PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL FACTORS IN DEVELOPING LOGICAL AND CRITICAL THINKING IN PRIMARY SCHOOL PUPILS: AN INTEGRATIVE CONCEPTUAL REVIEW

The development of logical and critical thinking in primary education is essential for enabling pupils to analyse information, justify conclusions, evaluate alternatives, and regulate their own reasoning. This article presents an integrative conceptual review of the psychological and pedagogical factors that support these capacities in children aged approximately 7–11 years. Drawing on sociocultural theory, research on executive functions, metacognition, cognitive load, scaffolding, dialogic teaching, cognitive conflict, self-regulated learning, and formative assessment, the review distinguishes logical thinking from critical thinking while treating them as developmentally interconnected. The analysis identifies four key psychological resources: motivation and epistemic curiosity, executive functions and prior knowledge, metacognitive regulation, and emotional readiness for intellectual risk. It also identifies five pedagogical conditions: calibrated scaffolding, dialogic interaction, problem- and inquiry-oriented tasks, an error-tolerant classroom climate, and formative feedback focused on reasoning processes. These factors are integrated into a conceptual model centred on appropriately calibrated challenge, explanation, peer reasoning, cognitive conflict, and gradual transfer of responsibility to the learner. The article concludes that logical and critical thinking should be developed systematically across primary-school subjects, while the proposed framework requires empirical validation in Uzbek educational settings.

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