AWEJ Volume.4 Number.3, 2013                                                                     Pp.277-283

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Critical Thinking and Learners’ Conception of Knowledge- A Meeting Point

NAFIAA BOUANANI
Faculty of Education, Med V University, Rabat, Souissi
Morocco

Abstract
Critical thinking as a topic lurks fascinatingly behind and about higher education and professional development. The scope of research done on critical thinking revolves mainly around how to promote and sharpen student’s critical thinking skills as they are considered to be at the heart of successful academic assertiveness. However, there is another component, namely developmental epistemology, which is central to developing and fostering critical thinking skills and which should be taken into account in pedagogical implications and applications. Epistemological development has been the subject of a number of studies over the last half century that  indicate that there is a developmental sequence in learner’s epistemological beliefs and that this influences the manner in which the learners function; significantly affecting their capacity for critical thinking. In particular, this paper looks briefly at the relationship between critical thinking and epistemological development as a process as well as beliefs of the individual learner, both standing for learner’s conceptions of knowledge which impact to a great extent the acquisition of critical thinking skills and the process of critical thinking as a whole.

Keywords: Critical Thinking, epistemology, beliefs, knowledge

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Nafiaa Bouanani, 26 years old, a Moroccan PhD candidate at the faculty of Education,
University Mohamed V Souissi, Rabat, Language and Education department. I am enrolled in the
research unit ‘Foreign Language and Educational Psychology. A visiting professor at the faculty
of Economics and Legal sciences, University Mohamed V, Agdal, Rabat, since 2009.