The Relationship between Critical Thinking Skills and Quantitative Reasoning among Junior Secondary School Students in Nigeria (original) (raw)
Related papers
Critical Thinking has been one of the tools used in our daily life's to solve some problems because it involves logical reasoning, interpreting, analysing and evaluating information to enable one take reliable and valid decisions. The purpose of the study is to examined the impact of Critical thinking on Performance in Mathematics among Senior Secondary School Students in Lagos State. The study would benefit students and teachers by promoting creativity in solving mathematical problems. Quasi-experimental designs was adopted for the study. Multi-stage sampling were applied to generate a sample of 195 students for the study. Mathematics performance test and Watson-glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal were used for the study. Three hypotheses were formulated and tested using Analysis of covariance. The study revealed that there was a significant difference in Mathematics performance test scores among the experimental groups. The study also found out that there was no significance gender difference in Mathematics performance test . Critical Thinking Skills was also an effective means of enhancing students' understanding of Mathematics concepts. It therefore recommended that in teaching Mathematics in secondary schools, Critical thinking skills should be infuse in the curriculum of teachers education so as to improve students' performance in Mathematics.
South African Journal of Education, 2013
Evidence suggests scarcity of investigations on the relationship between critical thinking (CT) and students' achievement in quantitative reasoning (QR) in Nigeria. This correlational study adopted a quantitative model to investigate critical thinking skills as correlates of achievement in quantitative reasoning among 1500 junior secondary school students in Lagos State, Nigeria. The study involved three research questions and two valid and reliable instruments {California Critical Thinking Skills Test-Form B (CCTST with KR-20=0.88 and the Quantitative Reasoning Achievement Test (QRAT with KR-20=0.92)} were used for data collection. Data collected were analysed by deploying the statistics of mean, standard deviation, Pearson productmoment correlation coefficient, and multiple regression analysis at 5% level of significance. The outcome of the study showed a prevalent shortfall of quantitative reasoning among the junior secondary school students in Lagos State. Results showed statistically weighty associations amid critical thinking and its gauges (analysis, deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning, evaluation, and inference) with students' quantitative reasoning achievement. In addition, the five gauges or indicators were weighty forecasters of quantitative reasoning achievement among the junior secondary school students. Based on the outcomes of this study, it was recommended that mathematics teachers should abstain from deploying teachercentered pedagogies that are hostile to students' comprehension of mathematical concepts and critical thinking. In conclusion, mathematics teachers should endeavour to integrate everyday life experience of the students into the mathematics taught in the classroom to enable purposeful utilization of mathematics.
The study considered critical thinking skills as predictors of students' achievement in Mathematics in the Cape Coast Metropolis. The population for this study consisted of all form two Senior High School students in the Cape Coast Metropolis. The design used for the study was expost-facto design. The research participants were two hundred and eight (208) Senior High School students. They were selected using simple random sampling technique for the three out of ten and proportionate sampling for the Senior High School students. Forty Mathematics multiple test items with four options were used for the data collection. Face and content validity of the Mathematics test items were established. The reliability coefficient of the mathematics instrument using KR20 was 0. 76. The data collected were analysed using standard multiple regression. Results showed that critical thinking skills (application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation) contribute significantly to students' achievement in Mathematics. But more significant among them was application while the evaluation was the least. Based on the findings the following recommendation was made, teachers should be encouraged to incorporate critical thinking skills during teaching and learning more especially the higher thinking skills.
The European Journal of Educational Sciences, 2020
In this research, it was aimed to determine the relationship between critical thinking skills and mathematical problem solving achievements of the secondary education students. Descriptive screening model was determined as the method of the research. The study group of the research included totally 429 students chosen randomly among the secondary education students studying at the 5 th , 6 th and 7 th grades of state schools affiliated to Adana province Seyhan district National Education Directorate in 2018-2019 academic year. As data collection tools, "Critical Thinking Scale" developed by Görücü (2014) in accordance with the level of secondary education, and "Problem Solving Success Determination Test" developed by Kösece Loğoğlu (2016) were used. Data were analyzed in SPSS 22.0 statistical software. As a result of the analyses, it was determined that there was a positive significant relationship between "looking for the truth" and "communication" subdimensions of problem solving achievements and critical thing skills scale. In accordance with the results obtained from the study, considering the suggestions below was remarkable in terms of improving critical thinking skills and mathematical problem solving success of the secondary education students: The lessons should be lectured with activities related to getting the students acquire a critical point of view for solving the mathematical problems. The studies of establishing problems should also be carried out besides the studies of solving mathematical problems for the students. The teachers should primarily be individuals who can think critically for getting students acquire critical thinking skills, and necessary training should be provided for providing teachers to acquire this skill.
