scholarly journals An assessment of critical thinking in the Middle East: Evaluating the effectiveness of special courses interventions

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. e0262088
Author(s):  
Wael Yousef

Critical thinking is a requisite skill for college success, employability, and conducive active civic participation. Empirical studies have noted to the low achievement of Arab students on critical thinking assessments. Insufficient endeavors have attempted to propose effective interventions enhancing critical thinking abilities among Arab students. The current analysis provides a preliminary overview of a special course designed to improve critical thinking skills among Arab college students. Results indicated a great improvement in all areas of critical thinking including explanation of information, identification of strategies, implementing solutions, and formulating logical inferences. Students’ scores on a critical thinking assessment increased from sufficient to good as a result of participating in the program. The gains are consistent after controlling for gender, major, class seniority, and nationality. Notwithstanding these promising results, this paper is limited in several respects including the choice of critical thinking assessments represented by two questions, the highly contextualized setting making it difficult to be replicated, and the convenient sampling strategy used to recruit participants. This set of limitations, however, does not discourage proactive attempts like designing special courses to enhance students’ critical thinking acquisition in the Middle East.

The study investigates the impact of using blogs on the development of critical thinking skills among learners of the faculty of education who are enrolled in Arabic language course. The study has been applied to 90 male and female learners from the Faculty of Education at the Middle East University. The researcher has used a semi-experimental approach and the equivalent set method, since it fits the purposes of the study. Watson-Glaser™ Critical Thinking Appraisal has been used in developing a test to measure learners’ level of critical thinking skills. The study revealed statistically significant differences at the significance level of (0.01) in favor of the experimental group regarding Inference, Deduction, Recognition of Assumptions and Interpretation dimensions. The results also revealed statistically significant differences at the level of significance (0.05) in favor of the experimental groups regarding Recognition of Assumptions dimension. Moreover, the study unveiled statistically significant differences at the level of significance (0.01) between the experimental group and control group that can be attributed to critical thinking skills in favor of the experimental group. There are also statistically significant differences at the level (0.01) of significance, between the pre and post evaluation regarding argument evaluation, interpretation and inference skills in favor of the post evaluation. Differences were significant in identifying the hypotheses and deviations at the level of (0.05) in favor of the post-evaluation. Finally, it became clear that statistically significant differences at a level of significance less than (0.05) exist between the pre and post evaluations in favor of the post-evaluation of critical thinking skills.


Author(s):  
Kharisma Fenditasari ◽  
Edi Istiyono ◽  
Heru Kuswanto

Evaluation recognizes that the interaction of culture and local traditions greatly influences the composition of an individual’s cognitive knowledge. Indeed, there is broad agreement that it is desirable to incorporate the cultural knowledge of indigenous students into pedagogical practice. Choosing a new invention of indigenous peoples, e.g. the kora-kora, against measuring the Bloomian critical thinking skills test, i.e. analyzing, evaluating and creating, developed with physics training in terms of wave motion topics, then integrated into android Mobile-Based Testing, this study examines and compares Mobile-Based Testing physics in critical thinking against instinctive, accumulated knowledge of physics. This study describes methods to develop reliable, objective, and valid MBT, measuring students’ critical thinking skills in physics in three steps using empirical data. Specifically, the calculated phase of defining, designing, and developing is devised for local schools. Samples were progressively distributed, through deliberate random sampling, in the medium to the high cognitive bracket and to others within the low to moderate cognitive bracket (in total to 60 students, ages 15–16). The approval of both content and empirical studies represents the index of validity in this depth analysis. Various positive similarities with other formative critical thinking tests show and justify creating an unexpected newly devised test, evidence of which is in the text. The conventional model is discussed along with presenting further work suggestions.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lingying Tang

