Finding Correlation between Critical Thinking and Deduction Making Skill: A Study at Bachelor Level in Pakistan

Abstract

Deductive reasoning, or deduction, is one of the two basic types of logical inference. Deductive reasoning means a kind of reasoning in which the truth of conclusion (the output proposition) is logically guaranteed by the truth of the premises (the input proposition). This study has aimed to evaluate university students’ critical thinking ability of making and recognizing deductions. To explore this aim, the present study has set two research objectives which include to know university students’ attitude towards the critical thinking skill of deduction making and to evaluate university students’ performance in the critical thinking skill of deduction making. To achieve these objectives, the researcher has used quantitative research methodology. The participants of this study consist of 550 male and female university students of different state-run colleges of Punjab (Pakistan). Critical thinking inventory (CTI) and Watson-Glaser’s Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA) (2002) have been used to collect data from the subjects of the study. The researcher used SPSS (XX) to analyze the collected data. The findings of this study reveal that the university students have highly positive attitude towards critical thinking skill of making deductions but their level of critical thinking and their ability to reflect critical thinking in their test of making deductions does not correspond with their attitude towards this skill of critical thinking.