International Journal of Instruction January 2011 ● Vol.4, No.1
e-ISSN: 1308-1470 ● www.e-iji.net p-ISSN: 1694-609X
THE USE OF CRITICAL THINKING IN SOCIAL SCIENCE
TEXTBOOKS OF HIGH SCHOOL: A FIELD STUDY OF FARS
PROVINCE IN IRAN
Seyed Ahmad Hashemi
PhD, Lamerd Branch, Islamic Azad University, Iran Hmd_hashemi@yahoo.com
This study aims at investigating the use of critical thinking in high school social
science textbooks based on Fars Province teachers' attitudes in order to present a
model for textbook development. To achieve this goal, the use of the following
skills in the social science textbooks was analyzed: reasoning, questioning,
assessment of examples and statements, group work, interpretation, true judgment
about issues, analysis and evaluation, logicality, and explicitness. It is a field study
which was conducted in several high schools of Fars Province in Iran. The
population of this study included 568 social science teachers. The sample was
selected based on the stratified random sampling procedure so that 153 teachers
participated in this study. The data were collected using a forty-four-item
questionnaire based on Likert-scale, which was developed and validated by the
researcher himself and some experts. The reliability coefficient was also estimated
as 0.86. The data were analyzed through descriptive statistics (frequency,
percentage, standard deviation, and coefficient of variations) and inferential
statistics (Chi-square and Kruskal-Wallis Non-parametric tests). The result
showed that the teachers of the Social Studies Textbook evaluated assessment of
examples and statements, and analysis and evaluation skills as not satisfactory
respectively. They evaluated the other skills as fairly satisfactory. Teachers of
Sociology Textbook 1 evaluated explicitness, assessment of examples and
statements, analysis and evaluation, and interpretation skills as not satisfactory
respectively. They also evaluated other skills as fairly satisfactory. Teachers of
Sociology Textbook 2 evaluated explicitness as not satisfactory, logicality as
satisfactory, and other skills as fairly satisfactory. Therefore it is possible to rank
order the social science textbooks of high school as satisfactory and not
satisfactory with regard to the use of critical thinking. In other words, Sociology
Textbook 2, Social Studies Textbook, and Sociology Textbook 1 were ordered on
a continuum of satisfaction from satisfactory to unsatisfactory, respectively.
Key Words: critical thinking, social science textbooks, Persian educational system
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International Journal of Instruction, January 2011 ● Vol.4, No.1
INTRODUCTION
Education is the most important and preliminary foundation of growth and
development and its result is the change of educational systems to learning
organizations. All experts accept the role of educational systems in the
development of countries. Thinking and learning new information,
contemplation style, and learning are prominent characteristics of human
beings. So thinking is the most dominant factor in any education system. The
development of educational systems is one of the most important criteria in
modern societies. This issue has become a vital problem in different countries,
and in recent decades it has become a very important problem in developing
countries. On the other hand, attention to thinking in teaching and learning
process is the most dominant feature of new approaches. Thinking has been
defined differently by different authors. What is common in all approaches is
the fact that thinking provides the foundation for inventions and finally it leads
to human growth and development. In this article, the researcher has studied the
critical feature of thinking in details.
Critical thinking movement was strengthened under the effect of Robert Ennis’s
thoughts in the early 1960s. Ennis, the Cornel University professor, spoke about
the learning and evaluation of critical thinking by designing the X and Y tests.
He claims that the concept of critical thinking was not discussed in a
comprehensive scope and His efforts aim at compensating the shortages of
critical thinking studying (R. Ennis, 1962). The Lipmans works open the ways
to critical thinking. In the early 1980s, Lip man could instruct the techniques of
critical thinking by introducing a pattern.
