Arab Educational Information Network

The purpose of the study was to use Suchmans’ inquiry model with education students at AL-Hussein Bin Talal University to determine its effect on their critical thinking skills, confidence in asking questions and interaction between teacher and students. Participants were chosen randomly from sections taught by the researcher himself at Al-Hussein Bin Talal University. Two of his fall 2007 psychology sections were chosen. The first section consisted of fifty-four 54 students and the second section consisted of forty-two 42 students. These sections were "divided" into two groups: experimental and control. Data were gathered via a pre-test of the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal test with both groups. Students were required to read the instructions carefully and answer the questions during the class period, which was one hour. During the semester the experimental group was trained according to Suchmans’ inquiry model, which trains students in inquiry and questioning skills for one hour, three days a week, Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, for the entire spring semester. Towards the end of the semester students were given the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal test again and under the same conditions. SPSS was used in data analyses. Results showed significant differences in alpha 0.05 for both the experimental and control groups in developing critical thinking skills on the five test areas––inference, recognition of assumptions, deduction, interpretation and evaluation of arguments––in favor of the experimental group. The results also showed significant differences in alpha 0.05 for both male and female students in developing critical thinking skills, favoring the female students. (Published abstract)