Conceptions and teaching strategies for critical thinking: a systematic review

Abstract

This article is anchored in a systematic review, which aims to identify which conceptions, approaches and teaching strategies are used to develop the student’s critical thinking. Keywords were used in the databases Portal de Periódicos da CAPES, SciELO, Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações and Portal MultiMeios. With the inclusion and exclusion criteria, a corpus of 24 investigations was constituted using content analysis. Results revealed that the conceptions of critical thinking relate it mainly to the development of reflection, investigation and problem solving. Among the teaching strategies identified, the following were obtained: active learning; research approach; application of clinical reasoning; critical analysis of information; debate of ideas, etc., also using teaching resources such as digital history and Information and Communication Technologies. However, it was concluded that there is a need for teaching methodologies that develop students’ critical thinking, favoring their protagonism and autonomy and employing the methods of science, through reflection, investigation and reasoning.