The relationship between tendencies of critical thinking and emotional intelligence levels of candidate teachers

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between candidate teachers? critical thinking skills tendencies and their emotional intelligence levels. During the study survey approach was followed and the subjects (n =374) of this study, were the fourth year candidate teachers of Abant İzzet Baysal University Education Faculty in the second semester of 2006-2007 academic year. In this study, ?Personal Information Form?, was used to identify candidate teachers? personal characteristics. In addition to this, ?California Critical Thinking Tendencies Inventory? which was adapted to Turkish by Doğan Kökdemir has 51 items having analyticity, open-mindedness, inquisitiveness, self-confidence, truth seeking, and systematicity subscales and ?Bar-On Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire? whichwas adapted to Turkish by Özlem Mumcuoğlu has 128 items having emotional selfawareness, enterprisingness, self-respect, self-actualization, independence, empathy, interpersonal relationships, social responsibility, problem solving, reality testing, flexibility, stress tolerance, impulse control, happiness, optimism, positive impression, negative impression subscales. For the analysis of the data collected SPSS for Windows 11.0 package program was used. By means of this program, the frequency, percentage, mean scores, standard deviation, mean square and Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient techniques were used. The results of the study can be summarized as follows: 1. It is seen that the candidate teachers had agree and partially disagree tendencies in critical thinking tendencies inventory and they had mostly appropriate to me tendencies in emotional intelligence questionnaire. 2. When the relationship between candidate teachers? tendencies in the subscales of critical thinking tendencies inventory and emotional intelligence questionnaire is concerned, a significant relationship was observed at 0.01 levels. However, it is observed that the relationship was positive, low and at intermediate level. In addition to this, intermediate level significance was found between the scores that candidate teachers got from critical thinking tendencies inventory and emotional intelligence questionnaire at 0.01 levels. Keywords: Thinking, Critical Thinking, Intelligence, Emotional, Emotional Intelligence