Lipman emphasizes that teaching reading, writing, and calculating is the basis
of education and reasoning is the main axis of all these activities (Lipman,
1984). The main purpose of education is producing thoughtful people and the
final result of education must be the contemplative mind. Critical thinking is a
controllable and purposeful judgment which pays logical attention to proofs,
fields, concepts, methods and criteria (Harkreder, 2000). The final product of
the educational systems which don’t pay attention to this issue is a non-creative
person, and it is considered to be a serious problem in the material and spiritual
development of the country. The researcher who has been involved in education
field has seen the fact that instead of training critical and thoughtful people,
Iranian education system has always attempted to overload the students' minds
with materials and information, so that the students have become similar to
computers whose duty is just storing and retrieving the information.
Critical thinking is a necessary skill in promoting the students' thoughts. The
final goal of education is generalization which is achieved through critical
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International Journal of Instruction, January 2011 ● Vol.4, No.1
thinking and social interactions, out of classrooms (Johnson, 1995). This form
of thinking helps a person to think deeply about the issues and criticize
education system through true comprehension of the current issues. The
learners' discussion is based on thinking and the learners understand the subject
by thinking, and analyze the problems presented to them through asking
suitable questions (Girle, 1991).
In his new model, Lipman points out to high level thinking. In his point of
view, high level thinking has critical and creative features. Critical thinking is
created based on students and naturally it is cognitive. But creative thinking
moves toward values and meaning (Lipman, 1991). It is also clear that critical
thinking is not created in isolation and becomes apparent in relation to special
activities or topics (F. Haynes, 1991). One of the effective factors in citizenship
life is logicality and true judgment of its people. Those who have better true
judgment ability select more effectively and decide more easily. The high level
decision making power is a characteristic of a good citizen and it is performed
through critical thinking.
The Iranian education emphasis on just transmitting information and limiting
the learning to memorizing the materials is the result of the predetermined
programs, contents of textbooks, and the method of codification and evaluation.
In addition, this education system basically seems to be more product-oriented
than be process-oriented. This is actually a big problem that is now facing the
Iranian education system. Sometimes students learn the materials which are
ambiguous to them, and this ambiguity should be removed through thinking.
Training and creating doubts in people stimulates the curiosity, creativity, and
critical thinking in them. Therefore, critical thinking is now considered as a
factor which can cause individual, social, cultural, and scientific growth and
development.
This study is concerned with critical thinking in social science textbooks of
high schools which is one of the most important educational levels in Iran. It
analyzes the views and ideas of teachers and experts in critical thinking area and
attempts to present a model for preparing social science textbooks of high
school based on this model. This model will be based on reasoning,
questioning, assessment of examples and statements, group work, interpretation,
true judgment about issues, analysis and evaluation, explicitness, and logicality
skills, as suggested by Lipman. Since one of the purposes of education is
building critical thinking in students, the education should foster the teachers'
spirit of accepting criticism and it should also create the critical spirit and a
suitable field of analysis and research in the students. In this study, the
researcher studies the critical thinking in education in general and in social
66 The Use of Critical Thinking in Social Science…
International Journal of Instruction, January 2011 ● Vol.4, No.1
science textbooks of high school in particular which is based on Lipman’s
approach. Finally, it will suggest a model and solution to increase the quality of
social science textbooks of high school (Social studies Textbook, Sociology
Textbook 1, and Sociology Textbook 2)
One of the main purposes of learning and training is the thinking reinforcement
in the students and teachers should provide the opportunities to achieve the goal.
The reasoning and judging opportunities should be given to the students in the
schools. In other words, they should learn how to think and how to learn.
Critical thinking is a process of thinking with the purpose of examining the
logic that we use. (E.B. Johnson, 2002). So it is the rebuilding and the exact
study of thinking process. In this kind of thinking, the value of all thoughts is
studied. The main and Important feature of critical thinking is the study of all
hypothesizes and criticisms and there is no prejudice about a specific Result
(N.S.Blair et. al, 2000). And finally, its results are the all positive and negative
events that appear in human behavior in different forms (M.Lunny, 2003). So it
helps people to act logically and behave properly in the society in order to make
a desirable life.
