Investigation of critical thinking attitudes and reading habits of teacher candidates

Abstract

This study aims to define reading habits and critical thinking levels of pre-service teachers, who study at departments of classroom and physical education and sports teaching, and presenting the differences between these. The variables of the research were designed in accordance with descriptive research model. In 2016 to 17 academic year fall semester, the universe of the research consists of 250 students. All of these students study at Mugla Sitki Kocman University, and their departments are Classroom and Physical Education and Sports Teaching. The variables of the present research were tested for normality, and it was found that the variables were non-normally distributed. The differences between variables were tested (p=0.05) by using Mann-Whitney U test is one of the nonparametric tests. In order to define their reading habit and critical thinking levels, the attitude scale towards reading habit and California critical thinking dispositions inventory (CCTDI) were employed. As a result of this study, pre-service classroom and physical education teachers have medium level critical thinking; pre-service classroom teachers’ level of critical thinking have higher than pre-service physical education and sports teachers; and significant difference among genders from the point of reading habit levels of teacher candidates were found. Key words: Teacher candidates, pre-service teachers, physical education and sports teaching, reading Habits, critical thinking