Critical thinking as equitable treatment of multiple perspectives in solving trans-scientific issues

Comparison between socio-critical modeling and word problem solving

抄録

This study aims to identify a potential factor in students’ narrow perspectives when engaging with trans-scientific issues. The main structure of this study is divided into the following two parts. First, based on existing empirical data, we reviewed the theoretical issue of conceptualizing critical thinking within mathematics education research and proposed a new conceptualization as equitable treatment of multiple perspectives from a superordinate ethical perspective. Second, from this perspective, we retrospectively analyzed whether students disrespected a probabilistic perspective in solving and a traditional word problem with conditional probability. Consequently, we found that students tended to take a probabilistic perspective in solving the traditional word problem. It is suggested that excessive information in word problems narrows their perspective rather than the authenticity of the problems.