Conceptual Framework
Critical thinking is one of the new models in education system. This model pays
special attention to the development of individual and social features of people
so that mental power and social responsibilities will be fostered among the
learners. Dewey believes that schools should be based on people cooperation
and its result should be training citizens (A. Haynes, 2002). In critical thinking
strategy, the creation of thoughts, their expression and putting them to practice
are emphasized as a fundamental characteristic of judgment. Critical thinking is
important in both individual and social aspects. Since in critical thinking the
human being is considered free, he is helped to decide about his way of life. In
daily life, we need to have a high power of selectivity to face different
situations in life. The success will be achieved only when people are able to
make right selections in these situations.
Critical thinking is employed in training rational citizens and creating critical
spirit. By creating this spirit in citizens, the critical thinking will be at the
service of social system and critical spirit will be a guarantee for the application
of laws and rules.
Therefore, paying attention to the necessity and importance of critical thinking,
recommendation on its application in education, and feeling responsibility about
it is inevitable. The societies which believe in democracy as a social philosophy
which determines the behavior of their people provide an opportunity for
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International Journal of Instruction, January 2011 ● Vol.4, No.1
selection and logical decision making for them. The systems which also believe
in educational democracy respect the decision making power of people for their
citizenship life. Critical thinking is the way and model of people’s looking at
the importance and use of thought in their life (B. Duchscher, 1999).
Overloading students' minds with materials and handwritten texts is not so
important today, but rather the learning process and the learners' activities
during the training period are fundamental in educational democracy. This
feature is very evident in the thoughts of philosophers such as Socrates who
respectfully looked at people and their ideas and then guided their thoughts.
It is sometimes seen that in order to defend their ideas, students become
dogmatic and defend their ideas according to their bias without thinking about
them. It is also possible that the students quit their ideas easily and accept the
others' ideas without thinking. People in the normal society should defend their
ideas with reason and logic and also accept the other people's ideas reasonably.
In this way, everybody will have a mental tranquility and would not accept the
materials passively, and this would not be achieved except through critical
thinking and its development in societies. Following are some studies related to
this subject which have been conducted in other countries.
Thomas in a study on critical thinking teaching situation in high schools in
California, through interview and teaching method analysis of 40 teachers,
concluded that most of the teachers were not aware of critical thinking
standards, and finally has suggested that all teachers in pre and in-service
training courses should take part in critical thinking (P.E. Thomas, 1999).
In another study done by Kwin, he has suggested a method for developing
critical thinking skills in history textbooks. This study used two opposite texts
to help students in the way of thinking. The results showed that the students had
learned the thinking methods and had transferred these skills to other lessons
and their lives (B. Sternberg et al, 1987).
Mcneely and Donna studied the capacities of nursing curriculum with regard to
critical thinking in their textbooks, test questions, and interview with
instructors. The results showed that in the curriculum for nurses, critical
thinking was not paid enough attention and the instructors believed that wrong
purposes of the curriculum, lack of supportive instructions, differences and
individual problems were the causes of the lack of suitable teaching (G.
Mcneely & E. Donna, 1992).
Glaser studied the teaching of critical thinking in English classrooms. The
comparison of the students in the control and experiment groups showed that
68 The Use of Critical Thinking in Social Science…
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the performance of experiment group was significantly better than control group
performance (R.E. Glaser, 1984).
In a study by Shin the critical thinking ability and clinical decision making by
undergraduate nursing students were studied and these questions were posed: 1-
what is the difference between the two curricula for nursing students with
regard to critical thinking? 2- What is the difference between the two curricula
for nursing students with regard to clinical decision making? 3- What is the
difference between critical thinking and nursing clinical decision making? The
results showed that the B. S. students had higher scores than A. S. students.
They were also higher with regard to their clinical decision making scores.
