A Study on Students’ “Abduction” in Mathematics Lesson for Fostering Critical Thinking

Abstract

　　 With regard to the next revision of the Guidelines for the Course of Study, various arguments are being made about the need for a talent and ability-based curriculum reform. Among them, one of the urgent issues is how to foster children’s critical thinking skills, which are regarded as generic skills, in the context of subject education. This study explores the abduction performed by students in math classes that fosters critical thinking and elucidates the position of such abduction in the process of critical thinking, as well as the types of roles it can assume. The research results elucidated that abduction could induce the appropriate inference at an early stage of the critical thinking process. Defined as “reasoning through conscious deep thinking” (Yonemori, 2007, p.61), abduction has an innate affinity with critical thinking and plays an important role in the process of critical thinking. Based on suggestions in preceding studies on abduction, future research is expected to elucidate the characteristics, logical position, and components of critical thinking that can be fostered through math teaching in order to develop and assess teaching methods that foster such critical thinking and to suggest practical teaching models.