Developing Critical Thinking Skills among Freshmen Students in a State University

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the development of critical thinking skills in teaching general education courses among freshmen students. Specifically, it sought answers on how the teachers and students themselves assess their critical thinking skills about analyzing information, drawing conclusions, and making wise decisions, and how the respondents assess the evaluation tools utilized by teachers. Responses were compared to see how they differed from each other. From the results, the researcher prepared activities to develop critical thinking skills among freshmen. The descriptive research design was used by the researchers, using a questionnaire as the main data-gathering tool. Respondents were 181 students and 13 teachers from selected GE courses in the First Year level of Quirino State University. G-Power was used to distribute the respondents in each course accordingly. To interpret the data, the researcher used a Paired-sample correlation and a weighted mean. The study found that teachers and students may be looking at different criteria for measuring skills. Another reason was that perhaps the students rated themselves higher than their teachers’ assessments of this skill. It is also evident that the students were aware of the evaluation tools used by their teachers; hence, their assessments had more similarities than differences. Based on the findings and conclusion, the researcher recommends that the proposed classroom activities to enhance the development of critical thinking skills in freshmen students be implemented for the benefit of both teachers and students. More relevant evaluation tools should be used by teachers to obtain more reliable measures of the student’s critical thinking skills. Similar studies should be undertaken to verify the findings of the study.