İnönü Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi, cilt.19, sa.2, ss.174-188, 2018 (Hakemli Dergi)
The primary objective of education is to equip individuals with skills necessary to
assume certain roles in changing living conditions. Thus, an educational program
must be designed to include activities that help to raise individuals who are enquiring,
inquisitive, creative, capable of using technology, working in groups, learning how to
learn, solving problems, and taking right decisions. Given the pivotal role of teachers
in education and training, raising such individuals depends on raising qualified
teachers. Accordingly, qualified teachers could only be raised by academics that have
all the aforesaid capabilities and are informed of teaching thinking and thinking skills.
Under this perspective, the purpose of this study is to reveal the view of academics in
faculties of education on teaching thinking skills. To this end, this basic interpretive
qualitative study an open-ended form composed of seven questions to examine the
views of academics working in the faculty of education at a university in Istanbul,
Turkey, on teaching their thinking skills. The respondents were selected through
maximum variation sampling that is one form of purposeful sampling. The study
surveyed 19 academics ranging from instructor doctor, assistant professor and
associate professor to professor. The data collected through the open-ended form was
analyzed using descriptive analysis and classified into three categories including the
academics’ views on teaching thinking skills, lecturers’ qualification and competence
in teaching thinking skills, and the development of thinking skills. The research results
indicate that courses taught in faculties of education must involve thinking skills,
academics lack knowledge about thinking skills, preservice teachers must be well
informed of thinking skills to keep up with the times, and preservice teachers show a
poor performance in activities requiring thinking skills.
Keywords: Skills, thinking skill, education faculty, academics.