Development of Critical Thinking Abilities: A Challenge to Social Studies Teachers

Abstract

This paper examines issues relating to the concept of critical thinking, how to develop critical thinking abilities in students using Individualistic and Cooperative Learning Strategies to achieve powerful and effective Social Studies teaching. The study adopted the pre-test control group quasiexperimental design. A sample of 180 Junior Secondary School Class two (JSSII) students drawn from three secondary schools in Ekiti/West, Ikere and Ido-Osi Local Government Areas of Ekiti State Nigeria were selected for the study using stratified random sampling technique. Data were collected with the use of an instrument titled 'Social Studies Achievement Test (SSAT)'. The instrument was validated and had a reliability coefficient of 0.84. Two hypotheses were tested for the study and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypotheses. All the hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance; Scheffe Post-Hoc Analysis were also applied. The results show that there is significant difference in the critical thinking and decision-making ability levels between the experimental and control groups, however, subjects exposed to cooperative learning strategy had the highest adjusted mean scores. The paper therefore, recommended that Social Studies teachers should employ the use of Cooperative learning strategy in their teaching to enhance the development of critical thinking and decision-making abilities in learners.