Developing Critical Thinking Skills of Students in Mathematics Learning
Journal of Education and Learning (EduLearn), 2015
Critical thinking skills should be owned by students. Therefore, schools should be responsible to develop and evaluate critical thinking skills through teaching and learning process in schools. This study aims to identify the effects of mathematical learning modules based on problem-based learning to critical thinking skills at secondary school students in District of Bone. Assessment of critical thinking skills in mathematical problem solving non-routine includes three parts; the identification and interpretation of information, information analysis, and evaluate of evidence and arguments. This study involved a total of 68 students grade 12 science state secondary school (SMAN) in Bone District of South Sulawesi, Indonesia in academic year 2014-2015. The sample consists of 38 students in the city and 30 rural students. The design of the study was quasi experimental one group pretest-posttest. The data was analysed using the inferential t-test with SPSS 20.0 for windows. The study...
Edutracks, 2022
Mathematics has a prominent position in modern education. The objective of the study was to analyse the relationship between critical thinking and Mathematical problem solving, abstract reasoning and mathematical problem solving, critical thinking and abstract reasoning. The research design is cross sectional in nature. The study has been carried out on representative sample of 330 secondary school students included 128 boys and 202 girls in Kozhikode district. Survey Method has been employed to collect data and the sample was selected by stratified sampling technique. The result reveals that there is a significant relationship between critical thinking and mathematical problem solving, abstract reasoning and mathematical problem solving, critical thinking and abstract reasoning. And also found that there is a significant difference between boys and girls in their critical thinking, abstract reasoning and mathematical problem solving.
Journal of Curriculum and Instruction, 2020
One important 21 st century life skill that may be instrumental to the development and growth of higher-order scientific reasoning and proficiency is critical thinking. In Nigeria, few studies investigated the relationship between critical thinking and students' achievement. This correlational research investigated 500 senior secondary school science students' critical thinking as related to their academic achievement in mathematics, being a core and compulsory subject. Two instruments were used for data collection: The California Critical Thinking Skills Test-Form B (CCTST with KR-20=0.76), used to evaluate the science students' critical thinking and the Mathematics Achievement Test (MAT with KR-20=0.88) used as a criterion measure for mathematics proficiency. The three research questions for the study were answered using mean, standard deviation, Pearson product moment correlation coefficient, and multiple regression analysis at 0.05 level of significance. Results showed low level of critical thinking among the science students. The relationships between critical thinking and science students' achievement in mathematics were positive and statistically significant. Based on these findings, it was recommended that science teachers should deploy learner-centred pedagogical practices and strategies capable of improving students' critical thinking skills.
EPRA international journal of multidisciplinary research, 2024
The primary purpose of this study is to determine whether learning styles and mathematical dispositions predict students' critical thinking skills. This study employed a descriptive and correlational research approach. Using stratified random sampling, 271 grade 10 students were selected as respondents from six public secondary schools in Kapalong East District, Davao del Norte Division during the school year 2022-2023. Furthermore, this study employed two adapted survey questionnaires and one researcher-made questionnaire, all of which were validated to collect data and treated using mean, standard deviation, Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficient, and regression analysis. The findings showed that the learning styles among the students are high, their mathematical dispositions are moderate, and their critical thinking skills are low. The findings also revealed that learning styles has a positive significant relationship and influence on students' critical thinking skills in mathematics. However, students' mathematical dispositions have an inverse relationship and influence to their critical thinking skills in mathematics. These findings underscore the importance of nurturing critical thinking skills among students. It is recommended that teachers and DepEd officials collaborate to create interventions aimed at enhancing students' critical thinking skills. Furthermore, replication studies across diverse contexts are advised to validate the longevity of these relationships and further advance our comprehension of the subject matter.
Validation of a critical thinking test in mathematics for senior high school
JME (Journal of Mathematics Education), 2020
Critical thinking equips a person with the competencies needed and develops the power of the mind extensively. The development of critical thinking is known as an essential goal in educational systems. However, the assessment of critical thinking is not an easy feat. This study validated the critical thinking skills test in mathematics for senior high school students based on a model of critical thinking skills and learning areas of the K to 12 Mathematics Curriculum. The instrument validation process to 902 respondents through cluster sampling from different senior high schools. With an initial 45 items on three dimensions of critical thinking, the test's final form consisted of only 30 items after the items were screened based on the validation process. The content validation was carried out through an expert examination of the items and a comparison of the test results developed with Cornell's critical thinking for criterion-related validity evidence (r = 0.299, p < 0.01). Construct validation by factor analysis, and results generated 13 factors accounting for 58.51% of the variance. These results indicated that the developed mathematics critical thinking test measured other than the specified critical thinking skills model used. The developed test may try to assess students' critical thinking in the context of mathematics. Furthermore, this may contribute to promoting teaching and assessment strategies gears towards the development of students' mathematical critical thinking.