<p>Critical thinking has drawn great concern from researchers in America and western world since 1980s. Chinese researchers have come to realize the fundamental function of critical thinking for innovation. However, it does not take effect to cultivate students’ critical thinking in English classroom. English classroom activities are generally designed for students to memorize, imitate, recite. The cultivation of students’ critical thinking has been ignored. Chinese college students generally can speak out some sentences but lack in-depth ideas and practical ability to solve problems. They suffer from emotional literacy. This research aims to foster college students’ critical thinking skills by designing some classroom activities regarding college intensive reading course in English classroom. But there are some deficiencies in this research such as lack of empirical studies to testify its positive effect.</p>


2000 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter A. Facione

Theorists have hypothesized that skill in critical thinking is positively correlated with the consistent internal motivation to think and that specific critical thinking skills are matched with specific critical thinking dispositions. If true, these assumptions suggest that a skill-focused curriculum would lead persons to be both willing and able to think. This essay presents a researchbased expert consensus definition of critical thinking, argues that human dispositions are neither hidden nor unknowable, describes a scientific process of developing conventional testing tools to measure cognitive skills and human dispositions, and summarizes recent empirical research findings that explore the possible relationship of critical thinking skill and the consistent internal motivation, or disposition, to use that skill. Empirical studies indicate that for all practical purposes the hypothesized correlations are not evident. It would appear that effective teaching must include strategies for building intellectual character rather than relying exclusively on strengthening cognitive skills


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 99
Author(s):  
St Fatimah Azzahra

ABSTRACTThis research is aimed to know the differences increase critical thinking skills through learning group and individual problem solving in thermochemical material. This research uses a quasi-experimental design with nonequivalent control group design and study sample consisted of 103 students, divided into the first experimental (group problem solving) (35 students), the two group experimental (individual problem solving) (34 students). The collected through pretest-posttest. The analyzed with the Kruskal Wallis test, the results showed that the learning problem solving as a group or individually can improve students’ critical thinking skills. Statistical test there are significant differences in the students critical thinking skills thermochemical material between students who received group and individual problem solving. Critical thinking skills improvement with problem solving individual learning higher compared with group learning problem solving.Keywords: problem solving learning, critical thinking skillsABSTRAKPenelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui perbedaan peningkatan keterampilan berpikir kritis siswa melalui pembelajaran group dan individual problem solving pada materi termokimia. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode quasi experimen dengan desain Nonequivalent Control Group Design dan sampel penelitian ini terdiri dari 103 siswa yang terbagi ke dalam kelompok eksperimen pertama (pembelajaran group problem solving) (35 siswa), kelompok eksperimen kedua (pembelajaran individual problem solving) (34 siswa).Pengumpulan data dilakukan melalui pretest-posttest. Data dianalisis dengan uji Kruskal Wallis Test, hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa pembelajaran problem solving secara group maupun secara individual dapat meningkatkan keterampilan berpikir kritis siswa. Data uji statistik, terdapat perbedaan yang signifikan keterampilan berpikir kritis siswa pada materi termokimia antara siswa yang mendapat pembelajaran group problem solving dan individual problem solving. Peningkatan keterampilan berpikir kritis dengan pembelajaran individual problem solving lebih tinggi dibandingkan dengan pembelajaran group problem solving.Kata Kunci: Pembelajaran Problem Solving, Keterampilan Berpikir Kritis


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 772
Author(s):  
Leni Suryani

This research is motivated by the competence of teachers in preparing poor learning outcomes tests and has not been able to measure high-level thinking skills, especially critical thinking skills. Therefore the researcher seeks to improve teacher competence in compiling tests on student learning outcomes based on critical thinking skills through academic supervision. This study uses a school action research design that has stages of planning, implementation, observation, and reflection. This research was conducted for 2 months starting April 9 to May 17, 2019 for Physics teachers in the 7 target schools. Data is sourced from interviews with teachers and test documents prepared by the teacher. Data collection techniques include observation, interviews and documentation. Data analysis through the stages of data collection, data simplification, data presentation, conclusion drawing. Data were analyzed using assessment rubrics adjusted to indicators of critical thinking skills. The results of this study conclude that teacher competence in preparing tests of learning outcomes based on critical thinking skills has increased from the first cycle with a percentage of 61% with sufficient categories to 76% with good categories in cycle II.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maifalinda Fatra ◽  
A Rizki ◽  
Tita Khalis Maryati

