Critical Thinking Dispositions of Pre-Service Mathematics Teachers

Abstract

In today’s vastly changing world, many organizations such as The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) have advocated that the key performance outcomes around which curricula and assessments should be focused are critical thinking, reasoning, communication and media/information/technology literacy in mathematics. Thus, students will need to take into account both the core academic knowledge and the higher order thinking skills to be successful in college, life and career. This study investigated the pre-service mathematics teachers’ critical thinking dispositions. 202 students who were enrolled in the department of mathematics education at a university in Turkey completed a Turkish version of the “California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory” (CCTDI). The scale has six subscales (Open-mindedness, inquisitiveness, systematicity, truth seeking, analyticity, and self-confidence). The results revealed that the majority of students had moderate critical thinking disposition. Strong positive relationships among all six subscales were determined. Further, there were significant differences in students’ critical thinking disposition based on gender and grade level.