Perceptions and practices of science teachers for the development of critical thinking through inquiry: a qualitative study of Moroccan primary schools

The main objective of this study is to examine teachers’ perceptions of their approach to help learners to develop critical thinking and consistency of their classroom practices with their perceptions. The study was conducted with Moroccan primary school teachers, and to achieve our goal, data in the form of class observation and interviews were collected. A total of 13 teachers were observed during their classroom work and were interviewed. The findings revealed that science teachers are not familiar with the concept of critical thinking. The majority seem to lack a clear and adequate understanding of critical thinking or the needed requirements to develop students’ critical thinking skills and competencies. In addition, observations have shown that little initiatives are left to students, who are above all expected to reproduce a sequence of steps or actions in a certain order, without prior reflection and without necessarily having understood them. Teachers did not give the impression to understand the requirements for cultivating critical thinking in students. As a result, teachers should practice to coach, scaffold, and facilitate the integration of critical thinking into their style of teaching.