The Effect of content and skill based critical thinking teaching on prospective teachers'disposition and level in critical thinking

ivABSTRACTTHE EFFECT OF CONTENT AND SKILL BASED CRITICAL THINKINGTEACHING ON PROSPECTIVE TEACHERS? DISPOSITION AND LEVEL INCRITICAL THINKINGBirsel AYBEKPhD. Dissertation, Department of Educational SciencesSupervisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Ahmet DOĞANAYSeptember 2006, 250 pagesThis study investigated the effects of teaching with Edward De Bono?s skill basedCort1 thinking programme and teaching with content based critical thinking programme insocial studies subject on prospective teachers? critical thinking disposition and level .The research was designed as an experimental pre-test/post-test control group design.There were two experiments and one control group in the research. Total of 76 studentsparticipated voluntarly to the study. There were 22 students in first experimental group, 27students in second experimental group, 27 students in control group. Groups are equalized onthe basis of pre-test results of California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory, Ennis-WeirCritical Thinking Essay Test and Personal Information Forms. Edward De Bono?s skill basedCort1 critical thinking programme was applied to the experimental group one; content basedcritical thinking programme was applied to the experimental group two.SPSS 10.0 is used as statistic sofware package to analyze data. First the data wasanalyzed by using descriptive statistics such as mean and standart deviation, then they wereanalyzed inferentially by using one-way anova and covariance techniques.The result of this study:1. Covariating pre-test results for the post-test results of California Critical ThinkingDisposition Inventory, the research results shows:a. Significant results are found among experimental groups and control groupin favor of experimental groups.b. Skill based experiment group one was significantly better than the content-based experiment group two.2. Covariating pre-test results for the post-test results of Ennis-Weir Critical ThinkingEssay Test, the research results shows:va. Significant results are found among experimental groups and control groupin favor of experimental groups.b. Skill based experiment group one was significantly better than the content-based experiment group two.3. There is no correlation between the academic achievement level and score ofCalifornia Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory, Ennis-Weir Critical ThinkingEssay Test of experimental groups.4. Low but statistically insignificant correlation found in pre-test scores of CaliforniaCritical Thinking Disposition Inventory and Ennis-Weir Critical Thinking EssayTest of experimental groups. Correlation in post-test between these two test wassignificant.5. Cort skill-based experiment group one have a limited understanding of criticalthinking before treatment; however, the development of more scientific and widerpespectives towards critical thinking in this group is observed after treatment. Inthe mean time, these students defined the concept of critical thinking as in Cort1programme after the treatment. However, it is found that students in the content-based experiment group two defined the concept of critical thinking after thetreatment as before the treatment. Another word, there was not much change intheir perception of critical thinking.6. It is observed that most of the students in skill-based Cort1 thinking experimentgroup one have positive ideas toward critical thinking activities done in theclassroom. They stated the importance of critical thinking skills in daily life aswell as the necessity of teaching these skills to each prospective teachers. Most ofthe students in content-based experiment group two stated that they did not like theteaching method since it leaves the students with too much responsibilities at thebeginning of semestre; however, when they realized that they were learning betterwithout memorizing the subject because of these responsibilities, they participatedinteractively and enjoyed the time in the classroom.Keywords: Thinking, critical thinking, attitude toward critical thinking, attitude scaletoward critical thinking, social studies, civic education.