The main objective of this research is to determine the effect of the Philosophy for Children (P4C) learning approach on students' critical thinking tendencies and creative problem solving skills in 5th grade social studies lessons. This study employs a quasi-experimental design, a quantitative research method, based on a pre-test post-test control group model. The sample consists of 66 students enrolled in the 5th grade of a private school during the spring semester of the 2024–2025 academic year. In the research process, students in the experimental group received structured lessons based on the P4C approach for five weeks; in the control group, the teaching process was carried out based on the Social Studies Curriculum (SSC) without any experimental intervention. The Critical Thinking Tendencies Scale and the Creative Problem Solving Characteristics Scale were used as data collection tools in the research. The findings of the research show that the final test scores of the experimental group, who learned with the P4C method, regarding critical thinking tendencies were statistically significantly higher than those of the control group. However, the effect of P4C applications on students' creative problem solving skills was not found to be statistically significant.
Çelik et al. (Mon,) studied this question.