An analysis of secondary school 9th grade Religious Culture and Ethics textbooks in terms of critical thinking skills

The purpose of this study is to examine the 9th-grade secondary school Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge textbook, designed to align with the objectives of the Turkish Century Education System, which began use in the 2024-2025 academic year, in terms of critical thinking skills. The analysis was conducted under eight themes based on the critical thinking skill elements developed by Richard Paul and Linda Elder. The study employed the document analysis method from qualitative research methods. The study was structured around the themes of purpose, information, inference, concept, assumption, perspective, effects, and questions. The review of the 9th grade Culture and Ethics Knowledge textbook revealed that a study was conducted for each unit at the skill level. The texts in the knowledge level were found to be sufficient for teaching the subject matter to students. Concept explanations were presented in a clear and understandable manner. It was determined that the number of activities requiring students to make inferences was quite high. The texts included in the information section were found to be sufficient for teaching the subject matter to students. Concept explanations were presented in a clear and understandable manner. It was determined that the number of activities requiring students to make inferences was quite high. It was concluded that the book was sufficient for eliciting students' assumptions through questions prior to the learning activity. However, it was observed that there were relatively fewer activities aimed at making students aware of different perspectives. Furthermore, there were insufficient activities for students to understand the impact of the information they acquired in real life. It was determined that the activities aimed at developing the ability to generate new questions were not at the necessary level in terms of critical thinking skills.