Kimya Eğitiminde Düşünce Deneyleri Kullanılarak Lise Öğrencilerinin Argümantasyon Becerilerinin ve Eleştirel Düşünme Becerilerinin Geliştirilmesi

Abstract

The aim of this study is to enhance high school students’ critical thinking skills via enhancing their argumentation and argument skills in a thought experiments and argumentation-based chemistry teaching domain. In the study, as one of the qualitative research designs, action research was used. The participants of the study were 33 ninth grade students enrolled in a high school in Ankara province. As data collecting tools, camera records and teaching sequence worksheets were used. A three-step application process was carried on. First, the students argued 12 specific thought experiments in a social dialectic argumentation domain. They used data, warrants and backings for justifying their claims. They constructed rebuttals and counter claims. In the second step, the students constructed specific thought experiments using the first step’s thought experiments’ targets in a social dialectic argumentation domain. Finally, they reconstructed the first step’s thought experiments as arguments in a logical dialectic argumentation process. Content analysis was utilized. It was found that the high school students’ argumentation skills were enhanced via social dialectic argumentation and their reconstruction of thought experiments as argument skills were enhanced via logical dialectic argumentation in a thought experiments and argumentation-based chemistry teaching domain. Also students’ skills in relation to forming a judgment case were enhanced via students’ construction of thought experiments through social dialectic argumentation. In conclusion, students’ critical thinking skills were enhanced via enhancing their argumentation and argument skills. For further studies, different domains for enhancing critical thinking skills were suggested.