EFFECTS OF TEACHER CANDIDATES’ EDUCATIONAL BELIEFS ON THEIR CRITICAL THINKING TENDENCIES

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This study aims to determine the effect of teacher candidates’ educational beliefs on their critical thinking tendencies. It is a descriptive survey. The sample consists of 519 teacher candidates attending Pedagogical Formation Programme at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University and Düzce University in 2014-2015 academic year. Educational Believes Scale (EBS) and California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI-T) were applied as data collection tools and in order to analyze the data, descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis and linear regression analysis were applied. When the collected data was analyzed, it was seen that teacher candidates’ educational believes were based on progressivism on first level and on essentialism on last level. It was also determined their critical thinking tendencies scores were low for all dimensions. When the sub-dimensions were examined separately, it was found out that for the inquisitiveness and analyticity dimensions, their tendency scores were “medium”; and for truth seeking, systematicity, self- confidence and open-mindedness, the scores were “low”. The relationship between teacher candidates’ critical thinking tendencies and their educational believes based on essentialism was negative and significant; on the one hand, the relationship between their critical thinking tendencies and their educational believes based on perennialism, progressivism and existentialism was positive and significant. Teacher candidates’ educational believes could enlighten five percent of their critical thinking tendencies.

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Educational philosophy , educational beliefs , critical thinking tendencies

Abant İzzet Baysal Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi

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Abant İzzet Baysal Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi