THE SOCIAL STUDIES NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2008 243

ABSTRACT. The author conducted research in Jordan, where he inter-viewed secondary school social stud-ies teachers about their perspectives on teaching critical-thinking skills in their classrooms. All interviews were audiotaped or videotaped in Arabic and later translated into English. The author qualitatively analyzed data, includ-ing the translations of the interviews, the Ministry of Education’s teaching guidelines, and textbook teacher manu-als. The study’s results indicate that Jordanian secondary school social stud-ies teachers have little familiarity with the definition and teaching strategies of critical thinking; the Jordanian Min-istry of Education requires teachers to teach critical thinking only to a small extent. In addition, teacher’s manuals for the state-required textbooks provide detailed content information, with only minor references to teaching critical thinking. Previous research, conducted by the author on middle and high school students in Jordanian public schools, supports the finding that students do not acquire critical-thinking skills

from their public school education in Jordan.

Keywords: critical thinking, Jordan, secondary school, teacher education

rom Socrates to contemporary scholars, concerns about the need

for an educated citizenry and qual-ity workforce and citizens’ ability to think critically and reason well have been regarded as important and nec-essary outcomes of education. In the twentieth century, John Dewey (1916, 1933, 1938) pointed out that learning to think is the central purpose of educa-tion. More recently, the 2000 Jordanian National Education Conference identi-fied the need for a substantial increase in “the proportion of high school gradu-ates who demonstrate an advanced ability to think critically, communicate effectively, and solve problems” (Min-istry of Education 2000, 62).

Educators are not alone in recogniz-ing the importance of critical thinking. As Jordan moves toward a technology-based economy facing worldwide com-petition, employers will hire workers with analytical thinking skills who can integrate information from a variety of sources and perspectives and efficiently make profitable decisions. Jordan’s plu-ralistic society needs citizens who can

evaluate the relevance of different per-spectives on complex problems. Addi-tionally, making sound personal and civic decisions requires the ability to accurately interpret information filtered by media that may emphasize imag-ery over reason (Martorella 2004). For students, workers, and citizens, critical thinking is an essential tool for perform-ing successfully in a complex and rap-idly changing world (Dower 2003).

To explore this issue in greater detail, I designed a study in which I interviewed Jordanian secondary school teachers to ascertain the extent to which critical-thinking skills are incorporated in their social studies instruction. In the United States, critical-thinking skills have long been part of the goals of social stud-ies education (Social Science Education Consortium 1996). It therefore seemed reasonable that interviewing Jordanian social studies teachers and observing their classroom instruction would provide important information as to the extent that critical-thinking skills are promoted in Jordanian secondary schools.

Related Research

In Jordan, the goal of social studies education is to prepare young people to be good citizens in a world that is

Teachers’ Perceptions of Critical Thinking: A Study of Jordanian Secondary School Social Studies TeachersKHALED F. ALAZZI

KHALED F. ALAZZI is an assistant pro-fessor in the Department of Curriculum and Development at Yarmouk University in Irbid, Jordan.

F

Copyright © 2008 Heldref Publications

244 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2008 THE SOCIAL STUDIES

becoming increasingly complex. The Jordanian Ministry of Education divides social studies objectives into four cat-egories: knowledge, skills, values, and participation. These four categories require critical thinking as an essential tool for performing successfully in a complex and rapidly changing world.

According to a 2004 study (Alazzi and Chiodo 2004), more than two-thirds of the Jordanian middle and high school students surveyed claimed they were not taught critical thinking in social stud-ies classes. This study’s findings suggest there is a lack of instruction in critical-thinking skills in the Jordanian public schools. In another study, Khaled Alazzi and John Chiodo (2006) found the Jorda-nian education system continues to grad-uate students who do not reason well.

Ibrahim Kawood (1990) found Jor-danian textbooks full of monotonous and simplified concepts and values that tended to reinforce the social goal of harmony and security. Students uncon-sciously accepted the “correct answers” and lost the opportunities for thinking critically. Textbook statements also employed descriptive styles and often came to conclusions that jeopardized the initiation of critical thinking.

