The effect of critical thinking-based activities on science teacher candidates' critical thinking tendencies and attitudes towards stem applications

This research aimed to evaluate systematic thinking activities during the critical thinking process and to reveal the change in the process critical thinking sub-dimensions of prospective science teachers' attitudes towards critical thinking processes, questioning and science teaching. The research was carried out with a convergent parallel research design, which is one of the mixed method research designs. The research was carried out with a nice dimension "single group pre-test-post-test design", and the qualitative dimension was carried out with a "case study" design. The research consists of 24 3rd grade science education teacher candidates studying in Siirt University, Department of Mathematics and Science, Department of Science Education in the fall semester of the 2023-2024 academic year. The study group was determined according to the criterion sampling method, one of the purposeful sampling methods. In line with the purpose of the research, critical thinking-based activities were applied to the experimental group science teacher candidates. In the research, "critical thinking disposition scale", "inquiry skills scale" and "science teaching attitude scale" were used as quantitative data collection tools for experimental studies. As a qualitative data collection tool, worksheets and evaluation rubrics were used to evaluate the worksheets. As a result of the research, it was determined that critical thinking-based activities did not show a statistically significant difference between the pre-test and post-test scores on the critical thinking disposition of the experimental group teacher candidates, but there was an increase between the post-test and pre-test average scores. This increase is positive for post-test average scores. It was determined that critical thinking-based activities caused a significant difference in the post-test scores of prospective teachers in their questioning skills and attitudes towards science teaching. In addition, it was determined that the average scores of prospective science teachers received from the evaluation rubric during the application process of the stages of critical thinking skills of the applied critical thinking-based activities increased significantly and it was observed that almost all of their students could use these stages. Critical thinking-based activities applied in the research can be applied to different work groups.