An Examination of the Critical Thinking Skill Levels of the Primary Education Students

Abstract

What is intended in today's renovated and updated sense of education is not to bring up individuals who merely memorize the information units without questioning, but to bring up enterprising asking, questioning, wondering, problem-solving, and researching individuals, who are equipped with decision-making skills, who may make use of information technologies, and who may think scientifically, creatively, and multi-dimensionally. It is thus intended in this study to determine the levels of critical thinking skill levels of the primary education students, and to examine whether they vary as per the grade levels thereof. Screening design, which intends to describe an existing situation as it is, is therefore used herein. This is a study having been conducted with a total of 173 students from a primary education school in Ankara, which is registered to the Ministry of National Education, 84 of whom are from 6th Grade, 43 of whom are from 7th Grade, and the remaining 46 of whom are from 8th Grade. Cornell Critical Thinking Test-Level X (CCTTLX) was utilized in order to determine the critical thinking levels of the said students.  According to the attained findings, critical thinking levels of the students from 6th, 7th, and 8th grades were found to be at medium level. A meaningful difference, which is in favor of the students from the 8th grade, was found between the critical thinking levels of the students from 6th and 8th grades. However, no meaningful difference was found between the critical thinking levels of the students from the 7th grade and those from the 6th and 8th grades. No meaningful difference was found between the critical thinking levels of the said grades also in view of the sub-dimensions of induction, reliability of the observations and sources, deduction, and that of defining the assumptions included within the assessment instrument.