Developing Critical Thinking Skills in Geography among Secondary Students in Plateau State by Utilizing Monro and Slater Strategy

Abstract

This study was conducted to find out the level of developing critical thinking skills in Geography among Secondary Students in Plateau State by Utilizing Monro and Slater Strategy. The study adopted a quasi-experimental pre-test, post-test non-equivalent group design. The population of the   study was made up of all the 7,892 geography students in all the senior secondary schools in Northern Educational Zone of Plateau State, Nigeria. The target population was 2,439 SSII Geography students in the study area. The sample of this study was of 85 students from two co-educational senior secondary schools in the study area. The two schools were purposively selected and were randomly assigned to experimental and control group. The experimental group was made up of 34 (24 male & 10 female) students while the control group consists of 51 (27 male and 17 female) students. Students in the experimental group were exposed to Monro and Slater teaching strategy while their counterparts in the control group were taught the same concepts using lecture method respectively. The instrument for data collection was California Test for Critical Thinking Skills (CTCTS) experts from test and measurement, as well as science education determined the face and content validity of the instrument. The Reliability of the instrument was (0.72). Two research questions were answered using descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation while two hypothesis were formulated and tested using inferential statistics of Z test and t test of independent samples at α 0.05 level of significance.  The researcher’s selected the teaching objectives covering geographical issues that involves development of students’ critical thinking skills in environmental issues. This content was developed according to Monro and Slater Strategy. Findings of the study reveals that there is a significant mean score difference between the experimental and the control group in favour of the experimental group exposed  to Monro and slater strategy and there was no gender difference between male and female students development of critical thinking after the treatment. The researcher made recommendations on the use of Monro and Slater strategy in developing critical thinking for high students’ achievement regardless of gender.