Dispositions toward Critical Thinking in Portuguese Undergraduate Students.

• Autor(a) principal: Morais, E
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: Lopes, J, Silva, H, Dominguez, C, Payan Carreira, R, Imaginário, C, Santos, M J
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10174/35526
• topic: Critical thinking disposition; higher education; undergraduate students; sociodemographic effect; study field

Background/purpose – The study aimed to identify differences in the level of critical thinking dispositions of undergraduate students in Portugal according to their sociodemographic (gender, age) and academic (study field) characteristics. Materials/methods – A cross-sectional, descriptive correlational study was conducted with a convenience random sample of 1,017 students. Most of the participants were female (76.8%) and the average age of the respondents was 21.8 ± 4.22 years old. For data collection, the Critical Thinking Dispositions Scale (CTDS) was employed, which consists of 35 question items and was validated for the Portuguese population. In the statistical analysis, t-test, ANOVA, and hierarchical multiple regression model were used. Results – The students showed an average positive disposition for critical thinking (average CTDS score was 279.1 ± 27.1). The results demonstrated that gender, age, and field of study influenced the students’ dispositions for critical thinking. Older female students attending biomedicine courses had a higher disposition to think critically. Conclusion – Female students generally show higher critical thinking scores dispositions, regardless of the study field.