The effect of EYDİİB program on critical and creative thinking, academic achievement and attitudes of 10th grade secondary school students

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of the EYDIIB programme prepared for the 'Digital Age' unit of English course on 10th grade students' critical thinking and creativity skills, academic achievement and attitudes towards English course. In this research, which was conducted in a high school in Islahiye District of Gaziantep Province in 2021-2022 academic year, case study method was used. The quantitative dimension of the research is in the form of a quasi-experimental design and pre-test-post-tests were used in the study. The research was carried out on 10th grade students with data collected from a group of 28 students. The research was carried out by the researcher during the 7-week application period and the application lasted 14 weeks. Based on 21st century skills such as critical thinking, creativity, cooperation and communication skills, the lesson plans of the EYDIIB programme were implemented in the English lessons of 10th grade students for 2 lesson hours per week. Critical Thinking Rubric, Torrance Creative Thinking Test, English Achievement Test and English Attitude Scale were applied to the students as pre-test at the beginning of the study and as post-test at the end of the study. SPSS 17.0 statistical package programme was used to analyse the quantitative data. A t-test analysis was conducted to determine whether there was a statistically significant difference between the data obtained from the pre-test and post-test of the Critical Thinking Rubric, Torrance Creativity Test, English Achievement Test and Attitude Towards English Lesson Scale. As a result of the analyses, there was a statistically significant difference between the pre-test and post-test results of the group to which the EYDIIB programme was applied; • When the Critical Thinking Test pre-test scores were controlled, a significant difference was found in favour of the post-test scores. • When Torrance Creative Thinking Test pre-test scores were controlled, a significant difference was found in favour of post-test scores. • When the English Achievement Test pre-test scores were controlled, a significant difference was found in favour of the post-test scores. • When English Attitude Scale pre-test scores were controlled, a significant difference was found in favour of post-test scores. Camera recordings, interview records with students and a diary kept by the researcher were used as qualitative data collection tools. Descriptive analysis and content analysis were used for qualitative data. According to the interview findings, the students stated that the application positively affected their English language skills, they were better at reading skills than before, they started to write English better even if their vocabulary knowledge was incomplete, their creativity skills improved and they went through mental processes while using the language. They also stated that they were more successful in the course because they started to develop positive attitudes towards the English course. The findings obtained from the researcher diary and camera recordings also support these results. Keywords: Academic achievement, critical thinking, English, attitude, creativity.