Alazzi’s (2005) survey found 85 per-cent of social studies educators retained traditional lecture teaching methods, while the remainder adopted some form of group discussion. In 1990, Kawood conducted an evaluation of Jordan’s tenth-grade social studies curriculum. His research suggests that the geogra-phy objectives did not assist students in their development of critical thinking or critical inquiry.

Mohammad Khawalidah (1987) con-ducted an examination of the content in Jordanian social studies textbooks. His questionnaire addressed curriculum, text-books, teaching methods, learning objec-tives, and educational experience. He found that all aspects of the social studies curriculum needed significant improve-ment based on Western standards.

Numerous definitions of critical think-ing were quite divergent and depended on individual understandings of research needs. They also varied in breadth and inclusiveness. Broadly defined, critical

thinking was seen as the cognitive pro-cesses and strategies involved in decision making, problem solving, or inquiry, whereas a narrow definition was seen as an essential element of general cognitive processes, such as problem solving or decision making, but was not synony-mous with them.

The researchers relied on Edward M. Glaser’s (1941) three components of critical thinking, which are still used as general standards today. These com-ponents are (1) “an attitude of being disposed to consider in a thoughtful way the problems and subjects that come within the range of one’s experience”; (2) “knowledge of the methods of logi-cal inquiry and reasoning”; and (3) “some skills in applying those methods” (Glaser, 5–6).

Researchers engaged in analyzing indi-viduals’ critical-thinking abilities have stressed the importance of dispositions. A person might possess critical-thinking skills but not use them. This indicates that the individual possesses little criti-cal-thinking disposition. Lists and con-ceptions of specific dispositions differ more than the lists of critical-thinking skills. The commonly mentioned dispo-sitions, according to Mel Kennedy, Max Fisher, and Richard Ennis (1991), are “being opened-minded and considerate of other people; staying relevant; being impartial; suspending judgment and tak-ing a stance when warranted; question-ing one’s own views; and using one’s critical thinking skills” (41).

For the purposes of this study, I employed a broad definition of criti-cal thinking that included all the cogni-tive processes, strategies, and attitudes involved in decision making, problem solving, inquiry, and high-order think-ing. In other words, a good critical thinker should be able to use scientific methods, including emphasis on evi-dence and the nature of a hypothesis; possess the tendency to be inquisitive, critical, and analytical with respect to issues, personal behavior, and so on; and employ correct principles of logic.

It should be pointed out that most research studies conducted on critical thinking in Jordanian social studies classrooms focused on elementary-level

education. None have focused specifi-cally on critical thinking in social stud-ies at the secondary school level, partic-ularly on secondary school instructors’ teaching strategies.

Addressing the Problem

Jordanian secondary school teachers’ perspectives on teaching critical think-ing in social studies classes needed further exploration to understand and explain the existing phenomena and to eventually find a solution. I designed the study to answer the following questions: Are Jordanian social stud-ies teachers familiar with critical think-ing? Do they teach critical thinking as part of their social studies instruction? When teachers involve students in criti-cal-thinking activities, what difficulties do they encounter? Do the Ministry of Education’s guidelines require Jordani-an social studies teachers to teach criti-cal thinking? If so, how closely do they follow that requirement? How closely are their strategies about critical think-ing related to the textbook teacher’s manuals for their social studies courses? Through the identified patterns of teach-ers’ perspectives concerning the study questions, I was able to develop a great-er understanding of social studies teach-ing in Jordanian secondary schools.

Research Focus

The study’s purpose was to discover themes or concepts in the collected data that formed building blocks of grounded theory in the study of secondary school social studies teachers’ perspectives. The collected data included interviews (see the appendix), classroom observa-tions, and publication materials, which consisted of the Ministry of Education’s guidelines (senior high school curric-ulum criteria) and textbook teacher’s manuals (teaching brochures).

