An Innovative Pedagogical Strategy for Teaching and Assessing Critical Thinking in Mathematics
Date
Authors
Klymchuk, Sergiy
Sangwin, Chris
Supervisor
Item type
Journal Article
Degree name
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Abstract
This article describes and promotes an innovative pedagogical strategy for teaching and assessing critical thinking in mathematics. It can be applied at secondary and tertiary level. The idea is to use mathematics questions that are deliberately designed to mislead the solver and direct to an incorrect solution. We call such questions provocative questions. The intention is to encourage students to critically analyse a mathematical question first before applying certain techniques or software to solve it. That is to enhance a habit to question the question, pay attention to conditions and constraints, recognise mistakes and don’t take anything for granted which is an essential part of a mathematical way of thinking. Several examples demonstrate the idea in the article. Attitudes of secondary school mathematics teachers and university lecturers towards the suggested pedagogical strategy are presented and compared. Implications for teaching practice are also discussed.Description
Keywords
0199 Other Mathematical Sciences, 1302 Curriculum and Pedagogy, Education, 3901 Curriculum and pedagogy, Pedagogical innovation, critical thinking, mathematics assessment
Source
International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, ISSN: 0020-739X (Print); 1464-5211 (Online), Informa UK Limited, 1-9. doi: 10.1080/0020739x.2026.2633252
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Rights statement
© 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.