The research aimed to report the ARCS model for promoting pre-service mathematics teachers’ critical information retrieval skills for research. The purposes of the study on ARCS for critical information retrieval skills were to (1) investigate the conditions of critical information retrieval skills for research of pre-service mathematics teachers on the ARCS model in learning activities, (2) evaluate the development of critical information retrieval skill for research of pre-service mathematics teachers after using the ARCS model, and (3) evaluate the pre-service mathematics teachers’ satisfaction. Forty-nine pre-service mathematics teachers who enrolled in the subject of research for learning development were purposefully selected as the research cohort. The research tools were a questionnaire that could be used to measure critical information retrieval skills for research with contextual accuracy and confidence (IOC = 0.66-1.00, α = .834). The research found that the critical information retrieval skill for the research samples prior to using the ARCS model in learning activities was extremely high; evaluating the development of the research cohort’s critical information retrieval skills after using the ARCS model in learning activities with relative gain scores, overall, the average was very high; and pre-service mathematics teachers’ satisfaction is high. The result revealed that pre-service mathematics teachers could explain the method of searching, extracting, and selecting information, evaluating the quality of information, and effectively making decisions in accepting information.