Carlos Ossa Cornejo

Critical thinking is an essential competency in higher education, particularly in contexts characterized by complexity, uncertainty, information overload, and technological transformation. However, various models explain critical thinking primarily from cognitive perspectives, thereby limiting understanding of the conditions that foster its activation, regulation, and advancement in authentic educational settings. This article proposes a pedagogical-interindividual model of situated critical thinking in higher education, developed through a conceptual review of theoretical and empirical literature regarding critical thinking, metacognition, motivation, social interaction, language, and instructional mediation. The model is organized as a relational and functional architecture rather than as a linear sequence and distinguishes interconnected components according to their respective functions: teacher instructional mediation as an instructional-contextual condition; argumentative socio-linguistic interaction as an interindividual mechanism; motivation and metacognition as individual factors of activation and regulation; critical cognitive processes as the operational core; situated critical thinking as performance; and evidence-based decision-making as an educational outcome. The model hypothesizes that situated critical thinking may emerge from direct and indirect relationships among students’ internal resources, discursive practices, and intentionally designed pedagogical conditions.

Teaching vocation is a fundamental element of educational practice and an essential factor for achieving quality in educational systems. However, its study and analysis have been minimized, diminishing the importance of identifying its development in teachers. The general objective of this study is to analyze the ideas that teachers and students at a teacher training center have about teaching vocation and how it relates to professional performance. This analysis will focus on the ideas of teachers and students at the Regional University Center of Juticalpa in Honduras. An exploratory qualitative methodology with a phenomenological approach was used. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with teachers and students; the participants consisted of 90 teachers and student teachers. The student teachers agreed that motivation is fundamental for teachers, and that creating motivational spaces fosters a favorable environment for achieving the objectives of the educational process. This intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is related to the ethics that each teacher must demonstrate to achieve the expected performance. It is concluded that self-realization and a passion for teaching are the most outstanding pillars on which the vocation of each teacher is forged and consolidated, triggering internal processes that demonstrate results in the integral formation of young people and children.

Introducción: el pensamiento crítico es una competencia importante en la formación de niños, niñas y adolescentes, siendo una competencia relevante del siglo XXI. Es un constructo complejo que se define como habilidad de pensamiento fortalecida por la metacognición y la motivación, sin embargo, no se ha profundizado en cómo se relacionan estas variables. Este estudio analiza la relación entre estrategias metacognitivas y motivación al pensamiento crítico en estudiantes de Pedagogía de tres instituciones de educación superior (IES) del centro-sur de Chile, para profundizar en la relación de las variables señalada en otros estudios. Metodología: se realiza un estudio no experimental, de naturaleza descriptiva y correlacional, en el que participaron 435 estudiantes de carreras de Pedagogía de tres IES del centro-sur de Chile. Los instrumentos aplicados fueron el cuestionario de estrategias metacognitivas de O’Neill y Abedi y el cuestionario de motivación al pensamiento crítico de Valenzuela. Resultados y discusión: se observa un nivel de desempeño percibido muy alto en las dos variables, así como relaciones positivas, significativas y medianamente fuertes entre ambas, tanto a nivel general (r = 0,545, p < 0,01) como en sus dimensiones (con correlaciones entre 0,382 y 0,491). Conclusiones: la discusión y las conclusiones plantean que tanto la metacognición como la motivación son variables que interactúan y potencian entre sí, por lo cual los estudios sobre el pensamiento crítico deberían considerarlas de manera más activa.

Critical thinking has become one of the most notable cognitive skills in education in recent decades since it offers skills for improving knowledge, making decisions, and creativity, among others. While it is considered a mainly cognitive process, recent years have seen strong proposals regarding its relationship with motivational and emotional processes. A study is presented that analyzes the relationship between critical thinking and emotional intelligence, analyzing the relations and influences between these variables. Two instruments were applied to 658 Chilean pedagogy students with ages ranging from 19 to 47 years old. The results indicate a moderate level of critical thinking and a high level of emotional intelligence, along with a positive and significant but moderately low relationship between emotional intelligence and critical thinking. There are no gender differences, meaning that men and women developed these skills in a similar way, but differences were found between age groups. The study highlights the relevance of promoting both critical thinking and emotional intelligence in training future teachers and the need to generate new studies about how these skills are developed in teacher training.

We evaluated the effect of two workshops on learning about critical thinking amongst first- year university students. 66 Chilean pedagogy students participated, all female, with ages ranging between 18 and 37 years. Two experimental groups were organized, one with direct teaching (n = 22) and another one with semi-directed teaching (n = 19), plus a control group (n = 25). Pre- and post-tests were applied with an abbreviated Pencrisal critical thinking questionnaire. The results showed statistically significant differences in both experimental groups between the pre- and post-test, with a greater difference in experimental group 1, while the control showed no significant differences. The covariables evaluated were age and academic performance upon entering university, observing that even after controlling for the aforementioned variables, there are differences between the experimental groups and the control. We discuss the possible positive effect of direct teaching in critical thinking as a more effective strategy.

