The contribution of critical thinking skills in rich mathematical problem completion: Insights from pre-service mathematics teachers

A narrow understanding of critical thinking challenges pre-service mathematics teachers to recognize situations that need critical thinking in problem-solving, remove errors in the formulation of mathematical problems due to unsupervised modification of data, and view content as a stimulus for critical thinking. This study aims to reveal how they perceive the extent to which rich mathematical problems require the contribution of critical thinking skills in their completion. We adopted grounded theory to locate the common trends of their perceptual following open, axial, and selective coding. Data saturation stemmed from the participation of 19 pre-service mathematics teachers through an in-depth interview session. Each pre-service mathematics teacher successfully recognized the application of at least two critical thinking skills in rich mathematical problem completion. The lack of understanding of critical thinking skills led them to focus on information as the catalyst for interpretation, while the question serves as the catalyst for evaluation and inference. They exhibited their involvement in critical thinking through questioning and discussion.