A Vocal Assessment Approach to Measure Elementary School Students’ Critical Thinking Skills

Abstract

Critical thinking is among the few important skills in the 21st century, hence it is crucial that the skill is cultivated in students. Before cultivating the skill, one needs to be able to measure the level of student's critical thinking skills. Existing critical thinking skill assessments do not cater for elementary school students and are usually close-ended questions. The research's objective was to design a computer application to assess students' level of critical thinking skill by using a storytelling approach with two folk stories, with questions inserted in between to measure students' critical thinking skills. Students were required to answer these questions through voice recordings instead of writing their answers on paper. The assessment mostly consisted of open-ended questions, requiring students to share their thoughts and provide reasoning for their answers. The research also identified schools' environmental factors and students' background that affect their critical thinking skills. The results showed that schools with a different focus, students' preference in reading books and comic books, and time spent on reading comic books could affect the students' level of critical thinking.