The place of critical thinking skill in social studies textbooks

The main purpose of this study is to determine the level of critical thinking skills in Social Studies textbooks. The case study design, one of the qualitative research designs, was used in the research. In the research, the data were collected using the document review form prepared by the researcher and the descriptive analysis method was used to analyze the data. The study material of the research consists of the 5th, 6th and 7th-grade Social Studies textbooks prepared by the Ministry of National Education. Within the scope of the research, 3 textbooks were examined. Lesson activities and assessment-evaluation sections of the examined textbooks were evaluated separately. According to the findings obtained in the research, it was seen that the content of the textbooks examined to develop critical thinking skills was at different levels. When the textbooks are examined in terms of the content of critical thinking in learning areas, it is seen that especially the 5th grade book is richer than the 6th and 7th grade books. When evaluated in terms of measurement-evaluation sections, it was seen that the 7th grade textbook had a richer critical thinking content than the 5th and 6th grade textbooks. For this reason, it has been understood that the content for critical thinking skills can be developed in some learning areas and measurement-evaluation sections of the textbooks. As a result of the research, it was seen that some of the sub-skills of critical thinking skills were included more in the textbook. Accordingly, it was found that the activities/questions in the learning areas of the 5th-grade textbook gave more space to the skill of "inference" while the assessment-evaluation section gave more space to the skills of "explanation" and "interpretation". It was found that the activities/questions in the learning areas of the 6th-grade textbook gave more space to the "interpretation" skill, while the assessment-evaluation section gave more space to the "inference" skill. It has been found that the 7th-grade textbook gives more space to the "interpretation" skill of the activities/questions in the learning area, while the assessment-evaluation section gives more space to the "inference" skill. It has been found that the sub-skills of "evalutation" and "self-regulation" are the least included ones in all the textbooks examined.