THE IMPACT OF PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Abstract

The development of critical thinking abilities has become a major aim in secondary education, so teachers need to use smart teaching approaches that actually involve learners in the process of learning. The current study aimed to (1) To explore the pedagogical practices being practiced by teachers at secondary school level, (2) Assess the role of these pedagogical practices in developing students' critical thinking skills, and (3) to rank the most effective pedagogical practices for fostering critical thinking among secondary school students. Descriptive Quantitative Research Design was adopted. The total number of Secondary School Teachers (SSTs), High School Teachers (HSTs), Junior Elementary School Teachers (JESTs), and Elementary School Teachers (ESTs) who form the target population is about 4,000 in 140 secondary schools of district Khairpur. The research involved collection of data from 230 respondents using simple random sampling method, where the questionnaire was used. The result showed high reliability with Cronbach’s alpha being 0.868. Descriptive statistical tools such as frequency, percentage, means and standard deviation were applied in analyzing the data. The findings revealed that the teachers used learner-centered pedagogies quite often, where the most common pedagogies used were those involving teamwork and cooperation (92.2%). In addition, there was consensus among the participants that pedagogical practices were an important factor and play a vital role in the development of critical thinking skills among learners, especially reasoning exercises and inquiry-based tasks, which scored the highest frequency 194(84.4%) . Moreover, collaborative learning was found to be the most effective teaching method in terms of developing critical thinking skills. The study therefore found out that learner-centered pedagogical strategies have a great impact on development of critical thinking among secondary school learners. It is recommended that teachers be provided with continual professional development to reinforce the incorporation of these approaches into classroom teaching.