From Reflection to Self-assessment: Methods of Developing Critical Thinking in Students

The research paper presents the results of an experimental research of the development of critical thinking in third-year students majoring in 013 "Primary Education" in studying a special course "From Reflection to Self-Assessment: Critical Thinking Skills" (based on Lauren Starkey methodology). The research was conducted during the first half of 2019-2020 academic year. The sample representativeness was ensured by the method of random selection, the strategy of randomization according to the criteria of age, gender, level of academic performance was described. Given the confidence interval p=95% and the confidence interval of the error Δ=±0.05, the sample size was 94 people, including of the experimental group and 49 students of the control group. The peculiarities of the development of such critical thinking skills as reflective thinking, self-analysis, awareness of one's own achievements and shortcomings, choice of problem-solving strategy, use of cognitive models of learning are revealed. It was found that the development of critical thinking was achieved through a comprehensive combination of self-assessment and reflection, performing exercises to develop the ability to clearly articulate the problem, find, analyse and interpret relevant information, draw the right conclusions and explanations.