Finally, it was concluded that critical thinking had a positive correlation with
clinical decision making (R.K. Shin, 1997).
In a research which was conducted by Yeh about the selection method of
teacher training students, 75 students were taught critical thinking by means of
a computer program and the result showed the increase of critical thinking
behaviors and skills in the students (Y. C. Yeh, 1997).
According to the author’s survey, no study on the matters of critical thinking
has been done in Iran.
Questions of the study
1- How do teachers evaluate the conditions of critical thinking skills based
on their use in social science textbooks?
2- How the social science textbooks ranked is based on the use of critical
thinking skills?
Is there any significant difference among social science textbooks with regard to
the use of critical thinking skills?
METHOD
With regard to the nature of the research which studies the use of critical
thinking in social science textbooks of high schools, a field study is used.
The population of this study is the whole social science textbook teachers
(Social studies Textbook, Sociology Textbook 1, and Sociology Textbook 2) of
Fars Province in 1387-1388 academic years and their number is 568.
The sample was chosen according to a random stratified sampling , so that after
dividing the province into five sections of north, south, east, west, and center,
two education offices were randomly chosen and all their teachers were
appraised, and finally 153 teachers participated in this study.
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International Journal of Instruction, January 2011 ● Vol.4, No.1
Data collection and analysis
The main source of data collection is questionnaire. Based on Lipmann’s
critical thinking variables, 44 questions were prepared according to Likert scale.
The questionnaire’s validity was obtained through consulting some experts in
the field. Its reliability was also determined through a pilot study with 30
teachers in two phases in a two-week interval. The results are shown in table
one.
Table 1: Reliability coefficient of critical thinking questionnaire
Critical
thinking
skill
Logicality
Explicitness
Analysis and
evaluation
True judgment
Interpretation
Group work
Assessment of
examples and
statements
Questioning
Reasoning
Total
Reliability
coefficient 0.72 0.88 0.78 0.83 0.78 0.82 0.87 0.73 0.87 0.86
The descriptive and inferential statistics were used to calculate the frequency,
percentage, standard deviation and differences coefficient. The inferential
statistics were used to do non-parametric tests of Kruskal-Wallis and Chi-
Square in order to study the amount of significant difference among the
teachers’ ideas of Social studies Textbook, Sociology Textbook 1, and
Sociology Textbook 2 teachers.1
Since the data were collected through Likert scale, (from 1 to 5), first of all the
score for each question and each skill (with regard to the questions related to
that skill) was calculated to determine the status of each skill in social science
textbooks at the three levels of unsatisfactory, fairly satisfactory, and
satisfactory. After that, the Likert scale was divided into three equal parts,
unsatisfactory (1 to 2.33), fairly satisfactory (2.33 to 3.66), and satisfactory
(3.66 to 5), and based on this division the status of each skill in social science
textbooks was determined. Moreover, to determine the whole condition of each
textbook with regard to the critical thinking skill use, the mean scores of the
whole skills in each textbook were used.
FINDINGS
In table 2 the status of each skill according to its use in social science textbooks
is shown and ranked. According to the obtained results about social studies
1 These two tests are applied since the teachers of each book can be considered as an
independent group.
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International Journal of Instruction, January 2011 ● Vol.4, No.1
textbook, the assessment of examples and statements, the analysis, and
evaluation skills were ranked as Unsatisfactory. In sociology1 textbook, the
explicitness, assessment of examples and statements, analysis, evaluation and
interpretation skills were ranked as Unsatisfactory respectively, and the other
skills were evaluated as being fairly satisfactory. In sociology2 textbook, the
explicitness skill was evaluated as unsatisfactory, logicality skill as satisfactory,
and the other skills as fairly satisfactory.
