Concluding Remarks

Fostering critical thinking in the science classroom requires integrating key elements of science education, including socioscientific issues and the scientific practices of argumentation, inquiry, and modeling. This edited volume introduces the ENCIC-CT model, designed to promote critical thinking by combining these elements with additional components structured across four interconnected layers: socio-scientific issues (Layer 1), critical thinking domains and dimensions (Layer 2), scientific practices (Layer 3), and teaching strategies (Layer 4). Within this model, critical thinking is organized into three domains—knowledge, skills, and dispositions—and encompasses several dimensions, such as application of scientific knowledge and knowledge about science, vision of science/epistemic knowledge about science, comprehensive analysis of problems, critical analysis of information, argumentation, decision-making, communicative skills, personal autonomy/metacognition/reflection, social engagement/activism, and emotional engagement. The various potential combinations among the elements within the model’s four layers provide multiple ways to cultivating critical thinking.