The impact of the six thinking hats as a teaching technique on EFL college students’ performance in composition writing

Dissertant

al-Bahadili, Khansa Hasan Husayn

Thesis advisor

al-Bakri, Shayma Abd al-Baqi

Comitee Members

Said, Muayyad M.
al-Tamimi, Salam H.
al-Nasiri, Nahida Taha Majid

University

University of Baghdad

Faculty

College of Education for Human Sciences-Ibn Rushd

Department

Department of English

University Country

Iraq

Degree

Master

Degree Date

2011

English Abstract

Undoubtedly, practising writing reinforces the abilities of grammar, idioms and vocabulary that the student has gained.

In addition to be involved in the process of forming new language when he writes composition; the student works hard to express his/her ideas and use his/her eyes, brain, and hands; consequently, learning process will be developed as a whole.

Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats are real or metaphorical six different coloured hats, in which each colour represents a different type of thinking.

The White Hat represents objective thinking ,i.e.

it also concerns with information and facts.

The Red Hat examines the given topic through emotions and feelings.

The Black Hat denotes constructive criticism, and explores the negative aspects of the given topic.

The Yellow Hat delineates the advantages of an issue and promotes problem solving skills.

The Green Hat aims at exploring creative ways for overcoming the disadvantages or problems encountered or for taking an idea about new direction.

Finally, the Blue Hat focuses on the world of metacognition and reflection to be adopted and built strongly.

The problem investigated in this work is related to the fact that Iraqi EFL composition writing instructors emphasize the theoretical aspects of the textbooks, while, they give little attention to the practical aspects.

As a result, there is a need to investigate new techniques to emphasize the practical aspect in teaching composition writing.

Thus, this study is an attempt to find out the effect of the Six Thinking Hats technique on EFL college students’ performance in composition writing.

To achieve the aim of the study, the following hypotheses have been tested: 1.

There is no statistically significant difference between the experimental group performance and that of the control group in the composing component of the post test.

2.

There is no statistically significant difference between the experimental group performance and that of the control group in the style component of the post test.

3.

There is no statistically significant difference between the experimental group performance and that of the control group in the sentence formation component of the post test.

4.

There is no statistically significant difference between the experimental group performance and that of the control group in the usage component of the post test.

5.

There is no statistically significant difference between the experimental group performance and that of the control group in the mechanics component of the post test.

6.

There is no statistically significant difference between the experimental group performance and that of the control group in the composite score of the post test.

Thus, an experiment is designed .Sixty students from the College of Education for Women have been randomly chosen (thirty students as an experimental group which are taught composition writing by the use of the Six Thinking Hats technique and thirty students as a control group which are taught composition writing according to the conventional ways) during the academic year 2010 -2011.

Meanwhile, the subjects of both groups are matched according to their age, level of parents’ education and their scores in the pre-test.

The researcher herself has taught both groups the assigned material (eight selective topics).

The validity of the topics, the test and the scoring scheme have been obtained by exposing them to jury members in the fields of ELT and linguistics.

The answers of the test have been separately scored by the researcher and two other scorers separately.

The reliability of the test has been secured by using Alpha Cronbach Formula (0.813), intrascorer reliability (0.987), and interscorer reliability (0.953).

Statistical analysis of data achieved through the test indicates that there are statistically significant differences between the experimental group performance and that of the control group in terms of composing, style, sentence formation, usage, mechanics, and the composite score of the post test, in favour of the experimental group.

The researcher concludes that using the Six Thinking Hats Technique develops students’ performance in composition writing and gives them opportunity to simplify their thinking process, explore facts, seek the negative and positive aspects in a given topic and make logical solutions and decisions.

In the light of these results, some recommendations and suggestions for further studies are presented

Main Subjects

Educational Sciences
Languages & Comparative Literature

No. of Pages

196

Table of Contents

• APA
• MLA
• AMA

Language

English

Data Type

Arab Theses

Record ID

BIM-766881