Critical thinking in religious teaching: An action study to improve students' critical thinking skills in religious education

Critical thinking is a concept that is mentioned among the skills of the 21st century, and has been mentioned frequently in education in recent years. In general, the question of how to teach critical thinking within the subject of education has brought different approaches. One of the approaches to the teaching of critical thinking is the content-based teaching approach, which is based on the idea of acquiring the skills with the acquisitions of each course. Another prominent approach, skill-based teaching, is aimed at providing critical thinking skills as a separate course. The lines of this teaching approach is being implemented in Turkey with certain separate courses in the curriculum. However, it is the case that, the contribution of critical thinking skills to other courses in the program by means of the courses in question is insufficient. This study is based on the idea that critical thinking is possible in the field of religious education in line with its analysis of critical thinking processes. The study aims to investigate how practices that support critical thinking can be applied in religious education. For this, two different qualitative research designs were used in the study. The first of these, is an action research, in which students will experience these practices in the classroom; and the other is interviews with teachers who perform similar practices. The concept of "critical thinking" started to be gradually included in all education programs as of 2004, and it was included in recent programs. An action research was designed based on the basic question of how to use it in the teaching of the course, and the process was explained in detail. The action research was carried out in one of the 5th grade branches in a secondary school in Fatih district of Istanbul. Applications, which are related to methods and techniques that will contribute to critical thinking processes were carried out in the classroom environment for religious education, and the results were recorded. The opinions of those who have been employed with teaching religion were investigated through field research, in order to evaluate the position of critical thinking skills in today's religious education practices. Twelve teachers, who are active in their own field of religious education, known for their activities, and distinguished among their colleagues, were interviewed. The meaning these teachers attribute to critical thinking have been investigated with a qualitative research design and interview method. For this purpose, the sample was determined by snowball sampling method among the teachers of Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge at the secondary-high school level, and those of the vocational course of Imam Hatip Secondary School in İstanbul. To evaluate the opinions of teachers, the obtained data were interpreted with content analysis, and these interviews shaped the action research. As a result of the research, it was revealed that teaching can be carried out within the framework of the themes suggested by critical thinking in Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge courses. It was determined that the teachers in the field needed a guide in line with the themes suggested by critical thinking. This thesis consists of three sections in addition to an introduction: In the first chapter, what is critical thinking, how to improve it, and the existing applications in Turkey were described. In second chapter, the methodology of the study was explained. In the last chapter, an analysis and interpretation were made in line with the data obtained. The study was concluded with the results and recommendations. Keywords: Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge Course, Critical Thinking Skills, Content-Based Teaching, Action Research, Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge Teacher