Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Faculty Member of the Department of Educational Sciences, University of Shahid Madani. Tabriz. Iran

Abstract

The present study intends to structuralist and standardize a critical thinking test. It is a descriptive survey in which the researcher has aimed to provide a valid and reliable test to assess and evaluate the students’ critical thinking. Target population of this study is consisting of all students of Ferdowsi University during the academic year 2011-2012 that are totally 21217 students. Sampling population of the research includes 500 students. Two stages of sampling method have been applied in this study; the first stage has been a clustering sampling method and second one has been a random sampling method. Eight questions have been also discussed in this research and required data has been assembled through two questionnaires. Owing to the fact that the present study aims to plan a new questionnaire to assess the students’ critical thinking, two questionnaires have been applied. The first one was the questionnaire which has been used in California due to assess the validity of the researcher’s questionnaire, and second one was the researcher’s own questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics and softwer spss, Bilog have been applied to analyze the research questions. The achieved results indicate that all three kinds of validity are acceptable. Structural and differential validity demonstrate that this questionnaire has the capability of distinguishing between high and low groups of critical thinking on the basis of California’s test. The results of criterion validity show that the researcher’s questionnaire is valid enough and can be substituted for California’s questionnaire. Experimental validity of the test has been calculated 0.96 and internal consistency of the test has been measured based on Kuder-Richardson formula. What has been achieved through the Information function indicate that the designed test possesses goodness of Fit and it is appropriate for the students whose abilities are at the level of ±1.

Keywords

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