The effect of interdisciplinary teaching approach on the creative and critical thinking skills of gifted pupils

Abstract

The aim of this study is to develop "Teaching Practices to Improve Thinking Skills Based on an Interdisciplinary Approach (PTSIA)" and to examine its effect on creative thinking and critical thinking skills of gifted fifth-grade students. This study used explanatory sequential design, which is a mixed research method that combines quantitative and qualitative research techniques. The study group of the research consisted of 62 gifted fifth grade students. For the students in the experimental group, the activities in accordance with the results prepared for the PTSIA for the students in the experimental group were carried out for a total of 45 h, 3 h per week during the extracurricular hours. The study used both quantitative and qualitative data analysis techniques. Quantitative data were analysed using the independent samples t-test, which is one of the relational statistics based on the comparison of two variables, experimental and control groups, and Cohen d values were calculated to determine the effect size. Qualitative data were analysed using descriptive and content analysis. It was concluded that the PTSIA prepared with the research were effective in developing creative and critical thinking skills, which are among the high-level thinking skills of gifted students. The applications were found to be beautiful, interesting, intriguing, and exciting by the students. It was concluded that teachers had positive opinions about the practices. Based on the results obtained from this study, the use of an interdisciplinary approach in teaching practices aimed at developing students' thinking skills will facilitate the acquisition of cognitive thinking abilities and their application to daily life. This approach will enable students to more clearly perceive the relationships between events, facts, and ideas, and learn to establish deeper connections between them by integrating various disciplines and perspectives.