The present study examined the association between pre-service teachers’ mindfulness and critical thinking dispositions, as indexed by engagement, cognitive maturity, and innovativeness in critical thinking. A total of 72 Chinese pre-service teachers were recruited from Hong Kong to complete an online questionnaire cross-sectionally. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that mindfulness was differentially associated with critical thinking dispositions. As important dimensions of mindfulness, mindful presence was positively associated with engagement in critical thinking, whereas mindful acceptance was positively associated with cognitive maturity in the regression models. However, neither mindful presence nor mindful acceptance was related to innovativeness in critical thinking. As a covariate, gender was not related to dimensions of mindfulness and critical thinking dispositions. The present findings inform the literature on the relation between pre-service teachers’ mindfulness and critical thinking dispositions, particularly in the Chinese context. As a major implication, policymakers should be made aware of the importance of strengthening pre-service teachers’ mindfulness, such that they could have a greater disposition to teach critically as they enter the workforce. Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). 

A quasi-experimental research study is reported in this paper. Its aim was to evaluate the effects of different types of pedagogy on the cultivation of students' critical thinking dispositions. One hundred and forty Secondary 4 students (i.e. tenth-grade students at 15–17 years of age) from two Hong Kong schools joined a teaching intervention in which they learnt strategies of argumentation through an established critical thinking framework (i.e. Kuhn's model The Skills of Argument, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991]). Analysis revealed collaborative group work to exert positive impacts on students' development of critical thinking when used in conjunction with explicit instruction in reasoning and evidence-based justifications during the intervention. The research results also showed the students who received teacher guidance to have engaged more interactively in joint learning tasks, thereby illustrating the important role of the teacher in facilitating group discussions.
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