The most important aim in mathematics education is not to acquire only mathematical knowledge, but to develop mathematical thinking. That is because simple ability to memorize and utilize any given data is not required but mathematical thinking, whi...
The most important aim in mathematics education is not to acquire only mathematical knowledge, but to develop mathematical thinking. That is because simple ability to memorize and utilize any given data is not required but mathematical thinking, which is an ability to collect and analyze data necessary to resolve problems, and judge reasonably by criticizing, organizing, and synthesizing the data, and a high-level intellectual function to produce new information, is basically required for students to understand the world and reasonably resolve any problems they face not only in the current society called the information age, but also in the future society in which the present students will grow and play a pivotal role.
The aim of this research is to develop a 'program which improves critical thinking' to improve elementary school students' mathematical thinking, and investigate the effect of program by applying and verifying the program. To achieve the aim of this research, the following research questions were established:
Firstly, it develops a program to improve elementary school students' critical thinking.
Secondly, it verifies the effect of developed 'program which improves critical thinking' by appling the program.
To resolve the above research questions, this research analyzed the theories and preceding researches about critical thinking, and based on the analysis, produced questions which examine critical thinking. And, this research analyzed the preceding researches and contents of the current curriculum (the 7th mathematics curriculum, 6-Ga, 6-Na), divided the scope of critical thinking into analytical thinking and inferential thinking, set up finding of additional information necessary to resolve problems as subordinate element of analytical thinking, set up interpolated and extrapolated thinking, deductive thinking, inductive thinking and logical thinking as subordinate elements of inferential thinking, and developed and applied a program based on the contents related to those.
This research consists of preliminary experiment and main experiment. The preliminary experiment was performed on a class in the 6th grade in ○○ elementary school and a class in the 6th grade in △△ elementary school in Daegu in order to acquire data about examination questions of critical thinking, the validity and reliability of teaching·learning program, and the application of program. In the preliminary experiment, class which incorporated the program which improves critical thinking was conducted in the experimental group, and class focused on general textbooks was conducted in the comparative group.
The main experiment was performed after analyzing the results of preliminary experiment, and modifying and supplementing the examination questions and program after receipt of advices from colleague teachers and experts in mathematics education.
In the preliminary experiment, t-test was performed to verify the examination results of critical thinking of the experimental and comparative groups which were identified as the same quality groups. In the main experiment, t-test was performed on the results of preliminary inspection and post inspection of the experimental group.
The following research results have been acquired through this research:
In the preliminary inspection of critical thinking of the experimental and comparative groups in the preliminary experiment, the two groups were the same quality groups which had no meaningful difference statistically at the significance level of 0.05. However, as the average(out of 100) of the two groups showed respectively 75.15, 61.3, p=0.017 and there was a significant difference statistically at the significance level of 0.05 in the post inspection, it was able to predict that 'the program which improves critical thinking' this researcher had developed would have a positive influence on the students' critical thinking.
In the main experiment which was performed after modifying and supplementing it, the results of preliminary and post inspections of experimental group showed that the average (out of 100) was respectively 30.26, 60.37, p=0.000, and there was a significant difference statistically at the significance level of 0.05. Therefore, it showed that 'the program which improves critical thinking' this researcher had developed had a positive influence on the students' critical thinking.
According to the aggregated results of the above research results, it can be expected to improve students' critical thinking by extracting subordinate elements of critical thinking considering the students' level of thinking, and developing and applying a teaching·learning program which reconstitutes textbooks accordingly.