The effect of thinking training lesson on 6th grade elemantary school students' critical and creative thinking skills

This research aimed to determine the effect of Thinking Training lesson, which was conducted as an elective course in elementary school 6th grade, on students' critical and creative thinking skills, and to investigate if there was a relation between critical thinking and creative thinking. The research which was carried out as a mixed method research combining quantitative and qualitative methods, was conducted on 52 students studying in the 6th grade in two different private elementary schools, which were in Eskişehir-Tepebaşı and Ankara-Polatlı. The quantitative part of the research consisted of pre-test and post-test experiment-control group experimental design and the qualitative part of the research included observations, interviews and researcher diaries on nine focus students. In the research, 28 students who were studying in the 6th grade of a private elementary school in Ankara-Polatlı in the education year of 2012-2013 and taking Thinking Training lesson were chosen as the experiment group and 24 students who were studying in the 6th grade of a private elementary school in Eskişehir-Tepebaşı in the same education year and were not taking Thinking Training lesson were chosen as the control group. Nine students including three low level, three medium level and three high level students from the experiment group were selected as the focus student group according to their grade point averages at the end of the 5th grade as well as the mean scores of pre-test of critical and creative thinking tests. In the research, quantitative data were collected via Cornell Critical Thinking Skills Test Level X Test (CCTS-X) and Torrance Test of Creativity Thinking (TTCT) which were run as pre-test and post-test to the experiment and control group. The qualitative data were collected from English, Science, Mathematics, Turkish, Social Studies and Visual Arts teachers as well as the researcher who all filled in observation forms for nine students in four weeks' intervals through the experimental process. In addition to observations, semi-structured interviews conducted with the same teachers about the focus group students and with focus group students and researcher diaries written about the focus group students. The quantitative data were analyzed by using SPSS 19.00 computer packet program and t-test and Pearson correlation test were applied on the data. NVivo 9.0 qualitative data analysis program was utilized to analyze the qualitative data. Through the analysis of pre and post-test scores of students in the experiment and control group obtained from the CCTS-X and TTCT, which formed the basis of quantitative data of the research, it was revealed that critical thinking and creative thinking levels of students who took Thinking Training lesson was higher than those who did not take Thinking Training lesson. On the other hand, the findings indicated that while there were no statistically significant differences between pre and post CCTS-X of students who did not take Thinking Training lesson, statistically significant differences were found between the pre-test and post-test of students who took Thinking Training lesson. Similarly, while the difference between the mean of pre and post TTCT scores of students who did not take Thinking Training lesson was not found statistically significant, the difference between the pre-test and post-test scores of students from the same test who took Thinking Training lesson was statistically significant. Based upon these findings, it was inferred that Thinking Training lesson was effective in terms of improving students' both critical and creative thinking skills. The findings obtained from the quantitative data were supported by the qualitative data obtained from nine focus group students who were in the experiment group. According to the findings received through teacher and researcher observations performed in order to observe the improvement of focus group students' critical and creative thinking skills, interviews conducted with teachers and focus group students and researcher diaries, it was revealed that students' both critical and creative thinking skills improved clearly in positive way during the experimental process. The findings exhibited that Thinking Training lesson was effective for students from three level (low, medium, high) focus groups in their improvement of the behaviors which were accepted as the indicators of critical thinking as "Participating in the lesson actively", "Cooperating with others", Conveying ideas and opinions effectively", "Respecting others' opinions", "Thinking empathically", "Proving ideas", "Matching the newly-learnt with previous knowledge", "Being open to criticism", "Appreciating the competency of a friend telling his/her ideas", "Determining unrelated, false and biased information", "Controlling the validity and reliability of information", "Evaluating others' ideas and reinterpreting on them", "Asking intended questions", "Revealing the reason and result relation" and "Reflecting". Similarly, Thinking Training lesson was found to be effective for students from three level (low, medium, high) focus groups in their improvement of the behaviors which were accepted as the indicators of creative thinking as "Producing unusual, unique and functional works", "Being able to ask unique, functional and creative questions", "Being sensitive to events and situations", "Conveying feelings and ideas in different ways", "Finding new solutions to problems", "Being able to pass from one idea to another easily", "Producing rational ideas about events and situations", "Guessing", "Being able to systematize ideas", "Evaluating solution ways to problems" and "Being curious to the lesson". In the research whether there was a relationship between 6th grade students' critical and creative thinking skills was investigated. According to the findings obtained from correlation analysis conducted on CCTS-X test and the mean of pre and post test scores of TTCT test, it was inferred that there was not a direct correlation between students', who took Thinking Training lesson and who did not, critical and creative thinking skills. As a result, Thinking Training lesson which was conducted as an elective course in elementary school 6th grade was be effective in improving students' critical and creative thinking skills; however, no direct relationship was found between students' critical thinking levels and creative thinking levels. Key Words: Thinking Training, Critical Thinking, Creative Thinking