The effect of critical thinking teaching with different approaches on high school students' critical thinking skills, dispositions and environmental attitudes

The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of critical thinking teaching with different approaches on high school students' critical thinking skills, dispositions and environmental attitudes. In this research, quasi-experimental design with pretest and posttest control group, one of the quantitative methods, was used. Study group of this research consists of 114 students who are educated in four 9th grade classes in Anatolian High School in a city in Black Sea region of Turkey in 2019-2020. Four of six 9th grade classes in the school were chosen and appointed as first treatment group, second treatment group, third treatment group and control group randomly. The students in these three treatment groups and a control group are equal to each other in terms of both demographic characteristics such as gender, age and educational background of mother and father and their critical thinking skills, dispositions, environmental attitudes. While critical thinking skills were taught with general approach in the first treatment group, they were taught with immersion approach in the second treatment group. Also, mixed approach was used to teach critical thinking skills in the third treatment group. Control group students didn't receive any education on critical thinking skills and continued to take the classes in the existed curriculum of their schools. Data were collected using Critical Thinking Test, UF/EMI Critical Thinking Disposition Instrument and Environmental Attitude Scale. While it was seen that critical thinking teaching with general, immersion and mixed approaches enhanced high school students' critical thinking skills and dispositions, there was no improvement in the control group students' critical thinking skills and dispositions. Besides, three different critical thinking teaching approaches were strongly effective in improving students' critical thinking skills. While the effect size of general approach on improving students' critical thinking dispositions was strong, the effect size of immersion approach was medium and the effect size of mixed approach was small. Also, the most effective approach to improve critical thinking skills was general approach. It was followed by mixed and immersion approaches. In terms of posttest, the difference among these three different approaches was statistically meaningful. Besides, general approach was more effective than both immersion and mixed approaches to improve students' critical thinking dispositions. While it was seen that critical thinking teaching using environmental education content with immersion approach and mixed approach enhanced high school students' environmental attitudes, there was no improvement in the control group students' environmental attitudes. Also, both of the critical thinking teaching approaches were strongly effective in improving students' environmental attitudes. Besides, immersion approach was more effective than mixed approach to improve high school students' environmental attitudes.