s recording, therefore it follows three main ethical principles: 1) research should be for the benefit of the society, and no risk should be done to the individuals participating; 2) participants should be treated with respect; and 3) procedures should not exploit participants and should be just (Mertens, 2014). The researchers involved are obligated to consider the beliefs, values, and ethical principles that guide their 97 Methodology research. In addition, a number of ethical considerations were taken into account to ensure the integrity of the participants: - Written consent. The in-service teacher was informed of the objectives of this study and was asked to participate so to safeguard the voluntary participation. Afterwards, the families were given a written consent form, providing information about the purpose of the research and the use of data, and their authorization was requested for the participation of the students, as all were minors. This consent allowed for the participants to be recorded on audio and got taken pictures. These materials will be used guaranteeing anonymity; therefore, the images will always be edited to prevent the identification of the children. The pre-service teachers’ educators were also informed through a written authorization about the purpose of the study, the use of data, as well as their authorization. - Anonymity and confidentiality. In this study, the in-service teacher as well as the children were identified with pseudonyms, respecting the sex of the student. Pre-service teachers’ educators were identified as “teachers (T)”. No references to the school centre or universities were made in order to ensure the privacy. FINDINGS 101 RESULTADOS Os resultados da tese abórdanse en 4 capítulos. Nos capítulos cuarto e quinto discútense os resultados referentes ao primeiro obxectivo de investigación relacionado coas prácticas científicas e o PC, respectivamente. Dunha banda, o cuarto capítulo aborda os resultados da análise de prácticas científicas no currículo de infantil, así como nos plans de formación inicial e permanente do profesorado desta etapa educativa. Doutra banda, no quinto capítulo, preséntase unha análise das e intervencións de PC en educación superior co fin de identificar como se promove o PC para, a posteriori, comparalos coa noción de PC e os ambientes de aprendizaxe que o promoven declarados polos/as formadores/ as de mestres/as de infantil. Unha vez realizada a diagnose inicial das prácticas científicas e de PC en educación infantil, dáse resposta ao segundo e terceiro obxectivos de investigación. Para iso analízanse as interaccións dialóxicas entre a mestra e os/as nenos/as durante o desenvolvemento dunha actividade sobre a fricción do aire e a gravidade na caída dos obxectos. En concreto, para abordar o segundo obxectivo, examínase o rol da mestra e como este inflúe no desempeños prácticas de indagación e argumentación por parte do alumnado. Mentres que no sétimo capítulo, discútense os resultados do terceiro obxectivo examinando o rol da mestra e a súa influencia no desenvolvemento de destrezas e disposicións de PC por parte do alumnado de infantil. 103 4. A INTEGRACIÓN DAS PRÁCTICAS CIENTÍFICAS NO CURRÍCULO DE EDUCACIÓN INFANTIL E NOS PLANS DE FORMACIÓN DOCENTE Neste capítulo preséntanse os resultados relativos ás dúas primeiras preguntas de investigación do primeiro obxectivo, caracterizar o estado da cuestión das prácticas científicas e do pensamento crítico, as cales son: RQ1) Como se integran as prácticas científicas no currículo de educación infantil? RQ2) Como se presentan ditas prácticas nos plans de formación inicial e permanente do profesorado de infantil? Con estas preguntas pretendemos diagnosticar a integración das prácticas científicas no currículo de infantil (Xunta de Galicia, 2009), así como nos plans de formación inicial e permanente do profesorado desta etapa educativa. Para iso identificáronse, en primeiro lugar, as prácticas científicas nos elementos prescritivos (obxectivos, competencias básicas, contidos, criterios de avaliación e métodos pedagóxicos) das tres áreas de coñecemento do currículo, empregando a rúbrica presentada na táboa X (presentada no apartado 3.2.1. da metodoloxía). En segundo Inés Mosquera Bargiela 110 Acción formativa Competencias Destinario(s) Emprego de dispositivos móbiles na realización de proxectos científicos 1. Educador/a guía no proceso ensinanza-aprendizaxe 2. Didácticas específicas 3. Metodoloxías e TAC 4. Competente en TIC – Software Profesorado de ciencias de secundaria Ensinar e aprender ciencias no MUNCYT 1. Educador/a guía no proceso ensinanza-aprendizaxe 2. Didácticas específicas 3. Metodoloxías e TAC 4. Especialista na súa materia 5. Coñecemento nas áreas, materias e módulos curriculares Profesorado de ciencias de secundaria Actividades experimentais nas materias do ámbito científico 1. Educador/a guía no proceso ensinanza-aprendizaxe 2. Programación, seguimento e avaliación. 3. Especialista na súa materia 4. Coñecemento nas áreas, materias e módulos curriculares Catedráticos de ensinanza secundaria Profesorado de ciencias de secundaria O Plan Anual de Formación do Profesorado 2015-2016 (Xunta de Galicia, 2015) contén 226 accións formativas, sen considerar outras modalidades de formación como os grupos de traballo, os seminarios de formación e as convocatorias para o Programa Erasmus+. O número de accións formativas vinculadas á ciencia e/ou a súa didáctica é de 13, das que dúas se relacionan co uso das tecnoloxías da información e comunicación (TIC) aplicadas ao campo científico-educativo. As competencias que se indican na táboa 10 son as recollidas no documento analizado para cada acción formativa, malia que neste non se proporciona unha definición de que entenden por cada unha destas competencias. Cómpre destacar pola súa elevada presencia as seguintes: i) educador/a guía no proceso de ensinanza-aprendizaxe; ii) programación, seguimen- to, avaliación; iii) especialista na súa materia, e iv) coñecemento nas áreas, materias e módulos curriculares. Respecto aos/ás destinatarios/as das actividades, cabe sinalar que só 1 das 226 actividades, a denominada “A xestión e tratamento dos residuos urbanos no modelo Sogama”, está dirixida a mestres/as de educación infantil. O resto de accións están dirixidas a profesorado de ciencias de secundaria, así como a catedráticos/ 111 A integración das prácticas científicas no currículo de educación infantil as. En ningún caso existen referencias explícitas ás prácticas científicas dentro das competencias a traballar. 