I interviewed twelve Jordanian sec-ondary school social studies teachers at their school sites. From the twelve teachers in the study, eleven complete sets of data were obtained. I chose par-ticipants from three senior high schools, two junior high schools, and a combined

THE SOCIAL STUDIES NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2008 245

junior and senior high school. The aca-demic levels of all these schools are con-sidered average. I deemed this consider-ation important in selecting the samples, because Jordanian junior high school graduates are assigned to certain senior high schools depending on their Senior High School Entrance Test scores. I avoided schools with extremely low or high levels of academics in the selec-tion process, because teachers in those schools might employ different teaching strategies. This study’s results, therefore, represent the general perspectives of Jor-danian secondary school teachers.

The average age of the three male and eight female teachers was 36.5 years old. The youngest was 28 years old, and the oldest was 48 years old. The most teaching experience was 30 years, the least was 2.5 years, and the average was 9.6 years. Among the participants, one possessed a master’s degree, nine held bachelor of arts degrees, and only one was pursuing her bachelor’s degree at the time of the interview. Five teach-ers majored in the social sciences (e.g., geography, history, or citizenship), one majored in law, and five were gener-alists (i.e., broad social science back-ground). Five teachers taught geogra-phy, two taught history, and four taught citizenship.

I wrote the questions for the study in Arabic and English and read them to the participants in Arabic. If the participants requested, I showed them the written questions to aid in their understanding. Prior to the interview, all participants completed a personal background infor-mation sheet, which was written in Ara-bic and English. I informed the partici-pants that all the information obtained from the written data sheet, audiotapes, and videotapes was for research use and would not be shared with any other indi-viduals not associated with this study.

During the interview, Arabic was the primary language used for communi-cation. When necessary, English was added to improve understanding. Partici-pants were encouraged to state, explain, and describe the topic being discussed as best as they could. The use of an audio recorder was explained and agreed on by the participants prior to the interviews.

I translated the interviews into Eng-lish and analyzed them qualitatively. In addition, I invited two trained research-ers proficient in Arabic and English to review the translations by listening to the tapes and reading the written Eng-lish text to eliminate translation errors or semantic misunderstanding. When the translation work was completed, the data from the interviews were fur-ther refined, digested, and summarized. Finally, I identified themes, sorted them into categories, and identified patterns based on the constant comparative meth-od (Glaser and Strauss 1967) and the extended constant comparative method (Wilson 1992). I used four stages of the constant comparative method to analyze data. These were (1) comparing inci-dents applicable to each category, (2) integrating categories and their proper-ties, (3) delimiting the theory, and (4) writing the theory (Glaser and Strauss).

The purpose of collecting classroom observation data was to identify teach-ers’ instructional methods and discover to what extent the methods promoted stu-dents’ critical thinking. Out of the twelve participants, eleven allowed the research-ers to observe and videotape their teach-ing. Participating teachers were free to present lessons of their own choice while the researchers were in the room. Obser-vations took place in which the teach-ers engaged in classroom instruction. Videotaped recordings were later trans-lated into English. Afterwards, I invited the researchers proficient in Arabic and English to watch the tapes and read the written translations. While reviewing the tapes of the teaching episodes, I instructed the researchers to identify twelve teach-ing methods (as defined by the Ministry of Education): lecture, observation, site visit, survey, report, discussion, role-play, manipulation, collection, exhibition, practicum, and inquiry. I provided defini-tions of the twelve teaching methods in a five-point Likert scale rating sheet and asked the researchers to rate the identified teaching methods used by the participants based on the extent to which they promot-ed the students’ critical thinking. I intro-duced an explanation of critical thinking, skills, and dispositions to the researchers as a basis for the ratings.

The collected materials analyzed in this study included the Ministry of Education’s guidelines (senior high and junior high school curriculum cri-teria) and textbook teacher’s manuals (brochures), which were translated and contrasted with teachers’ comments regarding the provided assistance of critical-thinking teaching.

