Research Information System
Thesis Type: Doctorate
Institution Of The Thesis: Gazi Üniversitesi, Eğitim Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Turkey
Approval Date: 2013
Student: CANSES TİCAN
Supervisor: MEHMET TAŞPINAR
Abstract:The purpose of the present study is to elicit the effects of reflective thinking-based teaching activities on pre-service teachers' reflective thinking skills, critical thinking skills, democratic attitudes and academic achievement. The study employed experimental design. Among actual experimental models, pretest-posttest control group model was used to design the study. The study group consists of second year students taking the course of Teaching Principles and Methods from the Department of Turkish Language Teacher Education of Gazi Education Faculty of Gazi University in 2010-2011 academic year. Totally 42 students were selected and 21 of them were assigned to the experimental group and 21 were assigned to the control group. In the collection of the data; 1) California Critical Thinking Scale, 2) Democratic Attitudes Scale, 3) Academic Achievement Test, 4) Reflective Thinking Tendency Scale for Teachers and Pre-service Teachers, 5) Reflective Journal, and 6) Rubric for portfolio were used. In the analysis of the quantitative data, independent samples t-test and Mann Whitney U test were employed. Qualitative data elicited through reflective journal were analyzed by using descriptive analysis. Student portfolios were evaluated by three experts. In light of the findings obtained: Though the experimental group obtained higher posttest, achievement, reflective thinking, critical thinking, democratic attitude, academic achievement mean scores than the control group, these differences were found to be statistically not significant. Reflective thinking-based teaching activities enhanced the students' interest in the course, made them more active, enabled them to express their opinions in a more democratic environment and laid the ground for the establishment of student-centered learning environment. The students were able to perform the behaviors required by reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action processes to a great extent. These results indicate that greater importance should be attached to the construction of teaching and learning environments that can contribute to the enhancement of reflective thinking in teacher education programs and teacher educators should be encouraged to create such environments.