The Effect of Cognitive Acceleration Programme on Critical Thinking of Science Students at Secondary Level

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the effect of Cognitive Acceleration Programme on the critical thinking skills of 9^th graders. The posttest only non-equivalent control group design was used. Two sections of class 9^th were selected conveniently for experimentation. There were 80 participants (girls) in the experiment. There were 30 intervention lessons in the experimental classrooms. The posttest was designed based on Cornell Critical thinking test. Test was validated by experts from the Faculty of Education, Allama Iqbal Open University Islamabad. The data were analyzed by the SPSS. The independent sample t-statistics were applied for control and experimental groups separately. The t-value for the comparison of performance of experimental and control group in sub-skills of critical thinking i.e., inference, deduction, assumption, interpretation, and argumentation showed significant difference. The results showed that critical thinking skills can be developed significantly through cognitive acceleration programme. So, the thinking science activities were recommended to science educators to incorporate into the classroom to accelerate critical thinking of students.

Keywords: Cognitive Acceleration, Critical Thinking, Inference, Deduction, Assumption, Interpretation, Argumentation