Propósito: Analizar la percepción de las condiciones de teletrabajo desde el hogar y la conciliación trabajo-familia en trabajadores/as de instituciones públicas en Chile. Metodología: Se utilizó un diseño de investigación cuantitativo y descriptivo, aplicando cuestionarios sobre condiciones de teletrabajo y conflicto trabajo-familia a una muestra de 1,135 funcionarios públicos, seleccionados por conveniencia. Se analizaron los datos mediante estadística descriptiva, correlaciones y modelos de regresión lineal para identificar diferencias en la percepción del teletrabajo y la conciliación trabajo-familia, según género, responsabilidades familiares y tipo de contrato.Resultados: Se observa una percepción general positiva de las condiciones de teletrabajo, con apoyo institucional, equilibrio trabajo familia y adecuadas condiciones ambientales. Se observan diferencias significativas en la percepción de teletrabajo y en equilibrio trabajo-familia, según género, ser responsable de hijos menores y/o adultos mayores, y tipo de contrato. Implicancias: El estudio contribuye a discutir cómo el teletrabajo puede ser una alternativa beneficiosa para las organizaciones y sus trabajadores/as, en la medida que exista autonomía y políticas organizacionales que permitan compatibilizar trabajo-familia.Originalidad: Se demuestra la importancia de considerar en el impacto del teletrabajo factores como el género, las responsabilidades familiares y el tipo de contrato, que han sido menos explorados en investigaciones previas.

Critical thinking is a complex reasoning skill, and even though it is hard to reach a consensus on its definition, there is agreement on it being an eminently cognitive skill. It is strongly related with reflective and metacognitive skills, as well as attitudinal or motivational aspects, although no model has yet been able to integrate these three elements. We present herein the preliminary results of a study seeking to establish these relations, in a sample of Chilean university students. 435 students from three universities participated, of which 88 were men, 333 were women, and 14 did not indicate their gender. Their ages ranges between 18 and 51 years old (M = 21, SD = 3.09). Three instruments were applied, one to measure metacognitive strategies, one to measure motivation to critical thinking, and a third to measure critical thinking skills. The relation was analyzed via structural equations. The results show a positive, strong, and significant relation between metacognition and motivation to think. However, only a weak significant relation was observed between motivation to think and critical thinking, and no direct relation was found between metacognition and critical thinking. We hypothesize a significant but moderate relation between the variables, where metacognition influences motivation to think, which in turn influences critical thinking skills. Factors are discussed which could negatively affect the studied relations, as well as the importance of generating integrated models between the three variables, as they would show a theoretical and empirical link.

La educación inclusiva es un objetivo importante a lograr en las instituciones educativas, por cuanto permite el logro de una educación para todos y todas, acorde a sus características idiosincráticas y con énfasis en el aprendizaje significativo. A pesar de ello, han sido muchas las dificultades para su implementación en los centros escolares. Se propone una herramienta de gestión participativa, denominada metacognición institucional, para que los líderes escolares puedan impulsar y mantener en el tiempo, estrategias de educación inclusiva, monitoreando los obstáculos que puedan surgir en el proceso. La metacognición institucional se compone de acciones participativas enfocadas en el diagnóstico, toma de decisiones y evaluación de los resultados de dichas acciones, que permiten determinar, por ejemplo, la implementación de modelos de educación inclusiva, así como su valoración. Se concluye que, para el logro de una escuela inclusiva, la metacognición institucional es una herramienta de gestión útil, permitiendo que los líderes escolares puedan implementar propuestas inclusivas, como también evaluar su desarrollo, identificando participativamente tanto los aciertos como los obstáculos.

The performance of critical thinking skills depends on motivational factors. Based on the expectancy-value motivational theory, this paper analyzes the effect of motivational components (expectancy, utility, attainment, cost, and interest) on the performance of critical thinking skills, and estimates the predictive capacity of these factors on critical thinking skills. In this study, three instruments were applied to a sample of 254 Spanish university students: the Motivation for Critical Thinking Scale (EMPC) and two scales of critical thinking skills: PENCRISAL and CCTST. Multiple regression analysis was used to identify the motivational components that best explain the performance of these skills. The results show that, regardless of the critical thinking test used, the motivational variables explain the variance in the performance of critical thinking skills ranging from 8% to 17%. Finally, the importance of considering these components of motivation to promote performance in these critical thinking skills is discussed.