The implementation of critical thinking in Vietnamese primary school moral education classes

Ngô Vũ Thu Hằng
Hanoi National University of Education, Vietnam

Vietnam is undergoing a comprehensive educational reform. Innovation within the curriculum requires a content-based approach to be replaced by a competence-based approach in which critical thinking is stressed in educating primary school students. This study aims to determine the extent to which critical thinking is implemented in current primary school moral education classes to provide a knowledge base for designing a new moral education curriculum that can be effective in teaching critical thinking to Vietnamese primary students. It reveals that despite a generally positive attitude toward the use of critical thinking by students, critical thinking is still currently implemented only to a low extent in moral education classes. The study reinforces the belief about the deep influences of Confucian heritage culture on the implementation of critical thinking that primary teachers and students use in their classroom practices. It recommends that critical thinking should be more widely fostered in moral education in Vietnam with attention needed to be given to cultural features and divergences. The study suggests the application of a social constructivist perspective and transformative learning to a new design of the moral education curriculum with a view to improving critical thinking and sociocultural values among students.
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Authors: Dr Ngô Vũ Thu Hằng has been a teacher educator and a researcher at Hanoi National University of Education in Vietnam for more than fifteen years. She obtained her doctoral degree in education at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Her research area is primary education and social constructivism. Email: hangnvt@hnue.edu.vn Please cite as: Hằng, N. V. T. (2019). The implementation of critical thinking in Vietnamese primary school moral education classes. Issues in Educational Research, 29(3), 732-755. http://www.iier.org.au/iier29/hang.pdf