Background/Purpose Present studies showed critical thinking is one of the most important abilities.Specially for physical education,the environment in PE classes are suitable for cultivating students' critical thinking abilities.Therefore,the purpose was to examine the effectiveness of a 12 weeks implementation of a computer simulation system program for teaching physical education critical thinking skills (CSP-TPECTS) with seventy-three(N=73) in-service PE teachers in Taiwan.
Method CSP-TPECT design was based on situated learning theory. A quasi-experimental design was adopted, and we selected two teachers and two classes of college graduate students whose occupations were in-service PE teachers. Thirty-two teachers were categorized as the experimental group and included doing 100 min CSP-TPECTS operation in the class. Corresponsively, forty-one teachers in the control group took 100 min of physical education unrelated to the CSP-TPECTS. Both groups completed the test of critical thinking skill in sports before and after the implementation.
Analysis/Results Quantitative data were conducted by T-test, and the analysis of variance.Statistical analyses indicated that the participants reported significant differences in abilities of critical thinking from the post-tests between the experimental group and the control group , except for argument evaluation (F=1.70 , Eta square=0. 06, p >.05). Assumptions identification (F=7.70, Eta square=0.10, p <.05), induction (F=8.47, Eta square=0.11, p <.05), deduction (F=8.49, Eta square=0.12, p <.05), and interpretation (F=9.58 , Eta square=0.07, p <.05).
Conclusions These results suggested that the CSP-TPECTS program could provide the environment to help to practice and to enhance teachers' critical thinking abilities.