Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated the value of student discussions of biomedical ethical issues in middle school education. Not only do students develop an awareness of current issues in the media associated with medicine and biogenetics, they begin to understand the complexities of ethical decision-making itself. However, few studies, if any, explore the relationships between bioethical issues analysis, and a specific set of critical thinking (CT) skills and in the science classroom. This study consisted of two middle school science classrooms and approximately 50 students. One classroom received instruction in guided critical thinking question construction, while the other was simply instructed to create unguided critical thinking questions. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. The results were that students in the experimental condition created significantly more high-level critical thinking questions than students in the control condition. Therefore, this study has provided additional findings that further our understandings of how guided critical thinking, using bioethical issues and questioning strategies, can improve students’ CT skills and attitudes in middle school science classrooms.