4.3. Discusión e conclusións parciais Tras os resultados comentados, puidemos comprobar que a práctica de indagación é a que aparece con maior frecuencia, seguida da de modelización e a de argumentación. O feito de que a indagación sexa a práctica científica que cobra máis importancia no currículo é coherente co sinalado por Metz (2004, 2008), que entende a indagación como un contexto e/ou potenciador para que o alumnado de infantil e primaria se inicie no traballo científico e, deste xeito, sexa quen de desenvolver coñecementos científicos. Investigacións sobre prácticas científicas en infantil poñen de manifesto que o alumnado desta etapa é capaz de participar en procesos de indagación como os que implican os experimentos do grupo Torque (Monteira & Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2016). Estes experimentos involucran ao alumnado en prácticas de modelización como a representación mediante debuxos de obxectos ou fenómenos observados ou experimentados. A modelización, entendida deste xeito, aparece recollida no currículo nos bloques 1) Medio físico: elementos, relacións e medidas, e 2) Achegamento á natureza. Os debuxos cobran especial interese nesta etapa como vía que facilita a expresión de ideas científicas, axudando aos/ ás nenos/as a achegarse a unha realidade pouco familiar para eles/as. A representación de entidades ou fenómenos mediante debuxos debería practicarse cunha finalidade, tratando de afastarse de aspectos procedimentais e actitudinais con comentarios como “que debuxo tan bonito” e que, a miúdo, son os máis frecuentes (Pujol, 2003). Brooks (2009) suxire que o profesorado empregue este medio de representación como parte do proceso de aprendizaxe, animando ao alumnado a que revise, descontex - tualice y refaga os seus debuxos, xa que isto axudará a que reflexione e, en última instancia, acade habilidades de pensamento de orde superior. A práctica científica con menor presencia no currículo foi a argumentación, especificamente a operación de identificar e usar probas. Isto está en liña coa falta de investigación de práctica de argumentación en idades temperás e contrasta coa proposta de Kuhn (2015) dun currículo de pensamento no que a argumentación é unha competencia independente para os/as estudantes, o que debería ofrecerlles a oportunidade de expor afirmacións, xustificalas, avaliar probas e reflexionar sobre a súa relevancia de acordo co tema que estean a investigar. A aprendizaxe mediante prácticas científicas pode resultar pouco significativa se non se ten en consideración ao profesorado e, en consecuencia, a súa formación. Este foi o motivo polo que abordamos nesta tese a análise dos plans de formación inicial e permanente do profesorado. A análise destes plans amosa que as prácticas científicas apenas se integran dentro dos plans formativos das tres universidades públicas de nosa comunidade. Malia que este análise limítase ao marco curricular de Galicia e aos programas formativos das nosas universidades, podemos concluír que este marco non impulsa a aprendizaxe de ciencias mediante prácticas científicas. Ata onde puidemos saber, na revisión de literatura, encontramos que son escasos os estudos que abordan a identificación de necesidades formativas prioritarias nos plans de formación inicial nos graos de infantil. Esta cuestión foi sinalada por Cantó Doménech et al. (2016) nun estudo previo que destaca a necesidade de revisar os plans de formación inicial de acordo ás dificultades atopadas para a posterior transferencia á aula. Nunha liña semellante, a análise do Plan Anual de Formación do Profesorado 2015-2016 (Xunta de Galicia, 2015) levada a cabo neste estudo amosa que só unha acción formativa dirixida ao profesorado de infantil é de contido científico. Isto pon de manifesto a falta de formación do profesorado en activo en prácticas científicas. 113 5. CRITICAL THINKING: FROM THE LITERATURE TO THE CLASSROOMS This chapter focuses on the second part of the first research objective, to characterize the state of art of scientific practices and critical thinking, regarding the state of art of CT practices. Particularly, in this results’ section the research questions addressed are: RQ3) How critical thinking interventions studies in higher education are characterised? RQ4) How do pre-service teacher educators conceptualize critical thinking? RQ5) What type of learning environments do pre-service teacher educators declare to implement in their instruction to promote critical thinking? To answer the RQ3, as it was mentioned in the methods section, a literature review was carried out in order to identify and retrieve empirical data on CT interventions. The papers were searched in national and international databases (e.g., WoS, Scopus, Scielo) with content published both in English or in Spanish. The selected papers had to be (a) peer-reviewed articles regarding CT interventions in higher education Inés Mosquera Bargiela 114 and empirically based research as well as (b) present some kind of instructional intervention. The examination of RQ4 and RQ5 consisted of an analysis of semi-structured interviews to five pre-service teachers’ educators (T), which aimed to explore their CT conceptualization and the type of CT learning environment that they implemented on their own classrooms. For the characterisation of RQ3 and RQ5, the CT interventions and the learning environments, a rubric was built jointly on the literature on CT interventions (e.g., Abrami et al., 2015; Ennis, 1989, 2016; Facione, 1990) and the data, in discussion with international CT experts. The rubric comprises 7 dimensions (type of study, CT aims, CT approach, type of interventions, teaching strategies, teaching materials, reported difficulties), previously described in section 3.2.3. The findings related to the RQ3 presented in the next section have been partially published on Dominguez (2018). 5.1. Critical thinking interventions in higher education After the selection of papers from the literature review, twelve studies, from the field of education, met the stablished criteria and were analysed. In table 11, we present a characterization of these studies. Table 11. Characterization of critical thinking interventions (adapted from Dominguez, 2018) Dimensions Studies Type of study Quantitative 5 Qualitative 4 Mixed methods 3 CT aims Skills 5 Dispositions 0 Skills and dispositions 4 Not specified 3 115 Critical thinking: from the literature to the classrooms Dimensions Studies CT approach Immersion 9 Infusion 3 General 0 Mixed 0 Type of intervention Self-study 8 Dialogue 5 Authentic instructions 1 Mentoring 0 Teaching strategies LDT 4 PBL 2 LDT + PBL 3 Not defined 1 Others 2 Teaching materials Texts (articles, essays…) 4 E-learning activities 3 Authentic problems 1 Not specified 7 Reported difficulties 0 Almost half of the analysed studies (N=5) used quantitative methods; 4 qualitative; and 3 mixed methods. In addition, also 6 studies aimed to analyse CT skills and 4 opted for focusing on both, skills, and dispositions. No studies were carried out to only develop dispositions. Considering the skills promoted, analysis and evaluation as well as the dispositions of analyticity and systematicity were the ones that were targeted more frequently. For instance, Vertecchi et al. (2017) opted to exclusively target the skills of interpretation and analysis, whereas Corcione et al. (2013) addressed the skills of inference, analysis, interpretation, evaluation, and explanation, as well as the dispositions of analyticity, systematicity, Inés Mosquera Bargiela 116 inquisitiveness and cognitive maturity. Last, there were three studies in which the CT aims were not specified. Silva et al. (2016), de Souza (2014), and Vertecchi et al. (2017), among others, opted to implement an immersive CT approach, being