Jordan’s Ministry of Education requires the National Office of Edition and Translation to publish teacher’s brochures (teacher’s manuals for text-books). Each social studies textbook has a teacher’s brochure. For instance, the Senior High Citizenship textbook has a teaching brochure for the teacher’s use. All teachers in the study generally fol-lowed the format provided in the teach-er’s brochures, which were assigned to the textbook and class they taught.

Findings

An analysis of all the study data revealed a variety of important informa-tion related to the teaching of critical thinking in secondary education social studies classrooms in Jordan. First, most study participants were not familiar with the formal definitions of critical thinking and its strategies. This finding is con-sistent with the work of Alazzi (2005), who reported that Jordanians are not concerned about teaching critical think-ing in their schools. According to Alazzi, Jordanian culture is implicated because “the Arabic culture in Jordan strives for harmony and security. Questioning is viewed as opposing the accepted ways of doing things; thus, it is not promoted by the educational system” (8).

In contrast to this first finding, most participants indicated they taught criti-cal thinking. I invited participants to freely express their definitions of criti-cal thinking and their knowledge of the related skills. Thus, it is not surprising that most of them indicated they taught critical thinking based on their own def-initions. For instance, one participant contended the following:

Critical thinking is a kind of attitude or disposition. Regarding important issues, we need to have the ability to think criti-cally. What I mean is our attitude that we

246 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2008 THE SOCIAL STUDIES

are always skeptical, questioning, or even denying, followed by reedifying.

Based on this definition, the teacher con-tended that he taught critical thinking.

Another teacher argued that he taught critical thinking in his classroom:

I think critical thinking is a kind of attitude, as I have told you. If students were smart enough, they would not only learn what I had taught, but also, [they would] learn my

so. Classroom observations supported this and showed teachers used little, if any, time during the instructional pro-cess to teach strategies that aided the development of critical thinking.

When teachers were asked what prob-lems they might have in teaching criti-cal thinking, they responded that there would be problems related to students. They indicated that students had no time

attitude, because I frequently held a critical attitude toward our textbooks. So I think I have taught critical thinking.

However, when this teacher and other study participants who claimed to teach critical-thinking skills in their classrooms were repeatedly observed and videotaped, it was evident that they did not use strategies in their instruc-tion that support critical thinking. This information is consistent with a study conducted by Alazzi and Chiodo (2004) that surveyed middle and high school students in Jordan. Nearly 80 percent of the students surveyed indicated that they were not taught critical thinking.

As part of the follow-up interviews with the teachers in this study, copies of Alazzi and Chiodo’s (2004) research were provided. Six of the ten partici-pants agreed with the students’ com-ments that they were not taught critical thinking. The other teachers implied that the students making the comments did not realize they were being taught critical thinking, or they (the students) used definitions of critical thinking that differed from the teachers’ definitions.

The differing views can be summa-rized as a difference between intention and outcome. In other words, the teach-ers might have intended to teach criti-cal-thinking skills (their own concept of critical thinking), but when it came to actual instructional time, they did not do

to deal with critical thinking; students were not interested in learning critical thinking; Jordanian school culture did not support teaching critical thinking; and class sizes were too large (the aver-age class size for teachers in this study was about forty students) to effectively teach critical thinking.

One participant addressed students’ attitudes toward learning critical think-ing skills by saying,

Some students hold a kind of kidding attitude. I am not always serious in class, but if students make fun of the discussion; the results won’t be as good as expected. Unless they are apparently kidding, but serious underneath, some students might think the teaching [critical thinking] is not as important as other areas of information in social studies, because critical-thinking teaching is not immediately influencing their grade.

Most Jordanian secondary school stu-dents view passing the state exams with a high score as extremely important, because they are admitted into colleges and universities based on their scores. Therefore, because critical thinking is not on these exams, it is not difficult to understand why the students do not view it as important.

