An investigation of the effect of Waldmann model based text education on 8th. grade students? reading comprehension, critical thinking and creative thinking skills

In this study, whether the Waldman Model, which is used in text education, is effective in building reading comprehension, critical thinking, and creative thinking skills was tried to be determined.Study group of this research conducted for this goal, consists of 8th grade students of Fevzi Paşa Elementary School in Sivas, in fall semester of 2010-2011 academic year. While in experimental group Turkish lessons were conducted through the instrument of text education with Waldmann model activities, the control group was given a traditional education. Experimental study lasted for 11 weeks including pre-test and last test weeks.Test of Inference Ability in Reading Comprehension, Cornell Critical Thinking Skills Tests Level X and Torrance Test of Creative Thinking was administered as pre-test and post-test to students both in the experimental and control groups. Data, gathered from these tests, were analyzed by SPSS 16.00 Statistics Package Program; to analyze the data, percentage (%), frequency, paired samples and independent samples t-test were used. In the study, significance level was accepted as 0.05.At the end of this study the following results were obtained:1.When average of reading comprehension post-test scores of the students in the experimental group and average of post-test scores of the students in the control group are compared, it was observed that reading comprehension skills of the students in the experimental group improved in significant level.2.When average of critical thinking post-test scores of the students in the experimental group and average of post-test scores of the students in the control group are compared, it was observed that critical thinking skills of students in the experimental group improved in significant level.3.When average of creative thinking post-test scores of the students in the experimental group and average of post-test scores of the students in the control group are compared, no improvement in significant level was observed in fluency, flexibility and originality.4.In oral and verbal interviews with Turkish teacher and the students in the experimental group during and after the research, it was observed that opinions for Waldman model were positive. It is further observed that positive opinions for the model are coded by the students as ?entertaining, detailed and comprehensible?. The students also stated that subjects learned during text education by Waldman model are longer lasting. In addition to this, students also stated their appreciation for the substantiality of activities.Key Words: Text Education, Waldmann Model, Critical Thinking, Creative Thinking, Reading Comprehension Skill.