this the most common one (9 out of 12). The infusion approach was the second more frequently with a total of three studies (e.g., Janulevičiene & Kavaliauskiene, 2012; Klimoviene et al., 2006). Concerning the types of intervention, self-study was the most frequent (N=8), followed by dialogue (N=6). Some examples can be found on Silva et al. (2015, 2016) tudents needed to analyse a scientific paper and write an output that lately would be submitted to peer-review. Poce et al. (2012) and Vertecchi et al. (2017) asked the students to learn about classical authors such as Rousseau and develop an argumentative essay that in the case of Poce et al. (2012) was presented in public. In general, it can be said that dialogue is related with argumentative practices in different forms. Mentoring was not reported in any study. In line with the type of intervention are the findings related to the teaching strategies as they pointed out that Lecture-Discussion Teaching (LDT) was present in 4 studies, whereas a combination of LDT and PBL was only present in 3 studies. Most of these studies promoted an argumentative context through the use online platforms, texts, or the delivery of lectures. It should be noted that other teaching strategies were proposed on the research, namely: peer-obser- vation and self-assessment (Janulevičiene & Kavaliauskiene, 2012), and cooperative learning (Klimoviene et al., 2006). The reviewed papers provided diverse contexts and teaching materials for the promotion of CT, with most of them implementing writing activities and debates. Some (Corcione et al., 2013; Poce et al., 2012; Silva et al., 2016) used virtual learning environments and one of them used a weblog (Janulevičiene & Kavaliauskiene, 2012). Torres Merchán and So lbes (2016) reported the use of authentic problems through texts about socio-scientific issues. Despite 7 studies did not mention which learning materials were used, 5 of them (e.g., Torres Merchán & Solbes, 2012; Silva et al., 2016) mentioned articles, texts, and essays as teaching materials. No difficulties during the implementation were reported. 117 Critical thinking: from the literature to the classrooms 5.2. The contribution of pre-service teacher educators to the development of critical thinking The analysis of interviews allowed us to identify the CT conceptualisation by pre-service teachers’ educators, along with the type of CT learning environments that they declare to implement in order to promote it. In the tables that are presented in the next sections, categories with no examples (e.g., systematicity) have been omitted. 5.2.1. Critical thinking conceptualisation by pre-service teachers’ educators The analysis of interviews pointed out that participants (T) considered CT as a set of skills and dispositions. Two of the CT definitions given by the participating educators were coherent with Facione’s definition (1990), making explicit that CT is comprised of several sub-skills, (T1: ‘I think that it is a thinking attitude and also a skill that may consist of several sub-skills or processes that characterise this […]’), or that it implicitly integrates skills, (T2: ‘It is the capacity to use our own vision to respond to problems and situations that we face in our most immediate context, as well as in others’). On the other hand, T3 and T4 characterised CT as a ‘thought’ or a ‘process’, respectively, with both emphasising that it can be used to question the established or normalised ideas. The last interviewee, T5, defined CT as a ‘methodology that leads students to think critically’. Critical thinking aims. Table 12 summarises the results of the CT skills and dispositions which were mentioned by the participants and a representative quote is provided for each category. The participants referred to all the skills, however they stressed that they considered inference and evaluation to be the most important skills for students to develop. Educators associated the evaluation skill with the assessment of sources of information, discussing the possible consequences of different students coming up with diverse solutions and how they should ‘investigate in order discover that there is no one truth’ (T5). This last aspect was closely connected with the skill of inference, which the interviewees linked with the idea of questioning the androcentric order, the reality we live in, the Inés Mosquera Bargiela 118 established norms and ‘the students’ own thinking’ (T3). To a lesser extent, the interviewees also cited the skills of explanation, self-regulation, analysis, and interpretation. Their analysis referred to the identification and examination of ideas and arguments that help pre-service teachers to ‘question the male normality’ (T4). The examination of the previously mentioned skills also revealed a reference to relevant problems in different contexts (e.g., cultural, scientific) and information sources in order to be aware of their ‘intention or who has put it there’ (T1). Self-regulation was considered as a necessary skill, given that to an extent, it must influence, modify, or control the students’ own thoughts and behaviours in the aforementioned questioning process. Last, by linking the educator’s answers with the materials and the teaching strategy they used, an explanation could be found. Table 12. Critical thinking aims (skills and dispositions) promoted by educators (N=5). CT aims F Quotes CT Skills Interpretation 1 “It’s not enough to give the truth, students have to investigate to know that there isn’t one truth” (T5) Analysis 2 “CT has to be built researching how things happened in environment” (T5) Inference 5 “[…] it’s very important the questioning of the androcentric order, everything that has to do with the questioning of male normality in this society; that’s a way to develop CT” (T4) Evaluation 4 “[…] interpretation of several information sources […], it’s necessary for students evaluate them” (T1) Explanation 3 “I put students in the context to imagine they were going to go to a congress or write an article as their final work […]. Students also had to elaborate their speech and present it in front of their classmates, who could make objections and raise different points of view” (T2) Self-regulation 2 “I try to put examples that are contrary to the orthodox, that is to say, they create bewilderment, reflection […]” (T2) 119 Critical thinking: from the literature to the classrooms CT aims F Quotes CT dispositions Truth seeking 3 “It’s not enough to give the truth, students have to investigate to know that there isn’t one truth” (T5) Open-mindedness 4 “They [students] should have an open and flexible mind as well as be reflective about the reality” (T3) Analyticity 3 “I usually start by asking the students questions about how they see the landscape they have in front of them (a picture), how they interpret the territory or some of the processes that occur in it or which he main problems that affect the territory they live in are […]” (T1) Other (dispositions) 3 Motivation: “To motivate students, you have to stimulate students, just so you get them to engage in the subject and they change their ways of thinking […]” (T5) F=frequency