An Examination of Teachers’ Views Regarding the Conformity of Social Studies Textbooks to the Critical Thinking Standards

Abstract

This present study aims to describe the classroom teachers’ views towards the conformity of elementary school 4^th grade social studies textbooks to the critical thinking standards. A descriptive study, this research is a screening model. The sample of the study constitutes 122 classroom teachers. As a data collection tool; a scale was developed with a view to determining the compliance of elementary school 4^th grade social studies textbooks with critical thinking standards. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) along with descriptive statistics was used to analyze the data. Whether the conformity of elementary school 4^th grade social studies textbooks to the critical thinking standards differ by gender was examined, it was found that the difference was statistically significant in favor of male teachers; moreover, it does not show a significant difference in terms of gender and seniority, gender and participation in-service training regarding the examination of textbooks, gender and participation in course / seminar on critical thinking, gender and faculties they graduated.