The Effects of Learning Activities on Eliminating Learners’ In-Class Barriers to Critical Thinking

Abstract

Critical thinking is a skill people need to survive and succeed in today’s world. Whereas it is considered crucial to teach critical thinking skills in every subject area in order to prepare students for the developing world, there are barriers to critical thinking which should be detected in order to be eliminated. Eliminating the barriers that hinder thinking critically can ease the development and implementation of critical thinking. The main purpose of this research is to determine the effect of learning activities based on the removal of critical thinking barriers on eliminating the English preparatory class students’ barriers to critical thinking. In this respect, a mixed model of qualitative and quantitative research was used. A questionnaire has been developed in terms of the experimental study to determine the barriers to critical thinking which can be worked on within the classroom context and alternative activities have been developed. These activities which aimed at eliminating the barriers to critical thinking have been implemented during an 11-week period to examine their effect on removing the barriers to and developing critical thinking skills of the students. Then an interview is conducted as a case study to support the quantitative method. Although the results of the quantitative study revealed no significant statistical evidence on eliminating students’ barriers to critical thinking within the 11-week period, when considered together with the qualitative analyses, the present study supports the importance of eliminating barriers to critical thinking with the support of learning activities for eliminating classroom barriers related to critical thinking.