Teaching scientific inquiry to develop critical thinking skills

Abstract

This study proposes a scientific inquiry activity as a teaching strategy to develop critical thinking skills among 24 biology students from the Faculty of Chemical Engineering at a university in Cartagena, Colombia. The activity begins with a problem-based scenario designed to encourage investigation and is guided by a driving question. During the scientific inquiry activity, students formulate explanations and design experiments to test their hypotheses. The results are then discussed and debated within working groups. To further enhance the development of critical thinking skills, students complete a project, the findings of which are presented in a document following the criteria of a scientific article.