Reflective thinking among primary school students

Abstract

Abstract:

     Reflective thinking is one of the thinking patterns that should be taken care of and students should be encouraged to practice, and that will only happen when the teacher understands this pattern of thinking and uses methods that stimulate it. Reflective thinking is not an easy process, because it requires a continuous focus not only on the subject but also on how to visualize total knowledge and the possibility of changing the way of thinking in the light of past and current experiences.  (Moseley, 2005: 314)

     It is an organized cognitive process that begins when the students feel the problem, understand it, determine the goal to be achieved, evaluate the meaning of the new experience in the context of the individual's experience, previous knowledge, deep-rooted beliefs and assumptions, until they reach the stage of organized thinking about the solutions to the problem that have been reached, the trade-off and the choice between them and the acceptance and rejection of any of them. (1:2016, Lucas et al)

     The current research aims to identify the level of possession of reflective thinking for primary school students. A test consisting of (21) objective paragraphs was prepared and distributed over five skills (observation and meditation, discovering inaccuracies, reaching conclusions, developing suggested solutions, and giving convincing explanations) and it was applied during the school year 2021-2022 to a sample of sixth graders consisting of (240) female students, the application of the test began on Sunday (13/3/2022), and the following results were reached:

     There is a statistically significant difference at the level of significance (0.05) between the hypothetical mean of the test and the arithmetic mean of the grades of the sixth-grade students in the reflective thinking test in favour of the hypothetical mean. The researchers made several recommendations, including educating mathematics teachers on the importance of reflective thinking among female students as one of the important objectives of teaching mathematics, as well as rehabilitating and training them through strengthening courses.