Research On Development Of Students’ Critical Thinking In The Field Of Physics Education

Critical thinking,as one of the core qualities of citizens in the 21st century,has received lots of attention in the field of education.Researchers have devoted themselves to exploring how to develop students’critical thinking in school education and the cultivation of students’critical thinking skills based on the characteristics of different disciplines becomes an important subject.The reality is that research on the cultivation of the critical thinking skills in basic education in China is still in its babyhood,and there is little has been done the field of science education in middle schools.However,it is important to cultivate students’critical thinking skills in the field in that there is a natural connection between critical thinking and scientific thinking,both of which regard the role of evidence,fairness,reasoning and evaluation with an open mind.Therefore,teaching critical thinking in science classes is particularly advantageous.The present study aims to explore the way to cultivate students’critical thinking in physics education in high school.It includes several parts:constructing the framework of critical thinking in the field of physics education;compiling a scale to evaluate the middle school students’critical thinking;exploring the effective teaching strategies for adapting students’critical thinking in physics education.The study involved several steps to construct the framework of critical thinking for physics education.Firstly,major descriptors were identified and defined through text analysis,which in turn were used to design a scale for expert advice.After three rounds of expert consultation,the framework of critical thinking oriented for physics education were determined.It is comprised of two primary descriptors including critical thinking skills and critical thinking dispositions,each of which has several secondary descriptors.Then,two scales of critical thinking skills and disposition（Scale of Critical Thinking Skills in Physics Education and Scale of Critical Thinking Dispositions for Physics Education）were compiled based on the framework and tested with good reliability and validity.The students from 8^th grade to 11^th grade in two middle schools in Shanghai were tested.It is found that the students’critical thinking skills are generally weak,and the skills develop continuously with the grade,but it does not develop lined.Moreover,there is no gender difference with all students in grades.And the students’critical thinking disposition is in high level,especially in openness,independence and introspection.But only the systematicness and independence develop faster in the 9^thgrade,others have no development with grade.This shows that students’critical thinking disposition have little development in middle school.According to the test results,we selected students from 4 classes in10^thgrades and 11^thgrade in HP district of Shanghai as samples for teaching experiment for nearly one year.We did design-based research,finally the"Vee chart"teaching strategy was modified.And it can highlight the characteristics of physics.The teaching effect was analyzed by using scale,implantable investigation and interview.Data shows that the critical thinking teaching can effectively improve students’critical thinking in high school physics class,and there is no differences with grade and gender.And the development of students’critical thinking skills is more significant than disposition.About critical thinking skills,the average scores of the students’in experimental class show statistically significant differences with the control class.About thinking disposition,although there is not statistically significant differences between the experimental classes and the control classes,but the students’average scores in the experimental classes were higher than whose in the control classes.What’s more,there is a significant difference about systematic between pretest and post-test in ordinary classes.This indicates that the teaching strategy is helpful,forever it may be more helpful to students in ordinary classes.In addition,the critical thinking skills scale of California was used to test students’critical thinking transfer ability,and found that the teaching strategy is obviously helpful.The students who have good academic achievement can do better than other students.Finally,based on the experience in the process of teaching and the interview data,we propose four factors which may affect the teaching result:teachers’understanding about critical thinking;teachers’view of the nature of science;students’metacognition;teachers’mastery of critical thinking teaching strategies.In order to provide some references for critical thinking teaching in future,we put forward several suggestions for critical thinking teaching in middle school.