The Effect of Thinking Skills Instruction on Gifted Students’ Critical and Creative Thinking Dispositions

This study aimed to examine the effect of thinking skills instruction on the critical and creative thinking dispositions of gifted students. For this purpose, a Thinking Skills Instructional Design (TSID) was developed. This study employed a concurrent embedded mixed-methods design, in which a quasi-experimental pretest–posttest control-group design constituted the dominant quantitative component and researcher reflective journals formed the embedded qualitative component. The sample of the study consisted of 22 gifted students attending a Science and Art Center in Türkiye during the fall semester of the 2025–2026 academic year. Data were collected through the Critical Thinking Disposition Scale, the Creative Thinking Disposition Scale, and researcher reflective journals. Quantitative data were analyzed using the Mann–Whitney U Test and the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test, whereas qualitative data were analyzed through inductive content analysis. The findings revealed that the developed instructional design had a significant and high-level effect on the critical and creative thinking dispositions of gifted students. Qualitative findings further indicated that this effect reflected a process-oriented structure supported by patterns of cognitive adaptation, strategy development, and social interaction. The findings may also provide practical guidance for curriculum development specialists in designing and improving programs aimed at fostering critical and creative thinking dispositions among gifted learners. By addressing critical and creative thinking dispositions through a holistic mixed-methods approach, this study fills an important gap in the literature and offers strong theoretical and pedagogical implications for thinking-oriented instructional designs in the education of gifted students.