of appearance In terms of the CT dispositions, no reference was made to systematicity, self-confidence, inquisitiveness, and cognitive maturity. Educators considered open-mindedness as the most important disposition for pre-service teachers to develop. They identified this disposition with the idea of having an open and flexible mind (see example in table 1), something that is necessary in order to ‘foster in the students the ethical or political dimension’ (T1), as well as the capacity to accept that there are several ways to see the world. This capacity can be related to another disposition, truth-seeking, as T3 affirmed the importance of students ‘learning how to question themselves’, and T1 implied on accepting ‘some degree of distrust in the commonly accepted ideas’. Analyticity was associated with the materials mentioned by educators, implying the use of reasoning when solving tasks. For instance, when developing a project, students should search for information, contrast the information, and ultimately use it to solve the task at hand. Other dispositions that did not fit into Facione and Facione’s (1992) framework were awareness, the idea that according to T1 most problems or solutions have an ethical or political dimension as well as students’ motivation and feelings when teachers engage them in a topic. Inés Mosquera Bargiela 126 the enactment of inquiry and argumentation practices. For this purpose, they were involved in a weekly session for 2 months about forces within an inquiry-based approach. The classroom recordings were first transcribed and then read several times to divide the whole transcript into episodes, defined by the object the students were testing (e.g., play dough, rock, sheet of paper). A total of 13 episodes were identified, as displayed in table 14. Table 14. Identified episodes and the object tested on each Episode Object 1Play dough 2Cotton wool 3Rock 4Sheet of paper 5Cotton wool vs rock 6Two sheets of paper (open) 7One sheet of paper vs one sheet of paper shaped in a ball 8 Book vs sheet (thrown separately) 9 Book vs sheet of paper on top 10 Two rocks 11 Feather vs sheet of paper 12 A balloon 13 Balloon, rubber. Drawing general conclusions The analysis of the data was carried out in collaboration with Prof. Lucy Avraamidou under a research stay at the Institute for Science Education and Communication (ISEC), and it comprises a discourse-analysis (Gee, 2014) and open-coding techniques to identify patterns thar emerge from data. Therefore, two different coding frameworks were developed to code the utterances to address the two research questions, respectively: teacher’s questions posed to children (RQ6), and students’ inquiry and argumentation skills (RQ7), both with the purpose to explore how teacher’s 127 Inquiry-based teaching: teacher role in children’s engagement questioning affects students’ engagement in the practices of inquiry and argumentation. For RQ6, one hundred utterances were identified in Anne’s discourse (see table 15), distributed unevenly in the episodes. The analysis focussed on the type of questions posed by her during the activity. It needs to be highlighted that in the same utterance, more than one question can show; therefore, it can be classified in different categories. The analysis of teacher’s questions followed an inductive and iterative process, in which categories emerged in interaction with data and literature review (Mills et al., 2010). The coding scheme comprised the inquiry and argumentation questions that emerged from teacher’s discourse. Data were analysed by the author of the thesis and further refined through group discussions with the supervisors of this thesis until an agreement was reached. Regarding the RQ7, 103 utterances were identified in children’s discourse, distributed unevenly in 13 episodes (table 15). To identify the different kinds and patterns of interaction in classroom talk, we traced the question asked by Anne, the responses they prompted on the children, and how she followed-up on them. For the analysis, we first identified the inquiry and argumentation skills enacted by students, which corresponded to the same categories defined for teacher’s questions; and then, we compared in each episode the number and type of questions posed by the teacher with the number and variety of skills enacted by the students. It should be noted for analytical purpose that one utterance can comprise several questions. Table 15. Number of teacher’s and students’ utterances identified in each episode Episode (utterances) Duration Object Teacher’s utterances Students’ utterances 1 (1-5) 24 seconds Play dough 2 3 2 (6-7) 5 seconds Cotton wool 1 1 3 (8-17) 51 seconds Rock 3 6 4 (18-20) 12 seconds Sheet of paper 1 2 Inés Mosquera Bargiela 128 Episode (utterances) Duration Object Teacher’s utterances Students’ utterances 5 (21-26) 48 seconds Cotton wool vs rock 4 2 6 (27-32) 25 seconds Two sheets of paper (open) 3 3 7 (33-56) 2 minutes 20 seconds One sheet of paper vs one sheet of paper shaped in a ball 12 12 8 (57 -76) 2 minutes 25 seconds Book vs sheet (thrown separately) 9 11 9 (77-110) 3 minutes 44 seconds Book vs sheet of paper on top 20 16 10 (111-116) 30 seconds Two rocks 4 2 11 (117-126) 33 seconds Feather vs sheet of paper 5 5 12 (127-163) 4 minutes 38 seconds A balloon 17 20 13 (164-203) 6 minutes 23 seconds Balloon, rubber. Drawing general conclusions. 19 20 Total number of utterances (N=203) 100 103 6.1. Results: teacher’s questions to guide students’ engagement in an inquiry task The teacher, Anne, followed an inquiry teaching cycle that emerged from her own practice and students’ answers, that allowed her to help them in the construction of scientific knowledge about gravity and air friction. Her teaching cycle can be characterized by a ‘closed guidance’ that included ten types of driving questions, who whose main features and goals behind are described below in table 16. Table 16. Features of driving questions posed by the teacher Type of question Features Hypothesis To state the expected outcome of the experiment, which goal is to answer the questions “why it happens?” and “what will happen if we let an object fall?”. The teacher usually started the episodes introducing this type of questions. 129 Inquiry-based teaching: teacher role in children’s engagement Type of question Features Express scientific ideas The teacher asked this type of questions to explicit and get a better understanding of their personal ideas about scientific knowledge. Children can express them through verbal, gesture, iconic or graphic language. Design part of the experiment Children were prompted to think about how other variables (e.g., force, height, mass) might affect the outcome of the experiment and to take initiative of proposing ways to prove their new hypothesis. Collect data This process was guided through dialogue, prompting children to go to the middle of the circle and test the object. These kinds of questions helped children understand that they needed to collect data to later justify their claims. Analyse and interpret data The teacher posed these types of questions usually after the data collection process in order to guide children on the process of interpreting the meaning of the collected data, while looking for similarities or differences with the other objects as well as what they could mean. Construct claims justifying their answers The teacher asked students ‘why…?’ as a way to prompt them to justify their analysis or interpretation of the data using evidence. Revise claims This type of question attempted to build an environment in which the teacher prompted the students to rethink, debate and cooperatively construct a new and revised claim. The questions that aimed to revise students’ claims were formulated by the teacher after students stated their hypothesis or their data analysis and interpretation. Assess claims The teacher posed these questions to prompt students to question if their previous claims provided a good explanation for the phenomena. Draw conclusions This type of question helped students to come up with a conclusion that attempts to summarise the findings of the testing. Rebut others’ claims The teacher formulated this type of question to prompt students to think there might be another plausible explanation or answer to the phenomena. Therefore, they should refute the previously stated and propose with counterevidence and reasoning a new possible explanation. The sequence of these questions allows us to infer the inquiry teaching cycle displayed in figure 3. Inés Mosquera Bargiela 130 Figure 3. Inquiry cycle of the teacher (Episodes: E1, E2…E13) At the beginning of the inquiry-based activity, Anne started presenting the objects, which were previously kept in a plastic tray covered up by a piece of cloth. When the students were seated in a circle, she told them ‘Hey, look what I’ve got here! […] A surprise’, trying to engage them from the first moment. After the cloth was lifted, the teacher stated right away ‘Wow! Look, what is this?’, while lifting a sheet of paper. Children identified it and proceeded to present the other objects they were going to test. Afterwards, Anna asked them if they knew what the experiment could be about and, Gerardo, gestured as if he picked an object and let it fall. Once Anne was sure the students had identified the objects correctly and knew about the procedure, she began the inquiry teaching cycle. We identified the type of questions presented by the teacher in each episode (corresponding to a cycle stage). As figure 3 shows, the most frequent episodes with a greater duration comprised the skills of (a) 131 Inquiry-based teaching: teacher role in children’s engagement hypothesis, (b) collect data, (c) analyse and interpret data, and (d) construct claims for justifying their answers. Table 17 shows the frequencies of each type of question in each episode and the total number of questions posed by the teacher. Table 17. Frequencies of teacher’s driving inquiry questions identified in the teaching cycle Questions E1 E2 E3 E4 E5 E6 E7 E8 E9 E10 E11 E12 E13 Total Hypothesis 1111222161 7 25 Express scientific ideas 1 2 5 8 Design part of the experiment 1 1 3 5 Collect data 1 313111 11 Analyse and interpret data 11314 311 15 Construct claims justifying their answers 2 3 3 2 3 3 16 Assess claims 1 1 2 Revise claims 1 1 2 2 1 1 8 Draw conclusions 3 1 3 1 1 1 10 Rebut others’ claims 1 1 2 4 Number of inquiry operations 3 1 3 1 4 4 16 9 22 4 5 16 16 104 E= episode Most of the questions formulated by Anne were related to posing hypothesis (N=25), which were present at the beginning of almost every episode and used as a strategy to engage children in the inquiry activity. Specially, during the first four episodes, in which she explored children’s scientific ideas about what would happen if they let an object fall. In the Inés Mosquera Bargiela 132 next episodes, the number of these questions increased progressively but not constantly. The questions that aimed at the assessment of claims (N=2) or the rebuttal of others’ claims (N=3) were the least formulated. They appeared in E6 and E7 as well as E9 and E12, respectively. In addition, questions that prompted students to collect (N=11), analyse and interpret of data (N=16), construct claims for the justification of children’s answers (N=16) as well as conclusion drawing (N=10), were the most present from episodes 7 to 13. The revision of claims (N=8) was introduced early in the activity and was usually associated to prompt children to rethink their hypothesis or claims. As table 17 shows, whenever children dived into the activity testing more objects, the questions became more frequent and complex, emerging as the ones related to the design of the experiment, the expression of scientific ideas, or the rebuttal of others’ claims. Although, in episodes 10 and 11, this tendency reverse, and only four and five questions respectively were posed by the teacher. A possible reason for this might be the number of turns of said episodes, as it was already exposed in table 15. It should be mentioned that episode 13, intended for conclusions, comprised the three types of questions mentioned above -design of the experiment, the expression of scientific ideas and rebuttal of others’ claimsas well as the ones intended to draw conclusions, since students were asked to engage in a dialogical process to convey all the scientific notions (e.g., concept of gravity) they had acquired during the activity. With more detail, we described the context in which the questions appeared in Anne’s discourse, exemplifying each category with excerpts from the transcript as examples. The categories were presented following the frequency of appearance, from more to less frequent. • Hypothesis (N=25): These questions were found at the beginning of almost every episode asking, for instance, ‘What do you think will happen?’ or ‘How will it [sheet of paper] fall?’, when children were testing the fall of a book versus a sheet of paper situated on top of it (E9) and a balloon (E12). 133 Inquiry-based teaching: teacher role in children’s engagement • Analyse and interpret data (N=15) and construct claims to justify their answers (N=16): Questions that aimed to guide the analysis and interpret the data went almost hand in hand with the process of collection of data and the construction of claims to justify children’s answers. Although their distribution was slightly different, both had a higher frequency during the testing of the book and the sheet of paper situated on top of the book (E9), when comparing it with other episodes since it was the longest episode in terms of durations (see table 15). It should be highlighted that Anne asked questions to prompt students to justify their answers mostly when they formulated a hypothesis or were stating the results. An example of this can be found when the teacher asked ‘What do you think it happened? […]’, trying to prompt children to analyse the data obtained during the test. Immediately, a student answered, ‘The book landed first…because the book is heavier’, not only interpreting the data but also justifying her answer. • Collect data (N=11): This process was guided through dialogue, prompting children to go to the middle of the circle and test the object. These kinds of questions helped children understand that they needed to collect data to later justify their claims. It appeared mostly from episode 7–12. In E7, a child asserted ‘But hard things fall faster, and soft things fall more slowly’, and to cue her on collecting more data through observation, she asked her ‘But is this [ball of paper] soft?’, alluding to the properties of the object. • Draw conclusions (N=10): This type of question helped students to come up with a conclusion that attempts to summarise the findings of the testing. She usually asked ‘[…] what happened?’ after students tested the objects, to which they reached a conclusion together. At the end of each inquiry testing cycle, she asked ‘Oh, so what happened to it? What happened when it fell?’ to induce children to draw a conclusion. • Revise claims (N=8): These questions were introduced by the teacher to guide students and make them think about their Inés Mosquera Bargiela 134 claims. Their presence in the first episodes (1, 3) aimed to the reformulation of children’s hypothesis (e.g., ‘Are you sure it will fall?’). Whereas, in the last episodes (7, 8, 9, 13), they were linked to the reformulation of children’s analysis and interpretation of the data (e.g., ‘What do you mean if the book falls, it makes more air?’). • Express scientific ideas (N=8): These questions did not appear much, although they held valuable information for both, teacher, and peers. Children can express their ideas through verbal, gesture, iconic, or graphic language. An example can be found when Anne asked the students ‘What will happen if I drop the rock?’ and completed it with ‘Are you sure? This type of questioning triggered a few answers in which students presented a more elaborated explanation about why they thought the rock will fall faster and even eliciting that two other peers mentioned the role of gravity in the falling objects. This was key for the development of the session because it hinted the teacher that she could move forward into a more elaborate inquiry process, trying to help students understand which variables (e.g., height, mass) influenced in the fall of the objects. Other examples that prompted the expression of their ideas were ‘and what is gravity?’, replying that ‘it is a force that…that pull us down’, which in turn, led to another question: ‘[…] where is that force?’. We acknowledge gravity is a property of material objects and not a force as the child stated, nonetheless, this subtle appreciation is far too advance for 5 years old. • Design of the experiment (N=5): Questions like ‘[..] what do we have to do to let the balloon go?’ and ‘[…] to be able to pull, what do we have to do?’ focused on allowing the students to decide and direct their attention on how the variables of the testing and others they could introduce might affect the testing. These questions appeared in the latest episodes. • Rebut other’s claims (N=3): These types of questions were scarce and mostly appeared at the end of the activity, during the conclusions. Anne wondered ‘…does every single thing fall if we 135 Inquiry-based teaching: teacher role in children’s engagement drop it?’ or ‘Don’t balloon fall?’ to prompt students to think about if there could be another possible answer. • Assess claims (N=2): These types of questions were scarcely posed, and when Anne formulated them, it was to question students if their previous answers or claims provided a good explanation. The most illustrative example can be found in E6 and E7, as she asked them ‘Do they weigh the same?’ to evaluate if both sheets of papers weighed the same when they were open and when one of them was rolled into a ball of paper. Based on these findings, the driving questions that were asked the most prompted children to pose hypothesis and justify their answers whereas the types that were asked the least cued students to rebut and assess claims. These results hinted that the teacher’s role varied depending on the moment of the activity and, complex questions, even if they are not very frequent, appeared. 6.2. Children enactment of inquiry and argumentation skills This section addresses the analysis of the RQ7. First, we present the inquiry and argumentation skills identified in students’ discourse. Secondly, we show the relationships between teachers’ questions and students’ skills. Table 18 summarises children’s inquiry and argumentation skills. Table 18. Frequencies of students’ skills identified in the inquiry-based teaching cycle Inquiry and argumentation skills Total Hypothesis 26 Express scientific ideas 12 Design part of the experiment 6 Collect data 12 Observation 15 143 7. A PRÁCTICA DE PENSAMENTO CRÍTICO POLO ALUMNADO DE EDUCACIÓN INFANTIL. O PAPEL DAS PREGUNTAS NA ACTIVACIÓN DE DESTREZAS E DISPOSICIÓNS Este capítulo aborda e discute os resultados relativos ao terceiro obxectivo de investigación, identificar as destrezas e disposicións de pensamento crítico no discurso da mestra e do alumnado nun contexto de ciencias. Este obxectivo concrétase en dúas preguntas de investigación: RQ7) Como son as cuestións dunha mestra que activar destrezas e disposicións de pensamento crítico polo alumnado de educación infantil? RQ8) Cal é a relación entre as cuestións da mestra e o práctica do pensamento crítico polos/as estudantes? Co fin de responder ás preguntas de investigación examinamos as interaccións dialóxicas entre os axentes educativos implicados. En particular, poñemos o foco no rol da mestra e a súa influencia no desenvolvemento de destrezas e disposicións de pensamento crítico por parte do Inés Mosquera Bargiela 144 alumnado de infantil durante o desenvolvemento dunha actividade sobre a fricción do aire e a gravidade na caída dos obxectos. A actividade analizada é a presentada no capítulo anterior, de xeito que a transcrición e os episodios establecidos son os xa mencionados, mais neste capítulo centrámonos no pensamento crítico. Para a RQ8 identificáronse 99 enunciados no discurso da docente distribuídos de forma desigual ao longo dos 13 episodios. A análise centrouse nas preguntas expostas pola mestra durante a actividade. Cabe resaltar que nun mesmo enunciado pódense amosar máis dunha pregunta; por tanto, poden aparecer distintas destrezas e disposicións de pensamento crítico. Seguindo a Mills et al. (2010), a análise das cuestións da mestra seguiu un proceso indutivo e iterativo, no que as categorías emerxeron en interacción cos datos e a revisión da literatura (Facione et al., 1995; Facione, 2000). En canto á RQ9, identificáronse 101 enunciados no discurso dos/as nenos/as, distribuídos de forma desigual en 13 episodios. Para a análise, primeiro identificamos as destrezas e disposicións expresadas polo alumnado, que correspondían ás mesmas categorías definidas para as cuestións da mestra. A continuación, examinamos a relación entre o número e tipo de preguntas feitas pola mestra co número e variedade de destrezas e disposicións postas en práctica polos/as estudantes. En ambas preguntas de investigación, despois de interpretar individualmente o tipo de preguntas formuladas, os resultados refináronse e finalizáronse a través de discusións grupais entre a doutoranda e as directoras. 