Teaching critical thinking in psychology—focusing on evaluating different psychological perspectives

Abstract

Critical thinking is a key ability in the humanities yet a contested issue regarding how it should be taught. In the subject of psychology, critical thinking is essential to psychological literacy i.e. the ability to evaluate empirically based psychological perspectives in explaining human phenomena, which is the focus in this study. The study was a Learning Study conducted at upper secondary school level in Sweden with 53 students at three different schools. Variation theory was used as a theoretical framework to design lessons where students processed contrasts of what critical thinking is and is not in psychology, focusing on evaluating different psychological perspectives. In the analysis of student assignments, four critical aspects were identified as essential for developing critical thinking in psychology. The results show that students improved in their ability to think critically about psychology while processing contrasts.