Investigation and comparision of critical thinking dispositions of teacher (the sample of Giresun province)

The aim of the study is identify the disposition of teachers for critical thinking and to present whether their tendency for critical thinking differs according to gender, educational status, their branches, tenure, the institute they work in. For this purpose, we used survey model in the research. 210 teachers (108 females and 102 males) from central district of Giresun province participated in the research. In the research, we used the abridged Turkish version (KEDEÖ-T) of the California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory by Facione, Facione and Giancarlo. While the original version of the inventory consists of 75 items and seven subscales (Analiticalness, Open Mindedness, Curiousness, Self Confidence, Search For the Truth, Systematicity, Maturity), the Turkish version consists of 51 items and six subscales (Analiticalness, Open Mindedness, Curiousness, Self Confidence, Search For the Truth, Systematicity). According to Facione, Facione and Giancarlo, the scoring system consisted of the all subscales is used with the purpose of identifying critical thinking disposition. The Cronbach's Alpha's reliability co-efficient of the inventory applied to the teachers is α=.84. SPSS 15.0 package program was used to analyze the data. Descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way analysis of variance for unrelated samples, and Scheffe test to determine the differences, and the Mann-Whitney U Test were used to determine the differences with Kruskal Wallis-H Test. When we analyzed the disposition of the teachers, we see that their critical thinking disposition is high in general. There is no statistically meaningful difference between the critical thinking disposition of the female and male teachers. Teachers' critical thinking dispositions shows meaningful difference in terms of educational status (p< .05). Moreover, we determined meaningful difference in terms of educational status in the subscales of Self Confidence, Search for the Truth, Systematicity (p< .05). When the average values are analyzed, it is seen that the diffierence in all factors is in favor of the teachers with post graduate education (p< .05). Finally, It is determined that there is no meaningful difference in teachers' critical thinking disposition in terms of branches, tenure, and the institute they work in (p> .05).