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The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between critical thinking dispositions and democratic values among pre-service teachers. Accordingly, we examined whether pre-service teachers' critical thinking dispositions predicted the presence of democratic values. We emphasized the role of critical consciousness in the development of an understanding of democracy with respect to individual educational experiences with the assumption that people who think critically are more likely to have democratic values. The study group consisted of pre-service teachers from six departments within the Faculty of Education at a public university in Turkey. The data were collected using the Critical Thinking Dispositions Instrument, which was developed by researchers; the Pre-Service Teachers Democratic Values assessment, which was developed by Selvi (2006) and a Personal Information Form. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Product-Moment Correlations and Multiple Regression Analysis Techniques. The findings indicated a significant correlation between critical thinking dispositions and democratic values among preservice teachers. In addition, the critical dispositions of pre-service teachers predicted democratic values. Therefore, it may be useful for pre-service teachers to engage in activities that enhance critical thinking and awareness of democratic values.
Caring thinking as a higher order thinking type has both cognitive and affective components, as Lipman stated. Attributed as thinking depending on affects, emotion, the heart, beliefs, it is associated with the processes of Krathwohl's affective domain taxonomy. In this study, therefore, it was aimed to develop an inventory of caring thinking skills towards middle school students, which was designed by and grounded on Krathwohl's taxonomy. For the inventory, the processes of sequential exploratory mixed design were employed in this study. The caring thinking skills inventory accounts for 20 problem scenarios, which have 5 options, and 100 items. The lowest point is 20, and the highest point is 100. Giving an answer is quite easy. The degree to what students think caringly can be measured using an answer key which rating of items ranging from 1 to 5 in each scenario. The inventory designed and developed to understand if caring thinking is a measurable and improvable skill and whether it is valid and reliable data collection instrument as a result of respectively, qualitative and quantitative studies performed. It is recommended that the inventory should be used in measuring students' affective behaviors, dispositions, and skills toward real world experiences.
Designed as participatory action research, this study aims to develop authentic tasks as assessment and evaluation activities in an undergraduate special education course, and to examine the impact of these tasks on students" experiences, viewpoints and feelings during the implementation processes. The study group was comprised of 205 student teachers collaboratively working in groups. The participants prepared forty separate mini research projects in relation to special education and students with special needs. Research data was collected through collective research diaries, in which the participants reflected their experiences, thoughts and feelings in relation to the performance tasks they took part in. A qualitative content analysis was carried out to examine the available data, which was accompanied by constant comparative analysis procedures to ensure the reliability of the analysis processes. The research findings show that authentic performance tasks improve student teachers' professional development, help them to enhance their repertoire on research, methodology and science process skills, and develop their skills of self-confidence, self-efficacy, communication, interaction and the use of technology. The results indicate that the performance tasks are fun, innovative, motivating and educative for the participants. Therefore, they have living experiences contributing to them from various aspects.
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