A conceptual proposal and operational definitions of the cognitive processes of complex thinking

Abstract

In the last decade studies on the notion of complex thinking have proliferated and there are several authors who propose the need of promoting it through educational systems; However, there is a lack of operational conceptualization allowing the development of instruments, tasks or evaluation systems for observation or measurement, especially from the conceptual perspectives developed by Edgar Morin and Mathew Lipman, considered the most relevant and referenced notions in the educational field. In this sense, this study aims to develop a conceptual model with the operational definitions of skills and/or cognitive processes of complex thinking. To accomplish this, the main proposed conceptualizations and the approach to their processes from the cognitive sciences were reviewed. Therefore, a new conceptualization for complex thinking is proposed through a process of synthesis and conjugation of different conceptual perspectives.