Abstract
The main purpose of this study is to investigate prospective teachers' critical thinking and metacognition levels. The study is descriptive in nature and based on relational screening model. The participants were selected using stratified sampling method which is one of the random sampling methods, and 293 teachers became the participants of the study. The data collected via "California Critical Thinking Scale" and "Metacognition Scale" were analyzed using independent groups t-test, one-way variance analysis, correlation analysis as well as the descriptive statistics. Results show that although the participants' metacognition perceptions differed according to gender in the evaluation and organization dimensions, no significant differences were found in the other dimensions. The participants' perceived critical thinking levels did not show significant differences according to the departments they attend in the seeking truth, open-mindedness, analyticalness, systematicity, curiousness and total dimensions. Critical thinking total scores were found to display a negative relationship with evaluation, organization, and metacognition total scores while they showed a positive relationship with seeking the truth, open-mindedness, analyticalness, systematicity, self-confidence, and curiousness scores.
Highlights
IntroductionChance (1986 in Şahinel, 2002 p.4) defines critical thinking as “the ability to analyze facts, generate and organize ideas, defend opinions, make comparisons, draw inferences, evaluate arguments and solve problems”
What makes critical thinking enjoyable is the thrill of exploring
The present study is important in that it provides data regarding the prospective teachers’ learning to learn skills, it reveals the relationship between critical thinking and metacognitive skills, it can be a resource for the studies to be conducted in the future, the results may contribute to the field, and it draws attention to critical thinking and metacognitive skills and strategies. In line with this importance and rationale, the main purpose of this study is to identify the level of metacognition and critical thinking skills of prospective teachers who are more aware of their own cognitive processes and learn more independently and to discover whether there are significant differences according to the variables of gender, departments, class level, place of living, and parents’ education level
Summary
Chance (1986 in Şahinel, 2002 p.4) defines critical thinking as “the ability to analyze facts, generate and organize ideas, defend opinions, make comparisons, draw inferences, evaluate arguments and solve problems”. Review of the related literature (Nielsen, 2004; Yılmaz 2007; Demir, 2009; Lee, Teo & Chai, 2010, Semerci & Elaldı, 2011; Özsoy & Günindi, 2011; Pinto, Iliceto, Melogno, 2012; Demir, 2013) indicates that critical thinking and metacognitive processes and skills should be given importance so that meaningful learning can happen and critical reasoning skills can be gained in the dynamic nature of learning (Nielsen, 2004; Yılmaz 2007; Demir, 2009; Lee, Teo & Chai, 2010, Semerci & Elaldı, 2011; Özsoy & Günindi, 2011; Pinto, Iliceto, Melogno, 2012; Demir, 2013)
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