مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - The Effects of Reflective Thinking Activities on the Academic Successes of Fifth Grade Primary Social Studies Students

Abstract :

Reflective thinking skills are a kind of self-evaluating skill, which requires to plan for defining and developing one’s weak and strong aspects in his/her thinking and learning process and awareness of thinking/learning process. Developing of that thinking skill is important in increasing both students’ academic success and individual development. The aim of this study is to examine the effects of reflective thinking activities on the academic success of fifth grade primary social studies students. The research has been designed and applied as an experimental pattern based on the one-group pretest and final test model. In order to develop students’ reflective thinking skills, we have used self-questioning and keeping journal strategies and approaches. The academic success tests have been on knowledge, comprehension, application and analysis levels of the cognitive domain. The findings of the research showed that though there was no significant difference in terms of students’ academic success test on knowledge level between the experimental group whose reflective thinking skills were developed through different activities and the control group trained through the traditional education approach; but the test scores of the experimental group on comprehension, application and analysis questions, as well as their total scores, were significantly higher than the test scores of the control group.