The teachers in this study also indi-cated that school equipment was insuffi-cient for teaching critical thinking. Par-ticipants expressed the need for more books in the library, overhead projec-

tors, VCRs or DVD players, and televi-sions. A participant described the fol-lowing conditions in her school:

In the past we didn’t have a library, which was a big problem. This year we have a library, but we still don’t have enough books. Regarding the equipment, we don’t have a TV in each classroom in most schools of Amman County. We have an audio-video classroom in our school. We have to regis-ter to use it. Sometimes, the school admin-istrators have different opinions as to what we should use the equipment for or what the tapes should be used for.

Social studies instruction that incorpo-rates discussion of controversial issues relies on critical-thinking skills. Yet, most study participants contend that they do not have any difficulty in teaching controversial political issues. The reason for the lack of difficulty is simple: the teachers maintain a neutral position or try not to address “untouchable” politi-cal issues. For instance, one participant said, “We all know certain untouchable issues exist in this county. And, I never try to discuss them in the classroom.” This avoidance of controversial issues indicates that social studies teachers are not stressing critical-thinking skills.

Teachers expressed the opinion that covering the content in the textbooks takes too much time, leaving little time for critical-thinking skills. In addition, teacher’s manuals do not provide strate-gies to aid the teachers in critical-think-ing activities. A participant expressed her opinion toward the textbook content by saying,

I think the textbook content should be revised because we address too much for every country [referring to a geography text]. In contrast, some important coun-tries are not studied in enough depth. For instance, Gabon is not as important to us as the U.S. Nevertheless, they are both studied in the same depth. Students have to memorize them all, because it could be on the test. As a teacher, I cannot omit it.

When asked about teacher education programs and whether they received instruction in teaching critical-thinking skills, all teachers agreed that no prepa-ration in the area of critical thinking was provided. Teachers felt the topic was not covered, or, if it was covered, it received little emphasis. They also emphasized that in their present positions, little

Most Jordanian secondary school students view passing the state exams with a high score as extremely important, because they are admitted into colleges and universities based on their scores.

THE SOCIAL STUDIES NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2008 247

material is available for critical think-ing in social studies, and no in-service instruction is provided. Finally, they blamed the universities for not making advanced teacher education coursework available to them during their vacation time. It should be noted that the Jor-danian government makes very limited funds available for the state universities to offer in-service or professional devel-opment courses. When such courses are offered, they usually take place only in a few large cities.

Teachers recurrently complained about the lack of materials and teaching strategies in social studies for teach-ing critical thinking. An examination of the Ministry of Education’s guide-lines revealed that critical thinking is not required as part of the educational process. When I searched the curric-ulum criteria at the junior and senior high levels, I found that the Ministry of Education indicated in the general teaching guidelines that one educational goal of secondary education is to enable students to think critically. However, the requirement to teach critical think-ing and subsequent teaching strategies do not appear in the individual sub-ject teacher’s manuals at the junior and senior high levels.

Generally speaking, teacher’s manu-als only provide more detailed infor-mation about the curriculum, with few differences related to various subjects. In the senior and junior high citizen-ship (and moral education) teacher’s brochures and the senior high history teacher’s brochures, some statements imply the need for critical-thinking teaching strategies, but specific expla-nations of how critical thinking is to be taught are not included. This is the same in the junior high history and geography teacher’s brochures.

Finally, because teachers are required to cover the entire textbook, and class sizes are large (often forty-five or more students), it is difficult for teachers to vary their methodology. Added to this is the need to maintain discipline and the pressure of state exams. The end result of this situation is that class time mostly consists of lectures, with little time devoted to discussion or inquiry.

Conclusion

Reviewing the information that emerged from the study, I developed several themes to explain the lack of critical-thinking strategies in second-ary social studies classrooms in Jor-dan. First, although Jordan is a rapidly growing industrial nation that borrows heavily from American society, it still maintains strong ties to its past cul-ture. Schools have the responsibility to socialize students into that culture. To criticize, question, and reject what is reported to be correct is not the role of the teacher or the students. Teach-ers are to assume the parents’ role and teach students to respect the ideas of the past and honor the ideas of their elders. Along with this, they must teach respect and consideration for the government as a defender of the people and the culture. If social studies teachers ignore these views, it can mean potential dismissal from their jobs. As several teachers indi-cated, they do not address certain con-troversial topics in their classrooms.

