The purposes of this study were to develop a critical thinking instruction by embedded model and to investigate the effects of the instruction on the elementary school students´ critical thinking.
The research questions for this study were as follo...
The purposes of this study were to develop a critical thinking instruction by embedded model and to investigate the effects of the instruction on the elementary school students´ critical thinking.
The research questions for this study were as follows:
1. How can the instruction by embedded model for teaching critical thinking develop?
2. Would the instruction by embedded model be more effective than the traditional teaching model for improving elementary school students´ critical thinking?
3. Would the instruction by embedded model be more effective than the traditional teaching model for improving elementary school students´ problem-solving skills?
4. Would the instruction by embedded model be more effective than the traditional teaching model for improving elementary school students´ interpersonal problem-solving abilities?
To solve the research questions, an instruction for teaching critical thinking was developed by integrating subject contents and critical thinking skills, suggested by the embedded model. To evaluate the effect of the instruction, 79 sixth-grade students were selected at an elementary school in Pusan, Korea. Students were randomly assigned to two groups: experimental and control groups. Students in the two groups were given a 30 hours of instruction(5 weeks, 1 hour = 40 minutes). During this time, the students in the experimental group received the instruction for teaching critical thinking from a teacher of the school.
To obtain the data, the following instruments were used.
1) Cornell Critical Thinking Test, Level X (1985).
2) Hepperner´s Problem-Solving Inventory (1986).
3) Pelligrini´s Means-Ends Test (1986).
To analyze the data, subprograms of T-Test, ANCOVA, Pearson´s Correlation of SPSS/PC+ were used.
The findings of this study are as follows.
1. The instruction for teaching critical thinking significantly improved the elementary school students´ critical thinking.
2. The instruction for teaching critical thinking did not have a significant effect on the elementary school students´ problem-solving skills.
3. elementary school students´ significantly improved the elementary school students´ problem-solving skills.
The results of this study suggest that the instruction for teaching critical thinking by embedded model would be useful for improving elementary school students; critical thinking skills and interpersonal problem-solving abilities.