The Effect of Critical Thinking Instruction on Student's Achievement

The single direct way to succeed in teaching/learning methods is whether or not circumstances that provide a better thinking condition are taken in to account (Dewey, 1946). Critical thinking is that mode of thinkingabout any subject, content, or problem - in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully analyzing, assessing, and reconstructing it (Paul et al, 1997). Teaching "critical reading" should be at the core of any discussion of critical thinking (carr, 1990). The study with consideration to this hypothesis that, "critical thinking instruction affects on student's achievement" , presents a model in order to student's critical thinking assessment and studies on the effect of critical thinking instruction on student's achievement. Thus following hypothesizes are formed: Main hypothesis: critical thinking instruction affect on student's achievement. Derivative hypothesises: 1. the quantity of effecting critical thinking instruction on student's achievement is different, regarding their major field of study. 2. the quantity of effecting critical thinking instruction on student's achievement is different, regarding to their gender. 3. critical thinking instruction increases students critical thinking. On the basis of topic and purpose, this study is an applied one, while it is an experimental study regarding the procedures of data collection. In order to make the subjects of the study homogenous, a pretest-posttest design with a control group was used. The population of the study, includes conditioned students (those with term average score of less than 12 [ out of 20]). Studying in the first semester of the educational calendar 2005-06 in the Islamic Azad university at Tonekabon. They are studying science and humanities with various majors. The frequency of the population includes 485 conditioned students, from among whom 63 were randomly selected as samples, using the formula 2 2 2
2 2
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N d t s
N t s
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= . 30 were assigned into the experimental and 30 others, were also assigned into the control group of the study. The experimental group was divided into two sub-groups of 15 subjects: one sub-group was instructed critical thinking and the other was instructed on unrelated topic (time management). The control group was assigned to ordinary instruction. After the administration of the pretest and posttest, the subject's scores in critical thinking were determined; meanwhile, their semesters average scores were taken from university educational office. Then the hypotheses of the study were analyzed in descriptive statistics (Mean, percentage, tables and chart) and in inferential statistics (using the spss software, T-test, Tuki and the oneway ANOVA). The findings, show that first: teaching critical thinking instruction with the method presented in the study will increase students critical thinking. Second: there is a significant relationship between critical thinking and student's achievement: teaching critical thinking will increase student's achievement, and third, no significant difference was found in the degree of effect form critical thinking instruction on student's achievement, taking variables such as "major of study" and "gender" into consideration.