7.1. Categorización das preguntas da docente e desempeño do pensamento crítico do alumnado Neste apartado preséntanse os resultados do estudo que concirnen a ambas preguntas de investigación, debido á gran interrelación entre elas. Coa finalidade de contextualizar a análise, recordamos ao/á lector/a que a actividade de indagación na que participa o alumnado é a descrita no capítulo anterior. Esta tiña como obxectivo contribuír á comprensión por parte do alumnado dos aspectos científicos do mundo que os rodea a través do desempeño de prácticas científicas e pensamento crítico. Nesta 145 A práctica de pensamento crítico polo alumnado de educación infantil actividade identificárase que a mestra seguía ciclos de ensinanza baseados indagación e cada un deles correspondíase coa comprobación da caída dun ou varios dos obxectos. Durante o desenvolvemento dos ciclos de indagación, establecidos durante a análise das indagación, identificamos 5 destrezas de PC (interpretación, análise, inferencia, explicación, e autorregulación) e 3 disposicións de PC (sistematicidade, ser inquisitivo/a, apertura de mente), que se resumen nas táboas 20 e 21. As destrezas favorecidas pola intervención docente recóllense na táboa 20. Nesta se presentan as frecuencias de aparición das preguntas formuladas pola docente, seguidas de exemplos, e a frecuencia coa que dita destreza se percibe no discurso do alumnado. Táboa 20. Frecuencia e exemplos de preguntas que activan destrezas no alumnado Destrezas promovidas Frecuencia de aparición Exemplos de preguntas Frecuencia de destreza percibida no alumnado Inferencia 24 “¿Que credes que caerá primeiro?” “Entón así, como caerá?” 27 Explicación 29 “E, por que voa?” “Como que se cae o libro colle máis aire?” 34 Análise 23 “Que pasou entón?” “A goma chegou despois?” 25 Interpretación 8 “Se [o globo] impulsa con que?, que hai dentro?” “Que quere dicir desincharse?” 11 Autorregulación 5 “Seguro?” “Ah! Pero seguro que é porque… entón é que as cousas duras se caen antes que as cosas branditas?” - A inferencia preséntase ao comezo de cada ciclo ao longo de todos os episodios agás do último cando os/as nenos/as extraen conclusións. Asóciase coa petición de formulación ou revisión de hipóteses se algún alumno/a propón unha explicación alternativa. Un exemplo representativo atopámolo cando a mestra formula a pregunta “¿[...] que vai pasar se o [anaco de plastilina] solto?”, ao que unha alumna responde que caerá, Inés Mosquera Bargiela 146 sen embargo, algúns negan esta posibilidade e propoñen que “voa e vaise caendo”. Das 91 intervencións da docente, 24 estimulan ao alumnado a realizar as 27 inferencias percibidas, nas cales se perciben diferente seu grao de concreción en maior (“vai caer o libro e o papel vai estar voando”) ou menor (“[chegarán] igual”) medida. As cuestións asociadas á destreza de explicación tamén se presentan ao longo dos episodios, cunha maior presencia a partir do momento no que a docente lles demanda comparar a caída de dous obxectos, o cal resulta máis complexo e incita a xerar máis explicacións. Esta destreza asóciase á petición de explicacións nas que o alumnado presenta argumentos relacionados coas hipóteses previamente formuladas coas que intentan explicar o observado. A continuación, presentamos un extracto do diálogo onde se exemplifica esta destreza asociada á argumentación dunha hipótese. “Mestra: vós que credes que…? Alumna: a goma vai chegar antes porque pesa máis que o globo. Mestra: pero seguides pensando que é porque pesa máis? É porque pesa? Todos tedes claro que é porque pesa? […] Alumna 2: non, porque a sostén o aire. Mestra: aaaah! Por que o aire sostén máis a que? Alumno: porque a goma pesa moito e… e… e… a goma ten moita máis forza que o… Mestra: a goma ten máis forza? Pero onde ten forza a goma? Alumno 2: porque pesa moito Mestra: pero a goma ten forza? Alumno: non, é polo peso que o aire non a pode empuxar.” O diálogo, ademais, reflexa a co-construción do coñecemento científico entre docente e alumnado. Isto require un proceso dialóxico, traducíndose nun número elevado de cuestións formuladas por parte da docente (N=29), fomentando que o alumnado desenvolva explicacións mediante as súas participacións (N=34). 147 A práctica de pensamento crítico polo alumnado de educación infantil O apoio proporcionado pola mestra respecto á destreza de análise é máis evidente no intre do ciclo de indagación cando se analizan os resultados dos seus experimentos, sobre todo en aqueles episodios nos que teñen certa complexidade para os/as nenos/as e requiren que os repitan. Así mesmo, esta axuda adoita a aparecer cando hai comparacións de obxectos ou introducen algunha nova variable (ex., deixar caer o obxecto desde máis altura). A docente formula un total de 23 preguntas, activando 25 intervencións que promoven o desenvolvemento da destreza de análise no alumnado. Un exemplo deste tipo de cuestións formuladas, que promoven que os/as nenos/as identifiquen propiedades como a dureza ou a masa dos obxectos cos que están experimentando, atopámolo cando unha alumna argüía que “as cousas duras cáense máis rápido e as cousas branditas cáense máis a modo”. Esta idea provoca que a mestra introduza a cuestión “pero isto [folla de papel], é brandito?”, ao que a nena responde afirmativamente e comeza un novo experimento co obxectivo de que ela comprobe a validez das súas ideas. Outro exemplo achámolo cando os/as nenos/as deixan caer dous folios ao mesmo tempo, un coa súa forma orixinal e outro con forma de bóla. A continuación, a mestra pregunta “[...] cal chegou antes?”, promovendo que analicen os datos obtidos nos experimentos, como é o caso do alumno que resposta “ese, o plano”. Sen embargo, a docente espera unha explicación máis razoada e pregunta “Ah, ¿entón a isto que lle pasou? Que ao caer había, que?”, ao que unha nena contesta “Aire”, de forma que contribúe a que a alumna exprese ideas coas que reforzar esas explicacións. Atopamos a destreza de interpretación no primeiro e nos dous últimos episodios, onde a docente explora as ideas iniciais e finais do alumnado. Non é das destrezas máis frecuentes, atopando só 8 cuestións que activan 11 intervencións dos/as nenos/as nas que se percibe a destreza de interpretación. Este tipo de preguntas promoven no alumnado a expresión das súas ideas acerca de conceptos científicos coma o aire, ou a gravidade. Desta forma, cando a mestra cuestiona ao alumando como será a caída de calquera obxecto, razoa que esta caída deberase á altura. A partir dese momento, o concepto de gravidade co-constrúese entre dous compañeiros/as, refinando o mesmo, tal e como se pode observar no seguinte extracto: Inés Mosquera Bargiela 148 “Alumno: Porque ten…(dubida) gravidade. Mestra: Por que ten que? [...] Gravidade, e que é iso de gravidade? Alumna: É unha forza [...] que fai que che baixes. Alumno: É como unha corrente Alumna: É como unha corrente que fai que che baixes.” Outras cuestións fomentan esta destreza mediante a interrelación e expresión de ideas dos/as nenos/as respecto ás súas vivencias diarias e variables do experimento. Exemplo disto é a pregunta “O aire onde está? Onde temos aire?”, respostando unha nena responde que “aquí”, mentres sinalaba toda a aula. Por último, a destreza de autorregulación, relacionada con procesos meta cognitivos, foi promovida ao longo de toda a actividade coas intervencións docentes, se ben só hai unhas poucas preguntas da docente que a reflexen explicitamente (N=5). Cuestións como “seguro?” e “pero, sube ou… quedará [o globo] no ceo? Non vai baixar?”, teñen como obxectivo facer que el alumnado reflexione sobre as súas explicacións para que determinen se se axustan ao fenómeno explorado. É destacable que non se presenta unha correspondencia clara de dita destreza nas intervencións do alumnado, pois este responde ás preguntas da docente xerando unha nova explicación, pero non se auto regula, polo que non presenta un desenvolvemento claro desta destreza. Unha posible explicación é o contexto desta investigación, onde só presentamos a análise da primeira de dez sesións, entendendo que esta podería adquirirse co avance das mesmas. A análise dos datos revelou que as preguntas da mestra tamén fomentan o desenvolvemento dalgunhas disposicións de PC. A táboa 21 amosa as frecuencias das cuestións que promoven as disposicións atopadas, exemplificacións das mesmas e a frecuencia de disposicións percibidas no discurso do alumnado. 149 A práctica de pensamento crítico polo alumnado de educación infantil Táboa 21. Frecuencia e exemplos de preguntas que activan disposicións no alumnado Disposición Frecuencia de aparición Exemplos de preguntas Frecuencia de disposición percibida no alumnado Sistematicidade 8 “Pois agora vou a enrollar a folla de papel así (ruído). Apreto, apreto, apreto, apreto, apreto, apreto, apreto, apreto…e agora? Cal chegará antes [das dúas follas de papel]?” “A ver Damián, como facemos? Damián, Damián, cóntanos.” 4 Ser inquisitivo/a 2 “Mirade, que é? ¿que é isto?” “Escoitade, entón imos probar con dúas cousas...un libro e un folio” 2 Apertura de mente -Reflíctese no discurso da docente. Non se atoparon preguntas específicas. - Entre estas atopamos a disposición relacionada coa sistematicidade, é dicir, as preguntas da docente axudan ao alumnado a percibir e reflexionar acerca de posibles variables que podan afectar ao desenvolvemento da indagación, en concreto, na parte do deseño experimental. Esta disposición, en termos de preguntas formuladas, é a máis frecuente (N=8), e aparece durante toda a actividade. Sen embargo, ten un menor impacto no desempeño do alumnado quen só interveñen en 4 ocasións. Un exemplo característico achámolo cando a mestra lles cuestiona acerca de dúas follas de papel: “Dúas follas igualitas, vós cal credes que pesará máis?”, servindo como ferramenta non só para promover que os/as nenos/as reflexionen sobre a variable masa e como afectaría á caída do obxecto, senón tamén para coñecer a súa noción de conservación. Noutras ocasións é o propio alumnado quen introduce unha nova variable, como é o caso do alumno que afirma que na caída a folla de papel chegou despois que o libro xa que “[...] non lle dou tempo a que se movese [...]”. Este afirmación provoca que volvan a realizar o experimento, para o que a mestra pregunta “Probamos? Ana (ela) é máis alta? [...] Tíroo eu?”, procedendo a realizar o experimento con esta nova variable. Inés Mosquera Bargiela 150 A disposición de ser inquisitivo/a é promovida pola docente en escasas ocasións (N=2), as cales teñen como obxectivo fomentar a curiosidade do alumnado para motivalos coa actividade ou manter a súa atención. Na introdución ao presentar os obxectos a mestra preguntaba “Mirade, que é? Que é isto?”, así como ao afirmar “Escoitade, entón imos probar con dúas cousas...un libro e un folio”. Un alumno manifesta curiosidade en diferentes momentos da actividade por como o cambio na forma do folio (“ou tamén poderíase facer un avión de papel…”) y la variable altura (“e agora desde o teito”) influiría nos resultados dos experimentos. Por último, como se aprecia no seguinte extracto, o discurso da docente promove en varias ocasiones la apertura de mente do alumnado. “Mestra: Pau, ti que cres que vai pasar? Alumno3: a primeira páxina [do libro] e a última pesan. Mestra: a primeira páxina e a última, as outras non pesan? Alumno: eh...un pouco. Mestra: (ruído de voces) Eu non me estou enterando. A ver, Ismael, Ismael. [...] Alumno3: o que pesa do libro é a portada e a contraportada. Mestra: e por que pesa a portada e a contraportada? Varios: porque son máis duras Alumna2: non, porque son máis gordas Mestra: porque son máis gordas. Entón, credes que se tiro o papel e o…Sara, a ver [...].” A diferencia das outras disposicións, a docente non fomenta esta disposición a través de preguntas específicas, senón que o fai mediante o seu discurso, especificamente, mediante o intercambio de opinións, promovendo a participación de todo o alumnado, e tendo en conta as súas ideas para a co-construción de coñecemento. 151 A práctica de pensamento crítico polo alumnado de educación infantil 7.2. Discusión e conclusións parciais Os resultados ofrecen información sobre como as preguntas da docente activan o desempeño de destrezas e disposicións de PC nos estudantes de educación infantil. Estes resultados reforzan a idea da idoneidade das preguntas como estratexia de andamiaxe que facilita o PC e a comprensión de coñecementos científicos polo alumnado (van Uum et al., 2016). Biggers (2018) afirma que os/as docentes deben iniciar aos/ás nenos/as na indagación partindo de situacións estruturadas para desafiarse a si mesmos/as con respecto con respecto ao contido e a autonomía. En liña con esta autora, coincidimos en que debido a que o desenvolvemento do PC é dependente do contexto da tarefa na que o alumnado está implicado (Greene & Yu, 2016) e á complexidade das destrezas e disposicións de PC para este, especialmente en infantil, é preciso que a mestra se mova dentro dun contínuum bastante estruturado. Neste sentido, León (2015), e Hmelo-Sliver et al. (2007) afirmaron que para axudar ao alumnado a desenvolver o PC un alto grao de autonomía podería non ser efectivo. É por isto que resulta relevante coñecer as estratexias que emprega a docente para introducir ao alumnado de educación infantil neste tipo de prácticas. A comparación entre as destrezas promovidas pola docente coas percibidas no alumnado pon de manifesto unha concordancia entre ambas. En liñas xerais, podemos afirmar que as preguntas guían a participación do alumnado. A maioría das destrezas desenvolvidas polo alumnado amosan un leve incremento na súa frecuencia con respecto ás cuestións formuladas pola docente. Exemplo disto é a destreza de explicación, a cal garda unha estreita relación coa práctica científica de argumentación pudendo ambas desenvolverse de forma conxunta, como demostrou o estudio con estudantes de secundaria de Glassner e Schwarz (2005). Sen embargo, ata onde sabemos, non se coñecen investigacións que aborden estes aspectos en educación infantil. A destreza de inferencia, asociada á formulación de hipóteses, foi a segunda máis promovida pola docente. Chin e Osborne (2008) examinaron a formulación de hipóteses nesta etapa educativa e a vinculan coa estratexia de cuestionamento para promover a construción de coñecemento científico, ambas vinculadas ao PC.