Abstract:

Today, due to the developing technology and changing life conditions, it is important to raise not only individuals who think but also individuals who think differently. In order to train individuals who approach facts and concepts with different perspectives and produce more than one solution to problems, the concepts of higher-order thinking skills are often included in the curriculum in recent years. The aim of this study is to examine the fifth-grade science course achievements and the subject area in the course book in the context of creative, critical, reflective and analytical thinking skills. For this purpose, it was carried out with qualitative research method. The data was obtained through document analysis. Thirty-six achievements in science curriculum were examined. In addition, the fifth-grade science course book, which was approved by the training board, was examined in terms of the questions asked to the students in the text, activities and engineering design / applications sections. The findings showed that there were all four thinking skills examined in the achievements in the curriculum. It was observed that the achievements at the application level were the most in fifth grade science course achievements, followed by the achievements at the level of understanding, analysis, evaluation, and creation, respectively. Among the higher order thinking skills, it was observed that there were gains mostly related to analytical thinking skills, followed by critical and reflective thinking gains in equal numbers, and there were achievements that included less creative thinking skills than others. It was concluded that there are mostly questions about developing analytical thinking skills in the course book. In addition to the findings, it was concluded that open-ended questions of the course book were mostly included in subject area texts and activities and closed-ended questions were used less than open-ended questions in both texts.