The Instructional Efficacy of Socratic Seminar for Cultivating Critical Thinking in Literature Students

Document Type : علمی - پژوهشی

Authors

1 No organization

2 Sobh-e-Sadegh Higher Education Institute, Tehran University

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the impact of Socratic seminar on cultivating critical thinking as a resource for improving Iranian senior literature students learning of literature and the extent to which this alternative method enjoys appreciation on the part of literature teachers and students. For this purpose, from a target population of 128 BA English literature students studying at Sobh-e-Sadegh Institute of Higher Education, a sample of 40 senior students, both male and female, were selected, purposive sampling. The participants were 20 to 30. They were randomly assigned into two groups, namely control and experimental, 20 each. The California Critical Thinking Skills Test (Facione&Facione 1990) was used as a pretest prior the treatment to specify the participants’ critical thinking skills in both groups. At the end of the treatment which lasted ten sessions, the same test was given to the participants in both groups. The findings reported the positive impact of Socratic seminar on critical thinking skills; additionally, the qualitatively obtained data from an open-ended questionnaire and an interview of the seminar teacher yielded credible evidence of the preference of the novel method over the traditional one. Indubitably, the findings have significant implications for literature professors and students.

Keywords

References

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