Incorporating critical thinking in the pedagogical content of a teacher education programme: does it make a difference?


Toy B. Y., OK A.

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION, vol.35, no.1, pp.39-56, 2012 (SSCI) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 35 Issue: 1
  • Publication Date: 2012
  • Doi Number: 10.1080/02619768.2011.634902
  • Journal Name: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION
  • Journal Indexes: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus
  • Page Numbers: pp.39-56
  • Keywords: critical thinking, critical thinking-based instruction, critical thinking disposition, academic achievement, teacher education, HIGHER-ORDER THINKING
  • Middle East Technical University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

Recent educational policies, national reports, and voluminous literature stress that critical thinking (CT) is an essential skill in any stage of schooling for producing critical thinkers and ensuring better learning. The importance of teaching CT has been raised in teacher education programmes because students are supposed to teach this skill in schools in the future. This study therefore assesses the effects of a CT-based pedagogical course on student teachers' content knowledge and CT disposition. A pre-test-post-test experimental study was carried out in a vocational pre-service teacher education programme in Turkey. Although the students who were exposed to CT-based instruction showed better progress in both academic achievement and CT disposition than in traditional instruction, this result was not statistically significant according to the Mixed Factorial ANOVA and ANCOVA results.