The Policies, the Cognitive Skills and Emotional Standards Necessary to Teach Critical Thinking among Secondary Stage Students in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The research aimed to determine the ideal policies and the skills, cognitive, and emotional standards necessary to teach critical thinking among secondary school students in Saudi Arabia through the school curricula. The researcher used the descriptive technique to create a list of policies, cognitive skills, and emotional standards needed to teach critical thinking among secondary students in Saudi Arabia. The standards were then transferred to an electronic questionnaire using Likert's scale and validated using Alpha Cronbach and Spearman-Brown, and included four domains including policies (22 policies), skills standards (40 standards), cognitive standards (15 standards), and emotional standards (14 standards). In light of the intentional sample responses, which amounted to (39) specialists to the questionnaire, it was found that the number of policies that obtained approval (two policies strongly agreed, and "11" policies agreed) was (13) policies with an average of 59%, and the number of unapproved policies was one. Only by an average of 5%, and the rest of the policies are neutral with an average of 36%, and it was also found that the general average of the degree of approval of the sample members on the criteria for teaching critical thinking was highly agreeable according to the following order: Emotional criteria (4.58), cognitive criteria (4.55), and skill criteria (4.53). These are high percentages indicative of the appropriateness of standards for teaching critical thinking among secondary school students in Saudi Arabia. The research recommended that the Ministry of Education and the relevant authorities adopt policies for teaching critical thinking in the secondary stage, which was approved by: strongly agreed, and the development of essential thinking education content in the secondary stage. According to the research findings on skills, cognitive, and emotional standards, and evaluating the extent of commitment to teaching critical thinking in the secondary stage in the light of the policies and standards of teaching that the research reached.

Received: 20 March 2022 / Accepted: 23 June 2022 / Published: 5 July 2022