Beyond logic: critical thinking as a resource for peace and psychological wellbeing

Do dysfunctional beliefs play a role in all types of obsessive–compulsive disorder?

This study examines Japanese students’ awareness regarding critical thinking (CT) attitudes and their attention to building their speaking skills in an EFL context to determine effective CT approaches. The study began with a literature review of CiNii articles and studies from the Web of Science database regarding CT theories and educational approaches. It examined critical thinking approaches in EFL contexts as well as foreign-language approaches of International Baccalaureate® (IB) programmes. The review indicated that critical thinking can be fostered when students are asked questions that require higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) in EFL courses. Then, EFL lessons were organised based on the theories and approaches examined in the review. Participants included 22 Japanese senior high school students. Various higher cognitive level questions were posed to the participants. Additionally, students were required to prepare and present academic presentations and answer discussion questions after the presentation. To ascertain students’ awareness of attitudes toward CT, the Critical Thinking Attitudes Scale was used, and students’ reflective essays were analysed using the co-occurrence network of words in the KH Coder. To measure students’ speaking skills, their performance on speaking tasks was analysed by two International Baccalaureate’s examiners. The results indicate that the improvement of CT attitudes and speaking skills is significant regardless of English proficiency level. These findings suggest that if EFL teachers ask HOTS questions, students would become aware of critical thinking attitudes and acquire English speaking skills by answering the questions in a Japanese EFL context.

This research aims to analyze the relationship between pedagogical formation training certificate program prospective teachers’ critical thinking attitudes and their perceptions on professional ethical principles. The study used relational screening model and convenience sampling method which is one of the purposeful sampling methods. The participants consisted of 393 prospective teachers from different majors such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, health, biology, philosophy, religious culture, Turkish language and literature, music, painting and ceramics. The study deployed two data collection tools and personal information form. "Critical Thinking Attitude Scale" and "Code of Professional Ethics Scale". Descriptive statistics, Pearson product-moment correlation, multivariate variance analysis were used during the data analysis. Research results have indicated a medium level of relationship between the critical thinking attitude of prospective teachers and their professional ethical principles. Also, the dimensions of critical thinking attitudes such as willingness to collect information, self-regulation, inference, evidence-based decision making and openness to seek reasons dimensions were found to have a significant relationship with the professional ethical principles, and the five variables account for about 13% of the professional ethical principles. Taking the significance tests of the regression coefficients into consideration, the dimensions of willingness to collect information, self-regulation and openness to seek reasons are regarded as the significant predictors of the professional ethical principles. Based upon the research findings, the following recommendations are provided: The availability of critical thinking and democratic education courses within the teaching certificate program or the inclusion of critical thinking and professional ethical principles in the pedagogical formation courses based on the subject will provide prospective teachers to have positive critical thinking attitudes and professional ethical principles. As a result, they will ensure students to gain critical thinking skills during the teaching process, and they are to show ethical behaviors towards their profession. Critical thinking and professional ethical principles can be examined via experimental and qualitative researches and different measurement tools. Article visualizations:

Does psychological capital mediate the impact of dysfunctional sleep beliefs on well-being?

The study's major goal was to analyze the relation between preservice classroom teachers' metacognitive awareness of reading practices and critical thinking attitudes. The Metacognitive awareness of reading strategies inventory (MARSI-TR), Critical thinking attitude scale (CTS), and demographics information form were utilized to collect data for the study. A total of 294 pre-service classroom teachers in the first and the fourth grades from two public universities constituted the sample. The results showed that women had both higher metacognitive awareness and critical thinking attitudes than men. As for the mother and father’s education level, significant differences were found between sub-dimensions of critical thinking attitude scores of preservice classroom teachers. All of the correlations among the factors of metacognition and critical thinking attitude showed significant values, the direction of the relationships are all positive where the use of metacognition awareness factor increases with the scores on the factors of critical thinking. Additionally, critical thinking sub-dimensions explain 11% of the change in metacognitive awareness of reading strategies.

No doubt, across the world, advantages of critical thinking in education motivated educators focus on developing the critical thinking ability and traits among students more than ever before, yet ample evidence from literature has shown the lack of critical thinking skills among students at all level. The purpose of the study was to examine the effectiveness of two teaching strategies questioning and role playing the development of critical thinking attitude among elementary students. This article offers critical thinking as a prelude to developing attitude among students by using case study method and design based approach. Two groups each with 15 students were made using purposive and convenience sampling method. Evidence was collected in a usual classroom context in the form of pre and post questionnaire data. The focus was evaluated through the indirect evidence of its effects on students’ critical thinking attitude by using Paul's intellectual traits model. Findings suggest that critical thinking is a viable tool in influencing critical thinking attitudes of students in Pakistani context.

