Defining Critical Thinking in Uganda: A Constructionist Grounded Theory Study

In the sub-Saharan region, there is dearth of contextualized approaches to enhancing and assessing critical thinking. The few attempts at empirical studies to assess critical thinking in low-income contexts rely solely on assessment instruments imported from other cultural contexts, generating problems of comparability, absence of normative groups and lack of familiarity in adaptation and validation processes.

This raises questions of cultural relevance. Considering the limited knowledge and understanding of the variables and
constructs that characterise critical thinking in Uganda, this research has the long-term goal of developing methods for teaching and assessing critical thinking at classroom level that are relevant to the context. The objectives of this study are to investigate how Ugandans define and conceptualize critical thinking, as a starting point for developing tools for the enhancement of these skills in schools.