Table 2: The status of skills based on their use in social science textbooks
Table 3 shows the ranking order of social science textbooks based on their use
of each skill. It is clear that in most of the skills (7 out of 9) the sociology2
textbook is in the first place and it shows that, in comparison with social studies
and sociology1, in sociology2 most of the skills have a better status according
to their use. On the other hand, it is clear that in most skills (6 out of 9) the
sociology1 is in the third place which shows that this textbook is less
Textbook Rank skill Status
1 Logicality
2 Questioning
3 Group work
4 True judgment about issues
5 Reasoning
6 Interpretation
7 Explicitness
Fairly satisfactory
8 Analysis and evaluation
Social
studies
9 Assessment of examples and statements Unsatisfactory
1 Logicality
2 Questioning
3 True judgment about issues
4 Reasoning
5 Group work
Fairly satisfactory
6 Interpretation
7 Analysis and evaluation
8 Assessment of examples and statements
Sociology
(1)
9 Explicitness
Unsatisfactory
1 Logicality satisfactory
2 Questioning
3 Analysis and evaluation
4 Reasoning
5 True judgment about issues
6 Interpretation
7 Assessment of examples and statements
8 Group work
Fairly satisfactory
Sociology
(2)
9 Explicitness Unsatisfactory
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International Journal of Instruction, January 2011 ● Vol.4, No.1
satisfactory in most skills comparable to Social Studies Textbook and Sociology
Textbook 2.
Table 3: Rank of social science textbooks according to their use of each skill
Skills Rank
Reasoning
Questioning
Assessment of
examples and
statements
Group work
Interpretation
True
judgment
about issues
Analysis and
evaluation
Explicitness
Logicality
Sociology2 Sociology
2
Sociology
2
Social
studies
Sociology
2
Sociology
2
Sociology
2
Social
studies
Sociolog
2 1
Sociology1 Social
studies
Social
studies
Sociology
2
Social
studies
Sociology
1
Social
studies
Sociology
2
Sociolog
1 2
Social
studies
Sociology
1
Sociology
1
Sociology
1
Sociology
1
Social
studies
Sociology
1
Sociology
1
Social
studies 3
Since in most cases (7 out of 9) the social studies textbook is in the second and
third place, and the number of skills in which this textbook is in the third place
is smaller than sociology textbook 1, it could be concluded that there is a
difference in these textbooks according to their critical thinking skills use, and
they could be ranked from the best to the worst in this way: sociology textbook
2, social studies, and sociology textbook 1.
Table 4: sd and coefficient of variation from means for each skill in social
science textbooks
Skills
(ranked based on coefficient of variation)
coefficient of
Variation standard deviation
True judgment about issues 0.005 0.015
Interpretation 0.014 0.043
Reasoning 0.016 0.050
Group work 0.023 0.072
Assessment of examples and statements 0.029 0.088
Explicitness 0.034 0.104
Logicality 0.040 0.143
Questioning 0.042 0.141
Analysis and evaluation 0.047 0.144
In table 4, the standard deviation and variation coefficient of means of different
skills in all social science textbooks are shown and ranked from the lowest to
the highest. Since the smaller the variation coefficient is the smaller would be
the variance, this table can help us to find the skills the use of which is more
varied in different books. It is seen that in comparison with other skills,
72 The Use of Critical Thinking in Social Science…
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logicality, questioning, analyzing, and evaluating skills have higher and almost
similar variation coefficient. Therefore, it is expected that the means of
logicality, questioning, analyzing, evaluating and explicitness skills in social
science textbooks will be different.
