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Makale Özeti:
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In the information era with the changing life conditions, in all aspects of life especially in the business
world, critical thinking skills has gained much more significance. Critical thinking is not a luxury but a
requirement that should not be neglected. However there are not enough studies about this subject in Turkey. In
the studies about the factors affecting critical thinking, there are limited samples concerning the gender, age and
the grade level (Simon ve Ward,1974; Brooks ve Stephard,1992; Miller,1992; Çıkrıkçı,1992b,1996; Kaya,1997;
Jenkins,1998; Scott ve diğerleri,1998; Gelen,1999; Walsh ve Hardy,1999; Kürüm,2002 ve Evcen, 2002). It is
aimed to fulfill this gap in this study.
Research Question: What are the relationships between the students’ critical thinking abilities and their gender,
age and grade level?
Methods: The sample group of this descriptive study is consisted of 2000 high school studenst in the city centre
of Duzce. The data has been collected by Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Apraisal Test (WGCTAT) YM forms (KR 0,66) which are developed and standardized (1964) by Watson and Glaser. The test was applied to 2000
students of different grades in high schools. During the test, the students who do not take the test seriously were
marked and their papers were left out. 1379 students’ answers were evaluated. The answers were graded
according to WGEAGT answer key and the KR 20 values were calculated. WGEAGT data analysis were done
by arithmetic average, standard deviation, one way variance analysis was done. In the results of variance analysis
the differences were significant so the source of this difference was examined through Shceffe test.
Results: It can be concluded that the female students have more critical thinking abilities than male students and
as students get older, the critical thinking ability increases besides, when it is compared with grades 1 and 3 ve
the students in grade 2 have limited critical thinking abilities.
Recommendations: Turkish culture must be taken into consideration while preparing critical thinking ability
tests. The relationship between gender and critical thinking ability must be observed in different schools in order
to control the result of girls having high critical thinking ability than boys. The relationship between crtical
thinking and multiple experiences, intellectual ability, classroom environment and curriculum must be investigated.
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