Development of Critical Thinking Skill, English Major and Mathematics Students, Bansomdejchaopraya Rajabhat University

Abstract

The aim of this research was focused on developing the pre-service teachers’ critical thinking skills and mainly to 1) investigate the results of developing critical thinking skills of pre-service teachers of Bansomdejchaopraya Rajabhat University; 2) compare the critical thinking skills of pre-service teachers; and 3) observe the pre-service teachers opinions and attitudes towards the critical thinking’s styles. The mixed methods of the questionnaires and the in-depth interview were first examined the qualities by three experts and were tried out to the population that was not the sampling group, in total 30 participants. After that, the questionnaires and the in-depth interview were used to collect the data from the sampling group. All the data gathered were analyzed and evaluated by the computer programme and the content analysis.

The research findings showed that the development of critical thinking skills of pre-service teachers comprised: 1) identifying the problems or events occurred; 2) using thinking processes; 3) determination, screening, contemplation and evaluation; and 4) thinking summary. The hypothesis tests were found that genders, ages and knowledge were not influenced to critical thinking. However, major subjects and grade point averages (G.P.A.) were directly affected to their critical thinking and have statistically significant difference at .01. In the aspect of opinions and attitudes, it was found that most of the pre-service teachers had positive attitudes towards critical thinking’s styles.