Table 5: The results of kruskal-wallis test
skills textbook Mean Degree of
freedom
Test
Statistic P-Value
Social studies 75.7
Reasoning Sociology1 79.9
Sociology2 81.5
2 1.51 0.563
Social studies 73.71
Questioning Sociology1 70.0
Sociology2 87.29
2 6.207 0.037
Social studies 74.63
Sociology1 73.63
Assessment of
examples and
statements Sociology2 82.69
2 2.131 0.345
Social studies 81.83
Group work Sociology1 74.55
Sociology2 75.69
2 1.896 0.388
Social studies 76.01
Interpretation Sociology1 76.23
Sociology2 80.15
2 0.226 0.893
Social studies 76.00
true judgment Sociology1 77.76
about issues
Sociology2 78.07
2 0.071 0.965
Social studies 77.51
Analysis and Sociology1 81.22
evaluation
Sociology2 92.16
2 5.257 0.030
Social studies 82.96
Explicitness Sociology1 70.48
Sociology2 73.63
2 5.411 0.067
Social studies 70.95
Logicality Sociology1 75.34
Sociology2 92.10
2 7.452 0.011
Social studies 78.66
All skills of Sociology1 70.53
critical thinking Sociology2 89.21
2 5.017 0.041
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International Journal of Instruction, January 2011 ● Vol.4, No.1
Table 5 shows the results of non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test. According to
the P-value obtained, it is understood that at the level of .05, the null hypothesis
is retained. That is, the average of true judgment about issues, interpretation,
reasoning, group work, assessment of examples and statements, and explicitness
skills use in social studies, sociology textbook 1 and sociology textbook 2, is
almost the same. Therefore, it can be concluded that at the level of .05 these
three books have almost the same status. But the null hypothesis about the
equality of the amount of use of logicality, analysis and evaluation and
questioning skills is rejected at the .05 level, which indicates that the average
use of these skills in the three textbooks is not the same. With regard to the last
line of table1, it is understood that as a whole, the null hypothesis about the
equality of the use of critical thinking skills in these three textbooks, is rejected
at the .05 level.
Table 6: The results of chi-square test
The results of Chi-Square test are shown in table 6. According to p-value
obtained, at the level of 0.05, the null hypothesis is retained. That is, there is no
difference in Social Studies Textbook, Sociology Textbook 1, and Sociology
Textbook 2 in their use of interpretation, assessment of examples and
statements, true judgment about issues, reasoning, group work and explicitness
skills. Therefore, it could be concluded that at the level of .05, the mean use of
these skills in these three books is the same. But the null hypothesis about the
Skills Degree of
freedom Test Statistic P-Value
Reasoning 8 13.673 0.091
Questioning 8 16.020 0.037
Assessment of examples
and statements 8 8.909 0.350
Group work 8 12.481 0.074
Interpretation 8 4.761 0.783
True judgment about
issues 8 9.483 0.303
Analysis and evaluation 8 15.539 0.044
Explicitness 8 14.036 0.074
Logicality 8 15.036 0.045
All skills of critical
thinking 8 15.703 0.047
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International Journal of Instruction, January 2011 ● Vol.4, No.1
equality of the use of questioning, analysis and evaluation, and logicality skills
is rejected at the .05 level, which indicates that the mean use of these skills is
not the same in these books.
Also, with regard to the last line of table 6, it is understood that, on the whole,
the null hypothesis about the equality of the use of critical thinking skills in
these three books is rejected at the .05, level.
According to tables 5 and 6, it is concluded that the result of non-parametric
tests of Chi-Square and Kruskal-Wallis are to a great extent similar and they
have given the same results at the 0.05 level which ensures us of the exactness
of the obtained results.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
The bellow results have been obtained about the use of critical thinking in the
Iran’s high school social science textbooks.
According to the findings, teachers of Social Studies Textbook evaluated
assessment of examples and statements, and analysis and evaluation skills as
unsatisfactory and the other skills as fairly satisfactory. Teachers of Sociology
Textbook1 evaluated explicitness, assessment of examples and statements,
analysis and evaluation, and interpretation skills as unsatisfactory and the other
skills as fairly satisfactory. Teachers of Sociology textbook 2 evaluated
explicitness skill as unsatisfactory, logicality skill as satisfactory, and the other
skills as fairly satisfactory. Therefore, it is possible to rank order the social
science textbooks from satisfactory to unsatisfactory as sociology 2, social
studies textbook, and sociology textbook 1, according to their use of critical
thinking skills. Moreover, according to the obtained results from the inferential
statistics, there is no significant difference among the social science textbooks
according to their use of interpretation, assessment of examples and statements,
true judgment about issues, reasoning, group work, and explicitness skills. In
other words, the use of these skills is almost the same in these three books. But
there is a significant difference among the use of questioning, analysis and
evaluation, and logicality skills in these books.
