The Effect of Using the Six Thinking Hats Method on the Development of EFL Female Eleventh- Grade Students' Reading Comprehension Skills in Petra Directorate of Education

Abstract

The study aimed to explore the impact of using the six hats method on reading comprehension skills of female EFL eleventh-grade students in Petra Directorate of Education during the academic year 2022/2023. The study's goal aimed to assess the influence of a teaching technique based on six thinking hats on the development of English language reading comprehension compared to a conventional method. The research was guided by the books of Dr. Edward de Bono, who coined the phrase "lateral thinking," produced many books on thinking, including Six Thinking Hats, and pushed for teaching thinking as a subject in schools. The quasi-experimental design was used to achieve the above objective. The study sample consisted of (54) female eleventh grade students from Wadi Mousa Secondary School for Girls, who were selected purposefully and assigned randomly to two groups: an experimental group of (27) students and a control group of (27) students. To achieve the objectives of the study, all of the text topics were chosen from the eleventh grade textbook for the first semester, the instrument of the study was designed according to the characteristics of the six thinking hats, and then it was assessed for validity and reliability, to guarantee the equivalence of the two groups, the researcher administrated a writing ability pre-test, and then the experimental group was taught using the six thinking hats, whereas the control group was taught according to the conventional method. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and One Way ANOVA. The  findings of the study  revealed statistically significant differences at  (α≤0.05) between students' mean scores in reading comprehension as a result of using the six thinking hats method compared to the conventional method and in favor of the experimental group, which indicates that  the six thinking hats method was effective. Based on the findings, the study recommends that supervisors should encourage teachers to use the six thinking hats method to help them produce successful questions based on good question specifications and write and create models that simulate Tawjihi exams.

Keywords:The Six Thinking Hats Method, Reading comprehension,  Eleventh Grade, Conventional Method

DOI: 10.7176/JEP/14-12-03

Publication date: April 30^th 2023