The assessment of critical thinking skills of gifted children before and after taking a critical thinking development course

Abstract

The development of critical thinking is a fundamental task of the modern education system. However, practically, it turns out that a number of teachers are not competent enough in this area. The purpose of the study is to identify the most universal and valid methods for the dynamic assessment of the level of critical thinking in children. There are also difficulties associated with the assessment of the level of critical thinking, the selection of valid methods for its study, especially when it comes to preschool or primary school children. The participants (186 children 6–8 years ages from 3 schools of Moscow (Russian Federation) in the group of gifted children did not fall into the groups with a low development of critical thinking, and the participants in the control group did not fall into the group with the highest or the highest level of development of critical thinking. In two tests, the data for the gifted and control groups showed high correlation values between the definition of giftedness and the level of critical thinking development (0.958 and 0.962 in the static test and 0.659 and 0.908 in the dynamic test, respectively). Therefore, it is relevant to select valid methods that would allow the assessment of critical thinking as one of the criteria for the giftedness of a child in dynamics, that is, in the process of developmental learning. During the research such methods were used – sculpture method, absurdity method, verbal fantasy method, drawing method, think of a game method. The research results have shown that giftedness has a psychophysiological basis, the described test methods are valid and can be used for the assessment of the level of critical thinking and the quality of the educational process.