Abstract
Critical thinking is one of the twenty-first-century skills and an essential aspect of formal education. The current study aimed to analyze the education policy documents to get an understanding of policy recommendations for developing critical thinking in secondary school students. The education policy document—National Education Policy and National Curriculum documents for Physics, Chemistry, and Biology, Grades IX-X were analyzed. These documents were analyzed through qualitative content analysis with the facilitation of NVivo 11. Findings suggested that the focus of these documents was to develop critical thinking through student-centered techniques and assessment system. The National Education Policy document aimed to produce critical thinkers, and for this purpose, much significance was given to curriculum and assessment processes. The National Curriculum for Physics, Chemistry, and Biology emphasized activity-based, conceptual, and critical thinking pedagogy. Students’ engagement, problem-solving, questioning, discussions, debates, group work, cooperative learning strategies were recommended to produce critical thinkers for the twenty-first century. The documents also accentuated that the assessment system should also be focused on developing critical thinking by assessing higher-order abilities among secondary school students. The findings of the current study have strong implications for science teachers in their teaching at the secondary level.
Keyword(s)
Critical thinking, science education, Pedagogy, policy documents, secondary level