An Investigation into the Cross-cultural Measurement Equivalency of the CCTDI to Assess the Critical Thinking Dispositions of Pre-service Teachers across Turkish and American Higher Education Institutions

ABSTRACT: The author describes the translation, validation, and Cross-cultural applicability of a multidimensional inventory of students' evaluation of critical thinking dispositions (California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory). The goals were to translate the CCTDI, assess its psychometric properties and examine its Cross-cultural equivalency through confirmatory factor analysis and testing its measurement invariance across American and Turkish samples. Based on the data from 583 Turkish students and 448 American students from different teacher education programs, the translated Turkish version and the original English version of CCTDI displayed positive psychometric properties, thus supported the applicability of the CCTDI in Turkish educational context. However, Cross-cultural comparison of factorial structure produced poor fit of the hypothesized multidimensional model of CCTDI to the combined sample. Further analysis, based on the modification indices, supported the use of four-factor model with reduced items for Cross-cultural comparison. In addition, possible reasons for poor model fit and noninvariance across cultural groups were outlined and discussed. Keywords: CCTDI, critical thinking, adaptation, validation, Cross-cultural equivalency. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………