Yet, ignoring critical-thinking skills could put Jordanian students at a dis-advantage later in life. However, the view emerged that critical thinking is something that is acceptable for adults but not for young students. This view is reinforced in Alazzi and Chiodo’s (2004) study of Jordanian middle and high school students. When asked if they learned critical-thinking skills, nearly 80 percent of the students surveyed indicated they were not taught critical thinking. A second dominant theme that emerged from this study is related to the evaluation/testing process that is part of the Jordanian educational system. For Jordanian students, getting a high score on the national exams means attend-ing a prestigious university. It is their ticket to a prosperous future. Because of this rigid system, Jordanian social studies teachers are unwilling to digress from the state guidelines and teach any-thing else. They lament that there is not enough time to cover what is expected for the test, so how can they spend time on problem-solving activities? Exposi-tory instruction is the only way for them to get through the seemingly endless

amount of information needed to pre-pare their students for the exams.

Students, who consider such skills unimportant for their preparation to take the state exams, reinforced this theme. As several teachers indicated in their interviews, students do not seem to care about anything that is not related to their grades or something they will be test-ed on. Finally, a third theme emerges: although teachers are familiar with the term critical thinking, they do not have a clear concept of what it actually means. In addition, they receive very little help in clarifying this concept from the state publications or through the in-service education that the Ministry of Educa-tion and universities provide. A review of all state instructional manuals related to teaching social studies at the junior and senior high level revealed little discussion of critical thinking, and the manuals did not suggest strategies to aid the teachers in the instructional pro-cess. Thus, teachers are left on their own to construct critical-thinking strategies for their social studies classes. How-ever, herein lies another problem. These teachers have received little, if any, pre-service or in-service instruction related to these skills. Conversations with the teachers indicated that their teacher- education programs did not expose them to methods necessary to deal with criti-cal thinking in social studies.

Finally, Jordanian social studies teachers take some responsibility for not clearly understanding critical think-ing and related teaching strategies that can be used in their classrooms. During the past forty years, Jordanian teachers have graduated from normal colleges with lifetime certification. The job secu-rity of lifetime employment has caused teachers to believe that a good teacher teaches the same as the teacher next door (Chang and Green 1995). This sense of security has caused teachers to fall into a pattern of teaching that does not foster change and intellectual growth.

Because Jordanian secondary social studies teachers generally have little familiarity with the definition, skills, and teaching strategies of critical think-ing, further studies are needed to inves-tigate models that demonstrate how to

248 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2008 THE SOCIAL STUDIES

teach critical thinking to the practicing teachers. Through the introduction of an instructional model, additional research may reveal whether teachers have taught critical-thinking skills to their students and to what extent the students have learned and applied these skills.

Continued qualitative and quantitative research is needed to refine and clarify the patterns regarding the extent to which the participants are familiar with teaching critical thinking, the extent to which they teach critical thinking, the difficulties that might be encountered, the extent to which the Ministry of Edu-cation Guidelines guide teachers, and the extent to which the teacher’s manu-als influence teaching.

Because this study focused on schools only in the Amman metropolitan area, research needs to be conducted at schools in other regions of Jordan. Comparisons need to be made between rural, subur-ban, and urban schools throughout the country regarding teaching critical think-ing in social studies classrooms. Because Amman is the most liberal area in the country, one can assume there will be dif-ferences when comparing Amman to other areas. It may also be valuable to compare social studies teachers to science, mathe-matics, and language arts teachers to see if critical-thinking strategies are being used in other curriculum areas.

Jordan’s present educational system relies on formal testing, which is used to determine if students continue in school beyond certain points. Testing also deter-mines the academic level of the school the student will attend. As critical think-ing begins to play a part in the education-al process, the traditional testing process may have to be revised or discarded. The task of learning factual information to pass an exam may conflict with the idea of using factual information for critical thinking. Researchers must devise a plan to further evaluate the critical-thinking skills of Jordanian students and institute a new way to determine students’ prog-ress through the educational system.