The aim of this study is to investigate the critical thinking attitudes of translator and interpreter candidates with a view to coming up with recommendations on curriculum development in Translation and Interpretation undergraduate studies. A "Critical Thinking Skills Scale" was administered to 354 translation and interpretation students from five universities in Turkey. Independent sample t-test, one-way ANOVA and post-hoc Scheffe test were used in data analysis. With the highest and lowest attitudes found for receptiveness and inquiry skills respectively, the total critical thinking attitudes of translator candidates are above the average. The class level of the students is inversely correlated with total scores for critical thinking attitudes, in addition to the flexibility and judiciousness subdimensions. Moreover, translator candidates of the Bulgarian language have the highest total scores for critical thinking attitudes as compared to those of English, French, Persian and German. The results show that innovative curricula involving related tasks and activities must be developed for translation and interpretation departments to enhance translator candidates' critical thinking skills, bearing in mind the very nature of the act of translation and interpretation.

This research was conducted to determine the effects of the attitudes towards critical thinking, gender, socioeconomic factors (education level of parents, income level, place of residence) as well as academic success, reading and television viewing habits in predicting the democratic attitudes of the fourth grade students. The research was carried out with the participation of 1066 students studying in the 4th grades of primary schools in the central districts of Diyarbakır in the 2017-2018 academic year. The study is descriptive and has a relational screening model. The "Democratic Attitude Scale" (DAS) developed by Erbil and Kocabaş (2017) was employed to determine the students' democratic attitudes and the "Critical Thinking Attitude Scale" (CTAS) developed by Akar-Vural (2005) was used to measure their critical thinking attitudes. A Personal Information Form was used to get information about the students. As a result of the research, democratic attitudes of the students were found "very good" and their attitudes towards critical thinking were "good". According to the results of the regression analysis, it was determined that all the independent variables of the study predicted the students' democratic attitudes at the level of 17%. It was found that critical thinking attitude scores (2.7%), socioeconomic factors (6.5%), and academic success, television viewing and reading habits (7.5%) significantly predicted the students' democratic attitudes. Considering the regression coefficients, it was seen that gender, maternal education level and reading habits did not contribute significantly to predicting democratic attitudes.

To elucidate the accurate roles of dysfunctional sleep beliefs in modulating cancer-related fatigue (CRF), identify distinct sleep hygiene profiles, and assess whether and how these profiles serve as mediators in lung cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. This study recruited 396 lung cancer patients receiving chemotherapy between May and December 2023. Participants completed the Sleep Hygiene Index, Brief Fatigue Inventory, and Dysfunctional Beliefs and Attitudes about Sleep Scale. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was conducted to identify profiles of sleep hygiene, and mediation analysis was performed to explore the impacts of sleep hygiene profiles and dysfunctional sleep beliefs on CRF. LPA revealed three distinct sleep hygiene profiles: normal (33.3%), excellent (50.3%), and poor (16.4%). Family monthly disposable income, radiotherapy, and performance status were identified as influential factors distinguishing these profiles. Additionally, the dimensions of dysfunctional sleep beliefs and sleep hygiene profiles showed different correlations with CRF. With the normal sleep hygiene group as reference, mediation analysis revealed that poor sleep hygiene serves as a mediator between sleep worry of dysfunctional sleep beliefs and CRF (SE = 0.010, 95% CI [0.006, 0.047]). This study contributes to understanding the heterogeneity in sleep hygiene in lung cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and elucidates the underlying mechanisms of the relationship between sleep worry of dysfunctional cognitions and CRF. Clinical healthcare providers developing targeted interventions in terms of sleep beliefs and sleep hygiene might be helpful to alleviate CRF in this population.

Although the development of an Internet-based communication system could decrease the cost of accessing food risk information, a strong intention to access information through the Web would also be required to activate consumer behaviour. We examined how consumers' critical thinking attitudes influence their intention to contract a hypothetical pay website that provides food risk information, through an Internet-enabled mobile phone. A payment card contingent valuation method was applied to capture a Japanese co-op members' intention to contract the website and the willingness to pay for it. A critical thinking attitude was found to have a statistically significant effect on the respondents' intention to access food risk information, suggesting that to strengthen consumer participation in food risk communication through the Internet, it is important to examine measures that promote critical thinking among consumers.

