Predictors Of Critical Thinking Research Articles

Executive functions as predictors of critical thinking: Behavioral and neural evidence

Theories of critical thinking suggest that executive functions play crucial roles in students’ critical thinking performance. However, very little empirical research has examined the potential confounding factors of fluid intelligence and thinking dispositions on the relationship between executive functions and critical thinking. Study 1, based on a large sample of university students, filled this gap by exploring how three core executive functions (updating, inhibition, and shifting) predicted critical thinking after controlling for fluid intelligence and thinking dispositions. The results showed that updating and inhibition predicted critical thinking over and above fluid intelligence and thinking dispositions. In Study 2, we explored the neural basis of the relationship between executive functions and critical thinking. We found that low-level critical thinkers exhibited higher P3 amplitudes than their high-level counterparts when completing updating and inhibition tasks. These results suggest that critical thinking relies on both updating and inhibition processes indexed by the P3 ERP components.

Learning Styles and Critical Thinking among Undergraduates of University of Port Harcourt

The study was based on the prediction of critical thinking using learning styles. It was guided by two research questions and two null hypotheses. A sample of 393 third years undergraduates selected from four faculties in the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria was used for the study. Data was collected from two adopted instruments tagged Cornell Critical Thinking Test (CCTT) Level Z and the Learning Style Questionnaire (LSQ). The face validation of the two instruments was conducted by three experts in Measurement and Evaluation. Reliability analysis of the CCTT using Kuder-Richardson 20 yielded a coefficient of 0.81, while the LSQ had a split-half coefficient of 0.77. Data were analyzed using stepwise multiple regression analysis. Result obtained indicated that pragmatist and reflector learning styles were significant predictors of critical thinking while theorist and activist were not significant predictors. Based on these results, appropriate recommendations and conclusions were drawn.

EFL Learners' Self-regulation, Critical Thinking and Language Achievement

The study reflected in the present paper investigated the relationship between Iranian EFL learners' self-regulation, critical thinking ability and their language achievement. The researchers of the present study set out to investigate this association based on theoretical contention in the literature postulating a dynamic interplay between self-regulatory skills and critical thinking ability as well as empirical studies demonstrating the association of each of these constructs with academic achievement. To the researchers' best knowledge, there is hardly any documented study exploring the relationship between these constructs among EFL learners. To attain the purpose of the study, 82 EFL university learners were selected according to a convenience sampling from different universities in Mashhad, a city in the north-east of Iran. They were requested to complete the "Watson-Glaser's Critical Thinking Appraisal" and the "Self-Regulation Trait Questionnaire". They were also asked to indicate the grade point average of their previous term. The data supported the theoretical expectation of a linkage between self-regulation and critical thinking. Subsequent data analyses indicated that among the components of self-regulation, self-monitoring and self-efficacy have the highest correlations and are the positive predictors of critical thinking. In addition, the results demonstrated that EFL learners' self-regulation can predict about 53 % of their language achievement while their critical thinking ability tends to predict about 28% of achievement. The conclusions and recommendations derived from the present study should encourage educators to take advantage of these relationships by developing effective paths for developing EFL university students' self-regulation and critical thinking.

Cognitive ability, thinking dispositions, and instructional set as predictors of critical thinking

This study examined the predictors of belief bias in a formal reasoning paradigm (a syllogistic reasoning task) and myside bias in two informal reasoning paradigms (an argument generation task and an experiment evaluation task). Neither cognitive ability nor thinking dispositions predicted myside bias, but both cognitive ability and thinking dispositions were significant predictors of the ability to overcome belief bias in the syllogistic reasoning task. However, instructional set (either decontextualizing or non-directive instructions) had a significant effect on myside bias in the argument generation task, as well as a marginal effect on the syllogistic reasoning task. On the latter, and to some extent on the former task, instructional set interacted with cognitive ability. The debiasing effect of decontextualizing instructions was particularly large for those participants in the lowest quartile of cognitive ability.