Reasoning Skills in Araling Panlipunan (Social Studies) of High School Students and Teachers

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

The primary purpose of this study is to access the teachers and students collaboration for the development of reasoning skills in Social Studies. The researcher wanted to determine if she developed the critical thinking of her students in Social Studies. She was teaching Social Studies in Grade 10 for six years and she should have contributed to the critical thinking skills of the students in the higher grade levels.

METHODS

The researcher employed the descriptive method of research. Descriptive design focuses at the present condition. The researcher prepared similar questionnaire for the teacher and students. The questionnaire consisted of two parts. The first part asked information about the profile of the teacher and student respondents. The second part of the questionnaire is the Critical Assessment Test. To determine the critical assessment of both teachers and students the Critical Thinking Test in Sociology was used. It was developed by Keesler (2006). It consists of 25 item.

RESULTS

1.) There is significant relationship between the comprehension skills of teachers and comprehension, evaluation, and explanation skills of students. 2.) There is significant relationship between the interpretation skills of teachers and evaluation skills of students. 3) There is significant relationship between the analytical skills of teachers and students' comprehension, interpretation, evaluation, and explanation skills. 4) There is significant relationship between the evaluation skills of teachers and students' comprehension, evaluation, inference and explanation skills. 5) There is significant relationship between the inference skills of teachers and students’ interpretation, evaluation, and inference skills. 6) There is significant relationship between the explanation skills of teachers and students’ interpretation, analysis, evaluation and inference skills.

DISCUSSIONS

According to Pearson (2011) critical thinking means to have criteria, analyze, infer, explain arguments, and develop them. The complex process of thinking is divided into higher order thinking and lower order thinking. The reasoning skills of teachers influence the reasoning skills of students. Teachers with different age, gender, educational attainment, number of years in service as AP teacher have varying reasoning skills. Students with different grade level and gender do not vary in reasoning skills.