Çocuklar için felsefe eğitiminin 60-72 aylık çocuklarda eleştirel düşünme becerilerine etkisi

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Thesis Type: Postgraduate

Institution Of The Thesis: Yıldız Technical University, Graduate School of Social Sciences, Basic Education, Turkey

Approval Date: 2025

Thesis Language: Turkish

Student: MERVE TAŞGIN

Supervisor: Ümmühan Yeşil Dağlı

Open Archive Collection: AVESIS Open Access Collection

Abstract:

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of the Philosophy Education for Children (P4C) on critical thinking skills of children between 60–72 months. An experimental design with pretest-posttest and a control group was used. The study was conducted with a total of 33 children, including 18 in the experimental group and 15 in the control group. The data collection tools included the demographic information form and the "Assessment Scale of Critical Thinking Through Philosophical Inquiry for Children Aged 5–6" (Karadağ et al., 2017). The experimental group received the P4C twice a week for seven weeks, a total of 14 sessions. No intervention was applied to the control group. The pretest and posttest scores of the children were analyzed using Mann-Whitney U test, while changes throughout the P4C education and variances based on socio-demographic factors were analyzed using ANCOVA tests. According to the results, the posttest scores of the experimental group in overall critical thinking, philosophical inquiry, question generation, and language-cognitive skills sub-dimensions were significantly higher than those of the control group. It was also found that children whose mothers were secondary school graduates had significantly higher pretest-posttest difference scores in philosophical inquiry compared to those whose mothers were university graduates. No significant differences were found in change scores by gender, father's education level, or mother's employment status. Additionally, a significant difference was observed in the question generation sub dimension in favor of the experimental group. However, when examining the change scores in the language-cognitive sub-dimension, both groups showed similar results, indicating that the P4C education did not have a significant effect on this sub dimension. These findings suggest that the P4C program contributes to the development of children's critical thinking skills.