The purpose of this study is to determine the influence of selected personal and
professional demographic characteristics on the critical thinking abilities of teachers in a parish
in Southwest Louisiana. The study is a correlational design using a descriptive survey technique
with questions for the data collection. The examiner looked at attribute independent variables
characteristics that a subject has before a study begins such as gender, age, race, highest level of
education completed, and years of teaching experience. Three hundred and twenty-four teachers
in twelve public schools (three high schools, four middle schools, and five elementary schools)
participated in the research. The examiner hypothesized that critical thinking is a by-product of
higher-level post-graduate degrees. However, this theory was not proven in the study. There
were few findings that showed relationships to the independent variables. One finding was that
Caucasians had higher critical thinking scores than other races. Another finding was that social
studies teachers at the middle school level had higher scores on the Watson Glazer Critical
Thinking Appraisal Short Form Test sub-scale of Interpretation than did middle school
teachers in other content areas. The researcher found that 51 males (15.8%) and 272 (84.2%)
females participated in the study, showing a gender disparity among teachers who participated in
the study. The researcher concluded that high school mathematics teachers had higher critical
thinking skills in three sub-scales than other high school teachers in other areas. This conclusion
was based on the finding showing that high school mathematics teachers had higher scores on
the WGCTA sub-scales of Deduction, Interpretation, and Overall Scales than high school
teachers who did not identify mathematics as a primary content area of teaching. The researcher
recommends that additional research should be done to confirm or disprove the finding that math
content influences critical thinking. The researcher also recommends that additional research
studies should concentrate on public school teachers of algebra versus teachers of geometry
versus teachers of calculus.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-12012009-155424 |
| Date | 11 December 2009 |
| Creators | Schanz, Dale Beglis |
| Contributors | Burnett, Michael F., Verma, Satish, Kotrlik, Joe W., Redmann, Donna H., Cohen, Alex S. |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-12012009-155424/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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