Development and Application of Critical-Thinking and Decision-Making Skills’ Enhancement Module among School-Going Adolescents in Manipur: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Abstract

Background: Life skills aid as a principal catalyst to promote healthy adolescent development by preventing keycauses of death. Building critical-thinking and decision-making skills lays the foundation stone for unfolding allother essential life skills.Objectives: To evaluate effectiveness of an educational intervention module on critical-thinking and decisionmakingskills of school-going adolescents in Imphal West district, Manipur.Methods: Quasi-experimental study was conducted in co-educational state board schools of Imphal West districtof Manipur among classes IX and XI from December,2020 to October,2022 with 210 students in intervention and206 in control school. Structured questionnaire was self-administered at three time points. Health educationmodule devised by researchers, comprised of four sessions given at three weeks interval to intervention school.Chi-square test, Independent sample-t-test and ANOVA were applied for analysis.Results: Critical-thinking skills {Wilks’s Lambda=0.061,F(2,208)=1602.82,p<0.001, η2=0.94} and decision-makingskills {Wilk’s Lambda=0.11,F(2,208)=831.84,p<0.001, η2=0.89} of the experimental group improved significantlyacross the three time points but not for the control group. Between the group comparison indicated that meanchange in scores for both the skills was significantly greater for experimental group (p<0.001) when compared tocontrol. Life skills intervention module had a large effect size for both the skills at both the post-testsConclusion: This study affirmed the effectiveness of the educational intervention with significant improvementin both skills for experimental school immediately after the intervention which was sustained till the third month.