The Effect of the Argumentation Method in Teaching Socio-scientific Issues on Elementary School Students' Critical Thinking Skills
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46328/ijres.6790Keywords:
Argumentation, Socioscientific Issues, Critical thinking skills, Primary school studentsAbstract
This research focuses on revealing the effect of processing socioscientific issues via argumentation technique in 4th-grade primary school science teaching on students' critical thinking skills. This quantitative study, which adopted a semi-experimental design, included 66 elementary school students (2024-2025 academic year) from a district in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. To determine the critical thinking profiles of the students, the four-point Likert-type scale developed by Akar and Uluçınar (2023) was utilized as the data collection tool. The relevant scale provided the opportunity to analyze the process through the dimensions of skepticism, curiosity, open-mindedness, and objectivity. When the analysis results are examined, it was determined that the experimental and control groups were at a similar level initially; however, the experimental group, where argumentation-based activities were applied, recorded a statistically significant improvement in terms of critical thinking skills at the end of the process. In light of these obtained data, it is recommended that educational programs be enriched with activities that support students' higher-order thinking skills.
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