REFERENCES

Alazzi, K. 2005. Historical development of the social studies education in Jordanian

secondary schools since 1921. PhD diss., University of Oklahoma.

Alazzi, K., and J. Chiodo. 2004. Students’ perception toward social studies educa-tion: A study of middle and high school students in Jordan. International Journal of Scholarly Academic Intellectual Diver-sity 8 (1): 3–12.

———. 2006. Uncovering problems and identifying coping strategies of Middle Eastern University students. International Education 35 (2): 65–81.

Chang, L. H., and J. E. Green. 1995. A comparison of teacher education in two nations: The Republic of China and the U.S. Action in Teacher Education 17 (2): 47–54.

Dewey, J. 1916. Democracy and education. New York: Macmillan.

———. 1933. How we think. Chicago: Henry Regnery.

———. 1938. Experience and education. New York: Collier Books.

Dower, N. 2003. An introduction to global citizenship. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press.

Glaser, B., and A. Strauss. 1967. Discovery of grounded theory. Chicago: Aldine.

Glaser, E. M. 1941. An experiment in the development of critical thinking. New York: Teachers College, Columbia Uni-versity.

Kawood, I. 1990. Proposal for development geography curriculum for ten grades in Jordanian school. PhD diss., Ann Shams University.

Kennedy, M., M. Fisher, and R. H. Ennis. 1991. Critical thinking: Literature review and needed research. In Educational val-ues and cognitive instruction: Implica-tions for reform, ed. L. Idol and B. F. Jones, 77–96. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Khawalidah, M. 1987. Examination of an evaluation model for content in social studies textbooks in Jordanian middle school. Irbid, Jordan: Educational Devel-opment Center, Yarmook University.

Martorella, P. 2004. Teaching social studies in middle and secondary schools. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Ministry of Education. 2000. Proceedings of the 2000 National Conference for Educa-tion. Amman, Jordan: Ministry of Educa-tion Press.

Social Science Education Consortium. 1996. Teaching the social sciences and history in secondary schools. Belmont, CA: Wad-sworth.

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APPENDIX

RESEARCH QUESTIONNAIRE

1. Are you familiar with critical thinking or critical-thinking teaching strategies?

a. Can you explain what critical think- ing means to you?

b. What are the skills related to critical thinking?

2. Do you teach critical thinking in your classroom? Explain.

a. Do you enjoy teaching it? Explain. b. Are there certain kinds of critical-

thinking skills that you are trying to teach?

c. How often do you involve students in critical thinking?

d. Do you design your own critical- thinking activities or do you rely on textbook materials or other materi- als? Explain.

3. When you involve students in criti-cal thinking, do you find any difficulty (school facilties, parents, students, mate-rial, equipment, time, students’ interest, political issues . . .)?

4. As a social studies teacher, do you think critical-thinking teaching is important? Explain.

a. Is it important to our society? Why? b. Is it important to our schools? Why? c. Is it important to our social studies

subjects? Why? d. Should it be taught separately or as part

of the regular curriculum courses? e. Do you think senior/junior high stu-

dents can think critically? 5. Please answer the following questions in

general terms. a. Do your students currently possess

enough critical-thinking skills? b. Which critical-thinking skills are your

students good at? c. What critical-thinking skills should

be enhanced or are important? d. How do you react to the comment

by some students who say they do not acquire critical-thinking skills from schools?

6. Do the Ministry of Education Guidelines require you to teach critical thinking? How closely do you follow them?

7. Does the teacher’s edition of your text-book explain how to teach critical think-ing? Does it provide activities? How closely do you follow them?

8. When you were in normal schools, did you take any courses related to how to teach students critical thinking? Explain.

a. Did any of your professors address how to teach critical thinking? Explain.

b. What were the strategies they gave you?

c. Were these strategies useful?