Abstract:

Critical thinking in young students is a concern in the educational field. There are several forums in which this concern has been highlighted, where representatives from different countries agreed on the importance of improving the critical thinking of the students.

To do so, in this paper we study the perception and capabilities of the students from this point of view. The work consists of two parts. First, we have synthesized the concerns about the evolution of education presented by the experts some international forums on this topic. Secondly, we have carried out some preliminary experiments to evaluate the critical capacity of a group of students.

In the first place, we have collected some interesting reflections on, for example, how students are prepare for the skills that are demanded for data science professionals, or that the mission of the University and the Academy is to create critical thinking, among others. We consider this study as part of the Social Big Data project which goal is to analyze the social change based on Big Data management.

Moreover, for the correct applications of artificial intelligence, the guarantee of an ethical, moral and critical level is paramount. The era of big (and open) data has provided many advantages: mobility, access to information and quality of life. Advances in education and society are clear examples. Nevertheless, it is very common for people (especially young people) to accept without reading the conditions of use the applications they install on their devices. It is also common for people to ignore the consequences of the use of these applications, especially the consequences that may appear over time. The algorithms that provide the mentioned advantages are not completely open but people trust both the algorithms and the data that feeds them. Both, data and algorithms, can be manipulated, present errors or cause automations unsuspected by the user. Even more, most of the people are not able to understand the code of an algorithm.

Because of this, critical thinking is a value that must be educated from an early age.
In the second part of this work we present an experiment with 149 students where we have measured their capacity of critical thinking through a practice with mathematical algorithms. The students come from 3 different schools of the Community of Madrid. Their age range is between 14 and 18 years old. There is 57.7% female participation and 42.3% male participation. Of these, 92.6% consider that the activity has been satisfactory and more than 85% have successfully completed all the exercises proposed.

The experiment consists in teaching students different strategies to solve a problem. Four mathematical problems of ascending difficulty, of simple approach but of complex resolution, have been proposed. Students should note down the difficulty and enthusiasm level they feel in the application of different strategies. These approaches are implemented in a programming language (R) with methodologies that range from brute force to optimal final recursion.

Some of the conclusions drawn from the results are that the study show no different about the capability of girls against boys in critical thinking. Also it is demonstrate that at scholar age the students are well skilled to develop a correct critical thinking.

Keywords:

Critical thingking, Education, Sciences, Gender.