Critical thinking skills and teacher assessment methods

ABSTRACT CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS AND TEACHER ASSESSMENT METHODS GÜRBÜZ, Demet Post Graduate thesis, Department of Primary Education Supervisors: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Yılmaz SAĞLAM February 2016, 112 Page This study aimed to investigate to what extent teachers' assessment approach contribute to the development of students' critical thinking skill. A total 40 teachers from Diyarbakir, Gaziantep and Sanliurfa volunteered. Individual interviews were conducted with the teachers and they were asked to score the students' responses to such questions: 'how do we cool down a glass of water?' and 'how do we dry wet clothes?'. After scoring, the teachers were asked to justify the scores they gave. All the interviews were audio taped and later transcribed and analyzed. Even though all the students' responses were scientifically accurate, it was detected that most teachers did not give full scores. Moreover, even though the questions did not involve any criterion, the teachers created a set of their own criteria and scored the responses accordingly. Further to that, even finding the student responses accurate, some teachers did not give full score to any of them. As a result, the accurate but different responses offered by the students led to earning lower scores. In other words, the teachers' assessment approaches seem being an obstacle to the development of students' critical thinking skill. Key words: Critical thinking skill, Assessment, Primary school teachers.