Examining the effect of critical listening activities on secondary school students' listening comprehension skills in terms of various variables

Listening is one of the most basic language skills and is included in the comprehension field along with reading. This skill, acquired at an early age, can be improved through training processes. In this way, teaching students listening methods and strategies appropriate to the situation can be considered among the main goals of the listening field. Critical listening, one of these methods, comes to the fore in the effective use of listening skills. The purpose of this research is to examine the effects of critical listening activities on secondary school students' listening comprehension skills in terms of various variables. In the research, pretest-posttest, control group experimental method was used. The study group was selected among students studying in 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grades at a secondary school affiliated with the Ministry of National Education in Gülağaç district of Aksaray province in the 2023-2024 academic year. In the study, pre-test, post-test and personal information form were used as data collection tools to evaluate the effect of critical listening activities on secondary school students' listening comprehension skills. Before the experimental application, pre-tests were administered to the eight classes where the application would be carried out one week before. After a total of five weeks of application, the same tests were reapplied to the groups as a post-test. The data obtained was analyzed and interpreted through the SPSS program. Statistical analyzes such as arithmetic mean, frequency, percentage and t test were used to interpret the results of the research. According to the findings, the use of critical listening strategy in listening activities created a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in various areas. This difference was found to be in favor of the experimental group. The research shows that the critical listening strategy is an effective method that increases listening comprehension success in all student groups, regardless of variables such as grade level, gender and parental education level.