Developing pupils' critical thinking by teaching Mathematics
Developing pupils' critical thinking by teaching Mathematics

Summary/Abstract: This article presents a research project on the development of critical thinkingof 6th graders in Caraş-Severin county using an educational program based on learning by discovery and problematisation. The first stage of the research consisting in diagnosing the of critical thinking level of development of 5th graders in Caraş-Severin county using a critical thinking test based on the Watson-Glaser model. We selected a representative lot of 542 pupils, taking into account the results of this test, the geographic distribution, the urban-rural environment, the teaching experience of the teaching staff teaching these pupils, then we sampled these pupils forming the experimental lot and the control lot, close in terms of critical thinking level. We elaborated, deployed and validated a training program "Developing Critical Thinking of Pupils by Teaching Mathematics", a training course offered by the Caraş-Severin House of the Teaching Staff, the teachers participating in this course being those who taught the pupils in the experimental lot. After the completion of the intervention, the pupils in the two lots were tested again using the same type of tests, namely, Watson-Glaser, obtaining significant differences in favour of the experimental lot. We wanted to see if these abilities were stable over time and we applied a new test 3 months after the end of the intervention, and the conclusion was that the change was long-term, but also that the intervention created a series of abilities which pupils continue to use in order to improve their performances, even if the intervention was over. The interpretation of the results was done in SPSS using Mixed Bifactorial Variance Analysis (ANOVA) with Time asthe Within Subjects factor and Group asthe Between Subjects factor.

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