مدى استخدام معلمات العلوم للصف الخامس لاستراتيجيات التفكير الناقد و مهاراته و تضمينها المنهاج المدرسي

Abstract EN

The aim of the current study is to identify the extent to which science teachers in Kuwait use critical thinking strategies and skills in their teaching in the elementary school.

Furthermore, to find the correlation between critical thinking strategies and skills, and to identify differences in the use of the critical thinking strategies and skills based on teachers’ experience and educational districts variables.

In addition, the study also tackled the extent to which critical thinking strategies and skills were integrated in the fifth grade science curriculum.

The study used the descriptive survey approach, where classroom practices relating to strategies and critical thinking skills used by science teachers in the elementary school were identified.

Moreover, the content analysis approach was used.

The fifth grade science book was analyzed in terms of incorporating critical thinking strategies and skills.

The sample of the study consisted of (139) science teachers in the elementary school and the fifth grade science books for both semesters.

The results showed that, the science teachers used moderate critical thinking strategies and skills ; the overall correlation coefficient between strategies and critical thinking skills was positive at 0.01.

The results showed that there were statistically significant differences in the use of critical thinking strategies and skills by science teachers, in favor with longer work experience, while there were no statistically significant differences based on the educational districts.

Furthermore, the results also showed that the level of incorporation of critical thinking strategies and skills in the science curriculum is not at the desired level.

The strategies’ incorporation ranged between 35.7 % and 64.3 %, while incorporation of the skills ranged between 0.4 % and 48.9 %.

At the end of the study, a set of recommendations were made regarding teacher training to introduce thinking skills into the curriculum.