Comparative analysis of critical thinking skills of prospective teachers in Kazakhstan and Türkiye

The aim of this study is to determine the critical thinking skill levels of pre-service teachers participating in the study in Kazakhstan and Türkiye and to examine them according to interaction of gender, teacher education undergraduate programme and country variables. The research was designed in general survey model. In the 2023-2024 academic year, 358 prospective teachers studying at Anadolu University Faculty of Education and 300 prospective teachers studying at Kazakh National Pedagogical University participated in the study. The Pamukkale Critical Thinking Skills Scale was applied as a data collection tool in the study. In data analysis, two-way ANOVA was applied to examine the interaction effect of variables in addition to descriptive statistics. In case of an interaction effect between variables, t-test was applied to determine the source of this effect. As a result of the research, the arithmetic mean of the critical thinking skill scores of the prospective teachers in both groups was above the average score, the critical thinking skills of the Turkish and Kazakhstan study groups did not differ according to gender, and the average scores of the prospective teachers in Mathematics Teaching, Classroom Teaching and Guidance and Psychological Counselling programmes differed significantly in favour of the prospective teachers who participated in the study in Türkiye.