A new approach to teaching critical thinking through philosophy conversations without a structured aim

This research aims to determine the impact of Philosophy Conversations without a Structured Aim on students' critical thinking skills and to reveal how this experience is interpreted by the students and the classroom teacher. It was conducted with 48 students (22 in the experimental group, 26 in the control group) from a public elementary school in the district center of a major city in the Aegean Region, attending the 4th grade. The study was conducted using a mixed research method in accordance with an experimental mixed (nested) design. A program of philosophy conversations with children without a structured aim was applied to the experimental group by the researcher for 8 weeks. The control group continued their studies according to the 4th grade educational program. In the quantitative phase of the study, the Critical Thinking Skills Written Test 1 and 2 were used. In the qualitative phase, student journals, student interviews, teacher journals, and one interview from the teacher was used. The findings obtained from quantitative and qualitative data both confirm that the purpose of philosophy conversations with children without a structured aim is to develop students' critical thinking skills. Students and the teacher believe that the philosophy discussions are an enjoyable, productive, different practice that promotes deep thinking, enhances inquiry skills, creates positive feelings towards philosophy, helps develop a critical perspective, and increases logical thinking within intellectual patience. At the end of the study, recommendations were made to practitioners and researchers for the implementation of this approach and testing it in different groups. The P4C method was used in field studies, but this study, introduced with the distinction of "unstructured aim," is the first of its kind in the field. Therefore, it needs to be tested with different experimental studies.