Generally speaking, the result of this study is in agreement with the findings of
other studies conducted by (P.E. Thomas, 1999), (G. Mcnelly & E. Donna,
1992), (Y. C. Yeh, 1997), Kwin quoted by (B. Sternberg et al., 1987), (R.E.
Glaser 1984) and (R.K. Shin 1997).
Considering the findings of this study a model for the use of the critical
thinking skills in curriculum development is presented in figure 1.
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International Journal of Instruction, January 2011 ● Vol.4, No.1
Figure 1: Suggested model for critical thinking use in curriculum development
Need analysis is essential for preparing any kind of curriculum. All experts,
education specialists, and other people involved in education should understand
the students and society needs and the structure of different disciplines in order
to determine the cognitive, attitudinal and skill objectives in curriculum
development. Off course, the belief system plays a major role in these
objectives. Objective determination in the belief, cognitive, and skill domains
76 The Use of Critical Thinking in Social Science…
International Journal of Instruction, January 2011 ● Vol.4, No.1
paves the way for designing that program. Nowadays in thinking process,
attention to the objectives in attitudinal domain seems more important. If a
student doesn’t feel need and interest in a question, he will not follow that
question in his thinking process.
Considering skills systems of the critical thinking, planning the content and
teaching method with higher quality can make learners become thoughtoriented.
Rational, logical, and comprehensive view about the education issues creates a
fundamental attitude in input, process, and output domains, and the teacher who
implements the curriculum with this view might train a thoughtful citizen who
is able to solve his problems in a society. Off course, in order to increase the
quality of any curriculum, and modify, remove or approve it, the program
should be evaluated constantly.
With regard to this model, in order for the Iranian students to develop
educationally, some changes in school curricula are necessary. The changes in
society’s structures should also be applied in school curriculum. The rate of
science development will affect the quality of the textbooks. Different cultures
and values have been created beside these developments which should be
added, analyzed, criticized in the textbooks. Following are some suggestions to
be applied in educational environments to achieve the above goals.
Recommendations for Further Research and Practice
(recommendation should be based of research questions/for each
recommendations, the author needs to discuss it in the context of Persian school
system)
1. More consideration should be given to issues of analysis and evaluation
,assessment of examples and statements in social studies textbooks.
2. More consideration should be given to the issues of interpretation, analysis
and evaluation, assessment of examples and statements, and explicitness in
sociology(1) textbooks.
3. More consideration should be given to the issue of explicitness in
sociology(2) textbooks.
And generally, the following recommendations are given to be considered:
1- Development of class talks and discussion among the students
2- Use of active teaching methods in classrooms
3- Providing real situations in classrooms to transmit learning
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International Journal of Instruction, January 2011 ● Vol.4, No.1
4- Writing different textbooks based on critical thinking indicators
5- Teachers should be consultants instead of transmitters of information and
lesson skills
6- Providing situations for the students in order to express their thoughts and
ideas
7- Considering the ideas of the authorities in critical thinking, especially
Lipman’s ideas in writing school curricula.
8- Not overloading the students' minds
9- Considering students real needs in learning environments
10- Developing self-awareness and self-adjustment skills in the students
11- Developing critical thinking skills in students
12- Attention to the structure of knowledge instead of remembering and
retrieving it
13- Planning and creating learning environments to develop thinking in
learners
14- Pre and in-service training of teachers of all educational levels to get
familiar with critical thinking method
15- Considering the other countries' experiences in critical thinking field in
educational environments
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