Mathematical Critical thinking is one of  mathematical abilities that must be obtained by students. Critical thinking is one of the high order thinking processes that can make concepts in student knowledge.  Students with critical thinking in mathematics learning mostly do rational activities such as interpreting information based on a particular theoretical framework, linking theory with practice, making claims and justifying it, utilizing data in support of argumentation, making relations or relationships between various ideas, asking questions, evaluating knowledge, predict, describe something, analyze, synthesize, and categorize. This study aims to analyze the effect of the Concept-Based Learning Model on the critical thingking mathematical abilities.The purpose of this research is to analyze the effect of Concept-Based Learning Model toward mathematics critical thinking ability. The method used in this research is quasi experiment by Randomize Control Group Post Test Only Design with cluster random sampling technique. Indicators of mathematics critical thinking skills measured in this study include providing simple explanations, building basic skills, concluding, making more explanations, and deciding an action. The results showed that the mathematics critical thinking ability of students in the experimental class for the five indicators that being analyze was higher than the ability of students in the control class. A fairly high difference in the indicator showed in give a simple explanation and concluding. and it means that the application of Concept-Based Learning Model significantly influences the  abilities  of students' mathematics critical thinking.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 93
Author(s):  
Neti Afrianis

Critical thinking skills is a very important aspect that students must have in learning chemistry, especially in solving problems that require deeper alternative solutions. This research aims to analyze the relationship of critical thinking on student learning outcomes on salt hydrolysis material. In this research, there were 48 students sampled, the technique used for sampling was purposive sampling. For data analysis in this research using correlation and regression tests with a probability value of 0.05. From the results of the linearity and correlation tests found that students 'critical thinking skills have a relationship with student learning outcomes on salt hydrolysis material by 0.599 and the regression results also show the same thing that there is a significant relationship between students' critical thinking skills with learning outcomes on salt hydrolysis material that is seen from the comparison of the significance value (0,000) with a probability value (0.05), (0,000 <0.05) means that there is a positive relationship between critical thinking skills with student learning outcomes on salt hydrolysis material in SMAN 1 Kampar. The contribution or contribution of students' critical thinking skills to learning outcomes in the hydrolysis material is 35.9% while the remaining 64.1% is influenced by other factors. The higher the level of critical thinking skills of students, the greater the significant functional relationship to learning outcomes, and also the greater contribution / contribution of critical thinking skills to student learning outcomes.Keywords : Critical thinking skills, learning outcomes, correlation and regression analysis, salt hydrolysis


2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-151
Author(s):  
K.R. Vinitha Rani

This study examined the application of Reading Strategy Instruction (RSI) in a reading class to promote the critical thinking skills of the second language learners. It aims to find out (1) the critical thinking elements in the questions formulated by the participants before the application of RSI, and (2) the critical thinking elements found in the (a) three selected questions, (b) answers, and (c) reflections written by the participants after the application of RSI. This study included sixteen grade 11 participants of a bilingual school in Jakarta, aged between 16 to 18 years old. The participants underwent two stages (1) before the application of RSI, and (2) after the application of RSI. The RSI applied in this study was a modification of Rothstein & Santana’s (2014) “Question Formulation Technique” and Alder’s (2001) comprehension strategies in answering questions. The collected data were analysed by using the modified critical thinking indicators proposed by Mason (1991) and Henri (1992). The results of the study revealed that applying RSI in the reading class was beneficial in promoting the participants’ critical thinking skills. RSI helped the participants to (i) think differently, (ii) use prior background knowledge, (iii) question the facts given in the text, (iv) identify the issues given in the text, (v) give valid solutions to the problem, (vi) connect themselves with the text and the world, and (vii) justify their arguments using valid examples.


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