The Effectiveness of Teaching Science Using Needham's Structural Model in Developing Levels of Cognitive Depth and Critical Thinking Skills of Sixth Grade Students
Keywords:
Needham's Model, Cognitive Depth, Critical Thinking Skills, Science EducationAbstract
The current study aimed to find out the effectiveness of teaching science using the Needham constructivist model in increasing the depth of knowledge and the development of critical thinking skills among sixth-graders. To achieve this goal, the study adopted the quasi-experimental approach. Study tools represented by cognitive depth test, and critical thinking skills test. The experiment was applied to a random sample of sixth grade students in two schools in the city of Abha, where students of Habib bin Zaid School represented the experimental group, consisting of (32) students, and students of Yahya Ibn Aktham represented the control group, which consists of (29) students. The study tools have been applied to the two groups, pre and post, in order to identify the differences between the experimental and control groups during the second semester of the academic year (1439/1440). The results indicated that there were statistically significant differences at the level of significance (α≤ 0.05) between the mean scores of students of the experimental and control groups in the post-application of the depth knowledge test and the critical thinking skills test in favor of experimental group students, which confirms the effectiveness of teaching science using the Needham constructivist model in developing levels of cognitive depth and developing critical thinking skills for sixth-grade primary school students in Abha.
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