IntroductionCritical thinking (CT) is a higher-order cognitive skill essential for academic and professional success, combining the ability to evaluate evidence with a reflective and analytical attitude toward information. Although several tools exist to measure critical thinking disposition, many show limitations in length, reliability, or generalizability, often focusing on specific populations such as medical and nursing students. This study addresses this gap by developing and validating the Critical Thinking Attitude Scale (CTAS) for Italian university students.MethodsThe study was conducted in two phases. In Study 1, 211 participants completed the CTAS questionnaire; exploratory factor analysis revealed a four-factor structure: systematicity, search for truth and openness, analyticity, and inquisitiveness, with high internal consistency (α > 0.78). In Study 2, involving 577 participants, the four-factor model was confirmed through confirmatory factor analysis, showing excellent reliability (α = 0.93) and significant correlations with the Critical Reasoning Assessment (CRA) and the Italian Big Five Inventory (BFI-10), supporting convergent validity, while negative correlations with the Dysfunctional Beliefs Questionnaire (DBQ) highlighted divergent validity.ResultsExploratory and confirmatory analyses supported a robust four-factor structure of the CTAS, demonstrating excellent internal consistency and reliability. Convergent validity was confirmed through positive correlations with CRA and BFI-10, whereas divergent validity was supported by negative correlations with DBQ.DiscussionThis study fills an instrument gap by providing the first Italian adaptation of the CTAS, offering a psychometrically robust and culturally appropriate tool for assessing attitudes toward critical thinking across disciplines. The findings provide a foundation for targeted educational interventions and future research aimed at fostering reflective and analytical thinking in higher education, contributing a standardized, valid, and broadly applicable measure.

One of the potentials that must be developed and formed in higher education is critical thinking. Critical thinking is an organized mental process and plays a role in the process of making decisions to solve problems. Critical thinking includes the activities of analyzing and interpreting data in scientific discovery activities. To develop students' critical thinking skills, learning innovations need to be implemented. The aim of this research is to find out how the critical thinking attitudes of IPR students develop in learning Indonesian language courses. This research is classroom action research using a design developed by Kemmis and MC Taggart which consists of three stages, namely the planning stage, the treatment and observation stage, and the reflection stage. The results of this research show that the development of critical thinking of HKI students in the Indonesian language course has succeeded in improving their thinking skills with a score of 23 in the pre-action stage, cycle I increased to 27.7 and cycle II increased to 36.6.

Cooperative-flipped classroom under online modality: Enhancing students' mathematics achievement and critical thinking attitude

This classroom action research is motivated by students' suboptimal critical thinking skills. This study aims to determine the effect of the application of the Problem Based Learning (PBL) Learning Model on students' critical thinking skills in one of the Physical Education, Sports and Health materials regarding the Dangers of Transmission and Prevention of HIV/AIDS. The subjects of this study were 19 students of class XI SMK Tunas Bangsa Malang. The object of the study was the improvement of critical thinking attitudes using the Problem Based Learning (PBL) learning model. This study used gamification assistance in the ZEP Quiz to encourage active participation and student memory while working on the quiz/assessment. Data were collected through observation, critical thinking ability tests, and documentation. The results of the study showed that: (1) the PBL learning model can improve students' critical thinking skills through contextual problem solving in groups; (2) the use of ZEP Quiz gamification significantly encourages active participation, increases learning motivation, and strengthens students' memory of the material being studied; (3) there was an increase in the average value of students' critical thinking skills from cycle I by 67.25 to 82 in cycle II, and the percentage of students who achieved completion increased from 52.6% to 89.5%. Thus, the implementation of PBL assisted by ZEP Quiz has proven effective in increasing students' critical thinking skills on the material on the dangers of HIV/AIDS.

Background Psychology students frequently continue to endorse psychological myths and misconceptions. The refutational method of instruction can reduce myth endorsement. Objective This study aimed to replicate and extend prior research using infographics to refute psychological myths and misconceptions. Method Undergraduate students in two online courses ( N = 46) completed refutational infographics on assigned myths and shared them in groups. Researchers assessed myth endorsement and critical thinking attitudes and beliefs at the beginning and end of the project. Results Post-project myth endorsement was significantly lower for students’ assigned myths and other myths that peer groups exposed them to. Attitudes and beliefs about critical thinking were significantly higher at the end of the project. Conclusion Refutational infographics are associated with lower psychological myth endorsement and increased critical thinking attitudes and beliefs among intermediate- and upper-level psychology students. Exposure to peers’ refutational infographics is also associated with reduced myth endorsement. Teaching Implications Instructors seeking ways to correct myth endorsement while fostering positive perceptions of critical thinking should consider using refutational infographics with a sharing component.