Role of the Cognitive Research Trust Thinking Program in Developing Critical Thinking Skills

This study focuses on the role of Cognitive Research Trust (CoRT) thinking program in developing critical thinking skills. It aims to contribute to the teaching program in Turkey for inculcating critical thinking skills using a qualitative case study design. For this purpose, 35 grade 5 students from a primary school and their teacher participated in the study. The data were collected through student reflections and teacher views post training for four weeks. Every week, one lesson, four events, and one projects related to the fifth section of the CoRT program “knowledge and feelings,” which is considered to be related to critical thinking skills, were conducted. The findings revealed that the CoRT program achieves important outcomes in critical thinking regarding opinions, which may be directed by feelings, values, and others’ ideas; information may not always be accurate; information should be investigated, clarified, and simplified; information can be acquired through clues and questioning. In addition, the findings also suggested that for the CoRT program to be more effective, the classes should include visuals and examples relevant to learners’ real lives.

Keywords:

Critical thinking CoRT, knowledge and feelings,

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