Critical thinking dispositions of teachers canditates

The purpose of this study is to determine the critical thinking dispotisions of teacher candidates for attending education department.. In this study, care is shown to determine if there is any significant difference according to gender, type of high school they graduated from, major they attend, grade level, and academic achievement in their tendencies for critical thinking.This research was conducted at Abant İzzet Baysal University, in the Faculty of Education, during the Spring Term of the 2006-2007 academic year. The subjects of the study were 502 teacher candidates on deparment of elementary education at the Faculty of education in Abant Izzet Baysal Universtiy. The subjects were enroled in some majors including elemantary teaching, elemantary mathematics teaching, elemantary social sciences and science teaching. In the study, descriptive method is used. The data was collected in this study by using the ?The California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory? developed by Facione, Facione and Giancarlo(1998) and adapted into Turkish by Kökdemir(2003). At the end of the study the followings were found:The results indicated that the critical thinking dispotisions of the teachers candidates is low in general. Also, It was found that the critical thinking dispotisions of the teachers candidates in sub dimension of being analytical and open minded was in positive direction but their critical thinking dispotisions in the sub dimension of inguisitivenes, self confidence and truth seeking the correct one and being systematic were at a low level.It was found that there is a significant difference based on critical thinking dispositions between females and males in favour of female candidates and this difference was observed in analytical and systematic sub dimensions.It was found that there is no significant difference in the general dispotisions of critical thinking of the teachers candidates, according to the type of high schools.It were determined that there are statistically significant difference among the critical thinking dispositions and major of candidates based on in total and in sub dimensions of being open minded, heaving self confidence and entering into truth seeking the correct.The result also showed that there are significant difference among the critical thinking dispositions and grade levels of candıdates according to in the grand total and in sub dimensions of being analytic, self confidence, truth seeking for the correct.It was found that, there is no significant difference among the critical thinking dispotisions and academic achievement of the students based on in all sub dimensions except inguisitivenes.Key Words: Critical thinking, critical thinking dispositions, teacher candidates, academic achievement.