The effect of a biology course prepared to develop critical thinking skills on ecological ethics approaches of secondary school students

The purpose of this study was to determine how the activities prepared for students to gain critical thinking skills within the context of Ecology unit, ?The World Environment and Living Creatures?, would influence the students? approaches to environmental ethics and their critical thinking dispositions.The research was designed as an experimental pre-test/post-test control group design. Instead of sample selection, the study was performed in groups. In terms of the equality of these groups, the two classes, where the same teacher was instructing, was selected and number of the students and the students? levels of success were made sure to match for the two groups. The research was conducted with 56 students from the 10th class in the fall semester of 2008-2009 instructional year at a state school in Izmir. There were 29 students in the experimental group and 27 students in the control group of this study.As instruments used for collecting data, the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) Scale, California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI) and the Personal Information Form were used. SPSS 15.0 was used as a statistical sofware package to analyze the collected data. In addition, the semi-structured interviews were carried out with five students in each group after the post-tests.As a result of the study, it was seen that the pepared instuctional approach aimed to develop critical thinking skills increased the critical thinking dispositions and the environmental ethics approaches of the students in experimental group. It was identified that female students? had a higher level in terms of critical thinking dispositions and environmental ethics approaches than male students, however the level of difference was not statistically significant.Keywords: Critical thinking, environmental ethics, new ecological paradigm scale, California critical thinking disposition inventory, anthropocentric, ecocentric.