The correlation between critical thinking disposition and academic achievement of preclinical and clinical medical students at Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences

Critical thinking skill is an essential factor for success in today’s rapidly developing world. The present study was carried out to compare the association between critical thinking disposition and academic achievement in preclinical and clinical medical students. This study was descriptive-correlational in which the sample included 259 medical students at Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences selected through stratified random sampling. The standard critical thinking disposition inventory with validity of 0.8 and the students’ report card grades as criterion for academic achievement were used to collect the data. Data were analyzed by SPSS 16 software using descriptive statistics, t-test, and Kolmogrov-Smirnov and correlation coefficient tests. The mean of critical thinking disposition in the preclinical stage was 209.08±26.24 indicating a significant correlation with academic achievement (P=0.003, r=-2.64). In the clinical stage, however, the mean of critical thinking disposition was 214.07±28.15 which showed no significant correlation with academic achievement. Moreover, the mean of critical thinking disposition and its components in preclinical and clinical stages revealed not significant correlation and merely curiosity component showed a significant correlation (P=0.04). The results of the present study showed no correlation between critical thinking disposition and academic achievement in the clinical stage; however, this correlation was negatively significant in the preclinical stage.