Examining the effect of case study and six thinking hats activities on prospective science teachers' critical thinking skills

The aim of this study is to examine effects of case study and six thinking hats activities on prospective science teachers' critical thinking skills during science teaching laboratory application I lesson. Mixed type method research design was used in this study. The working group composed of 33 Prospective Science Teachers (PSTs) who study 3th grade in the Education Faculty at Giresun University. In this study, California Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI) which was translated to Turkish by Kökdemir (2003), worksheets, student diaries and open-ended questionnaire were used as data collection tools. While CCTDI was applied to PSTs as pre-test and post-test, worksheets of case study and six thinking hats were used for 7 weeks during science teaching laboratory application I lesson in this study. PSTs wrote their ideas about applications on diaries at the end of every lesson. Furthermore an open-ended questionnaire was used to take PSTs' ideas about applications at the end of this study. Independent samples t-test and paired samples t-test were used for analysis of CCTDI data. Quality data of the study were analyzed descriptively. The statistical analysis of the data obtained from the CCTDI showed that there is not a significant effect of case study and six thinking hats on PSTs' critical thinking skills. However it can be said that there is a positive and similar effects of both case study and six thinking hats activities on PSTs' critical thinking skills according to quality data of the study. In addition, quality data obtained from open-ended questionnaire of the study showed that PSTs were pleased from these applications and time of applications should be enhance.