Abstract:
The present study, conducted in Timss 2007 framework, aimed to examine the effectiveness of teaching critical thinking on students’ academic achievement in mathematics and science. Research design was Quasi-experimental. Research sample (With available sampling method) included two classes of third grade students in Eghbal middle school in Baharestan, Tehran, Iran in 2014-15 randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Afterwards, the experimental group received critical thinking instruction for 12 sessions, while the control group received no training during this period. The data were gathered using parallel forms of Timss 2007 framework, which were implemented in three periods. The data were analyzed through Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA), and t-test. Results showed that critical thinking teaching could considerably improve students’ performance in mathematics and science in domains of reasoning and applying; however, no significant relationship was revealed between critical thinking teaching and students’ performance in the domain of knowing. Findings of the follow up test, in addition, indicated a significant decrease in applicants’ scores of the experimental group. It can be concluded that critical thinking teaching should be brought into sharper focus in syllabuses of middle schools as its principles could not only resolve students’ problems in academic issues but they would also result in improving performance of students in the domains of mathematics and science.
Machine summary:
, 2008; Botvin, Barker, Renik, Filazzola, & Botvin, 1984; Gonzalez, 2003; Kazemi et al.
The present research aims to answer this question that whether teaching critical thinking can improve students’ academic achievement in mathematics and science in third grade of middle school.
To assess the effectiveness of teaching critical thinking on students’ academic achievement in domain of reasoning for mathematics and science, the scores in pre-and posttest were compared through ANCOVA, the results of which are shown in Table 3.
Furthermore, to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching critical thinking on students’ academic achievement in domain of knowing for mathematics and science, the scores in pre-and posttest were compared through ANCOVA, the results of which are representedin Table 5.
In addition, to assess the effectiveness of teaching critical thinking on students’ academic achievement in mathematics and science, the follow up test was performed three months after posttest, the results of which were analyzed through t-test and presented in Table 6.
Discussion and Conclusion The findings of the present research revealed that teaching critical thinking could significantly enhance students’ academic achievement in mathematics and science, which is in line with the results of the study conducted by Muhammadi (1999) which showed that critical thinking would dramatically improve students’ performance in schools.
In addition, the results are consistent with studies of Abasi (2001) and Law and Kaufhold (2009) who found that teaching critical thinking skills would have a crucial impact on students’ academic performance.