Study of the components of creative thinking skills and critical thinking in elementary school

The aim of this study was to extract the components of creative and critical thinking skills in the elementary school Iranian educational system. To conduct this research, a qualitative approach and a qualitative content analysis method have been used. The statistical sample consisted of 12 experts in educational sciences and psychology who were selected using purposive sampling. The data collection method was a semi-structured interview. Inductive qualitative content analysis was used to analyze qualitative data. The research findings included 8 main categories, 19 main subcategories and 88 concepts for the 4 elements of basic objectives, teaching content, teaching-learning methods and evaluation methods. First, in the section of the main objectives of teaching creative and critical thinking based on the opinion of experts, two main categories of intrapersonal skills and extrapersonal skills were extracted. In the next step for the educational content, the main categories extracted were: planning and problem solving and teaching communication and critical skills. The next element that was examined was teaching-learning methods, for which the main categories extracted were creative teaching-learning methods and critical teaching-learning methods. In the final part the components were reviewed and evaluated. According to experts, the two main categories of performance evaluation and integrated evaluation were extracted.