ERIC Number: EJ796712
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2008-Apr
Pages: 8
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1871-1871
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Exploring the Structure of the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal: One Scale or Many Subscales?
Bernard, Robert M.; Zhang, Dai; Abrami, Philip C.; Sicoly, Fiore; Borokhovski, Evgueni; Surkes, Michael A.
Thinking Skills and Creativity, v3 n1 p15-22 Apr 2008
Critical thinking (CT) has been of longstanding interest among scholars, educators, and others who are concerned with thinking skills. The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA) is the oldest and among the most widely used and studied CT measure. It was constructed around five subscales (or CT skills): inference, recognition of assumptions, deduction, interpretation, and evaluation of arguments. This paper describes a two part analysis of the psychometric properties of the WGCTA, based on 13 sets of subscale inter-correlations and 60 sets of subscale means retrieved from published studies. We performed a meta-analysis on the inter-correlations of the 10 combinations of subscales and found that all of the average correlations that resulted were significant, but that all but one was significantly heterogeneous. Subsequently, we conducted principal components analysis on 60 subscale means of two different versions of the WGCTA. Each produced a one-factor solution, accounting for 82.69% and 79.55% of the total variance, respectively. Together these two parts of this study suggest that the WGCTA should be viewed as a measure of general competency, and that the subscales should not be interpreted individually.
Descriptors: Factor Analysis, Psychometrics, Critical Thinking, Thinking Skills, Cognitive Tests, Correlation, Test Validity, Componential Analysis, Competence
Elsevier. 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, FL 32887-4800. Tel: 877-839-7126; Tel: 407-345-4020; Fax: 407-363-1354; e-mail: usjcs@elsevier.com; Web site: http://www.elsevier.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A