Basic characteristics of the study sample
Of the total number of 300 students participating in the research, 278 (92.67%) completed the study. The mean age of the 278 individuals was 20.88±1.76years (SD); within the study sample, 113 of the participants (40.64%) were male. Additionally, 54 of the individuals (19.42%) were first year students and 55 of the students (19.78%) were fifth year students.
Score distributions
Item scores and internal consistency of the domains for the CTDA are shown in Appendix A. Across domains, “systematicity and analyticity” obtained the highest score (43.93±5.71), whereas “maturity and skepticism” scored the lowest (28.41±3.96). The skewness and kurtosis coefficients of the entire questionnaire were acceptable, with the former ranging from -0.98 to -0.32 and the latter ranging from -0.13 to 2.05. There were no floor effects in the three domains. However, items 12, 18, and 19 showed significant ceiling effects ranging from (20.14%-23.74%).
Reliability
The overall Cronbach’s a coefficient of the CTDA was good (0.92) and showed good internal consistency. The three domains were considered to have shown acceptable internal consistency (0.81-0.86). The overall split-half reliability coefficient of the CTDA was acceptable (0.89). The retest response rate was 83.67% (41/49), and the test-retest reliability (0.93) revealed statistically significant ICCs for the three domains. In addition, the Pearson’s correlation coefficients of all domains were acceptable. The results are reported in table 1.
Table 1 Reliability of the CTDA
|
|
Cronbach's a coefficient(n=278)
|
ICCs (95%CI) (n=43)
|
Domains
|
|
|
Systematicity and analyticity
|
0.86
|
0.72(0.36-0.79) **
|
Inquisitiveness and conversance
|
0.81
|
0.71(0.34-0.81) **
|
Maturity and skepticism
|
0.85
|
0.79(0.39-0.85) **
|
CTDA
|
0.92
|
0.79(0.34-0.81) **
|
**p<0.01.
ICCs, intraclass correlation coefficients.
CTDA, the critical thinking disposition assessment.
Validity
Construct validity
EFA
The Kaisex-Meyer-Olkin test result was 0.92 and Bartlett’s test of sphericity yielded a p<0.05, signifying that the gathered results indicated that factor analysis could be performed. The EFA revealed factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, accounting for 57.13% of the variance. A three-factor solution based on the results was reported in the rotated component matrix (table 2).
Table 2 Rotated component matrix
|
Item
|
Factor
|
Systematicity and analyticity
|
Inquisitiveness and conversance
|
Maturity and skepticism
|
1
|
0.64
|
0.17
|
0.11
|
2
|
0.76
|
0.06
|
0.30
|
3
|
0.66
|
0.32
|
0.17
|
4
|
0.50
|
0.34
|
0.33
|
5
|
0.59
|
0.33
|
0.14
|
6
|
0.63
|
0.06
|
0.25
|
7
|
0.62
|
0.08
|
0.40
|
8
|
0.65
|
0.23
|
0.30
|
9
|
0.04
|
0.77
|
0.18
|
10
|
0.31
|
0.51
|
0.49
|
11
|
0.28
|
0.71
|
0.35
|
12
|
0.56
|
0.44
|
0.22
|
13
|
0.37
|
0.60
|
0.03
|
14
|
0.42
|
0.42
|
0.46
|
15
|
0.23
|
0.23
|
0.58
|
16
|
0.27
|
0.11
|
0.82
|
17
|
0.24
|
0.11
|
0.79
|
18
|
0.16
|
0.13
|
0.74
|
19
|
0.24
|
0.20
|
0.75
|
Items are bolded per column to indicate the relevant factor in which they belong.
CFA
We performed a CFA of the three-factor structure with 19 items to demonstrate that the structure showed an acceptable fit with the data (χ2=410.75, df=149, CMIN/DF=2.76, CFI=0.90, AGFI=0.83, p<0.05, RMSEA=0.08 [90% CI: 0.07 to 0.09]). Factor loadings were higher than 0.40 and ranged from (r=0.50 - 0.85), as illustrated in Fig.1.
Correlation analysis between CTDA domains
The CTDA showed significant correlation between any of the two assessment domains (r=0.61-0.72), with p values less than 0.01. The correlations between assessment domains based on Pearson’s correlation are shown in Table 3.
Table 3 Correlations between the CTDA domains(n=278)
|
Domain
|
Systematicity and analyticity
|
Inquisitiveness and conversance
|
Maturity and skepticism
|
Systematicity and analyticity
|
—
|
0.72**
|
0.61**
|
Inquisitiveness and conversance
|
0.72**
|
—
|
0.61**
|
Maturity and skepticism
|
0.61**
|
0.61**
|
—
|
**p < 0.01.
CTDA, the critical thinking disposition assessment.
Convergent validity and discriminant validity
Based on item-domain correlations, the scores of each item correlated with their own domain to an acceptable degree (r=0.65-0.86, p<0.01), and the convergent validity of the CTDA was acceptable. In addition, whole items showed a higher correlation with their own domains than with other domains and the discriminant validity was satisfactory, as shown in Table 4.
Table 4 Convergent and discriminant validity of the CTDA (n=278)
|
Domain
|
Correlation coefficient range
|
Convergent validity
|
Discriminant validity
|
Convergent validity
|
Discriminant validity
|
Success/total
|
Percentage (%)
|
Success/total
|
Percentage (%)
|
1
|
0.66-0.79**
|
0.36-0.58**
|
8/8
|
100
|
8/8
|
100
|
2
|
0.65-0.81**
|
0.27-0.63**
|
6/6
|
100
|
6/6
|
100
|
3
|
0.72-0.86**
|
0.44-0.55**
|
5/5
|
100
|
5/5
|
100
|
**p < 0.01.
CTDA, critical thinking disposition assessment.
Dose-response analysis
The relationship between the academic year and domains of the CTDA is reported in Table 5. It indicated that there were significant differences among the five years on the CTDA score and domains. The year 2 students obtained the highest of the CTDA (107.88±11.34) and the year 1 students scored 107.20±12.14. Surprisingly, the year 5 students reported the lowest level at (98.91±12.52). Among the five years, the year 2 students had the highest score (45.32±5.01) in “systematicity and analyticity” and the year 1 students obtained the highest score (33.76±4.59) in “inquisitiveness and conversance”. Moreover, the highest scores overall were the year 3 students’ in “maturity and skepticism” at 29.16±3.47. On the other side, the year 5 students had the lowest scores in all of the domains.
Table 5 Relationship between the academic year and domains of the CTDA (n=278)
|
Variable
|
N(%)
|
Systematicity and analyticity
|
F
|
Inquisitiveness and conversance
|
F
|
Maturity and skepticism
|
F
|
CTDA
|
F
|
Academic yeara
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
54 (19.4)
|
44.89±5.33
|
3.79*
|
33.76±4.59
|
3.98*
|
28.56±3.85
|
3.79*
|
107.20±12.14
|
4.70*
|
2
|
59 (21.2)
|
45.32±5.01
|
|
33.49±4.84
|
|
29.07±3.16
|
|
107.88±11.34
|
|
3
|
55 (19.8)
|
43.95±5.44
|
|
32.42±4.31
|
|
29.16±3.47
|
|
105.53±11.23
|
|
4
|
55 (19.8)
|
43.87±6.48
|
|
32.95±4.42
|
|
28.60±4.52
|
|
105.42±13.83
|
|
5
|
55 (19.8)
|
41.55±5.67
|
|
30.71±4.30
|
|
26.65±4.31
|
|
98.91±12.52
|
|
* p<0.05
a, One-way ANOVA.
CTDA, the critical thinking disposition assessment.