Effect of Teaching Thinking Skills Development Course on Female Students’ Understanding of Scientific Concepts and their Scientific Thinking Abilities

(Mai Ibrahim Masoud)

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Abstract

This study investigated the effect of teaching thinking skills development as a specialized course on female students’ understanding of scientific concepts and their scientific thinking abilities. The study sample consisted of (87 (undergraduate students in the majors of chemistry and mathematics during the second semester of first year in the Faculty of Education in Delam. Two evaluative measures were used. The first was an achievement test to measure students’ understanding of scientific concepts. The second measure was scientific thinking scale to measure students’ scientific thinking abilities. After teaching the course, the statistical analysis of the data revealed significant difference in the mean scores of the post- and pre-test of the understanding of scientific concepts due to the teaching of a specialized course on the development of thinking skills. In addition, there was a significant difference in the mean scores of the post- and pre-test of the scientific thinking abilities due to the thinking skills development course. Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended to utilize these findings to improve higher education outcomes in order to serve the society and contribute to solving its problems. KEYWORDS course, scientific concepts, scientific thinking, thinking skills
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