Effectiveness of the critical thinking ability in the 6th grade of elemantary the 2006 Turkish program

This study aims to reveal whether the implementation of the latest method in National Education has improved the critical thinking ability of students in Turkish classes in the 6th grade. The key question of the research is whether the level of critical thinking ability of the these children is determined by such divert factors as gender, age, educational level of the parents, their income and the number of newspapers or books they read weekly and the frequency of watching debate programs on TV.The scope and sample of this research consists of 6th grade students in Hendek Cumhuriyet Secondary School of Ministry of Education. The study covers 78 students in the 2007-2008 educational years.Within the research, a survey was conducted to find out personal information. Additionally, an open ended question and a CCTDI survey were carried out to evaluate the information on critical thinking. In the analysis period, both quantitative and qualitative techniques were used. In the personal information test and evaluation of critical thinking test, quantitative analysis techniques were used, and the data was conveyed to SPSS13.00 program. A cross-tab analysis on personal information was put through, along with their frequency (n) and percentage values. Mann Whitney U test was made use of to analyse the relationship to compare among the first tests and among the last tests. However, in both experiment group and the control group , the relationship between the first and the last tests was exposed to Wilcoxon test. Finally, Kruskal Wallis test was used to evaluate the relationship of such variables as monthly income, educational status of the parents, the number of newspapers read weekly and the number of debate programs watched monthly with the first test and the last test. Open ended questions were exposed to content analysis.The survey conducted at the end of the study concluded that the critical thinking ability of the 6th grade students, which was found to be quite low before the experiment, has improved. It can be said that study papers used in classes and slides as well as computer programs are efficient in the improvement critical thinking ability. Furthermore, the study showed that the level of critical thinking ability of the these children does not depend on such divert factors as gender, age, educational level of the parents and their income and the number of newspapers or books they read weekly and the frequency of watching debate programs on TV.