Investigate the Role of Moral Justice and Cognitive Abilities Predictors of Critical Thinking in Students

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of moral justice and cognitive abilities predictors of critical thinking in the form of structural equation modeling. The research method was correlation and structural equations. The statistical population of the study was all students of Shiraz universities in the academic year of 97-96. 250 students from these universities were selected through cluster sampling. To collect the data, Rickets's critical thinking scale, Nejati's cognitive abilities, and Birger's moral justice were used. For validity of the scales, second order factor analysis with AMOS software was used and for reliability, Cronbach's alpha was used. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation coefficient and structural equation test were used to analyze the data and to answer the research hypothesis. Findings showed that moral justice has a positive and significant effect on critical thinking, but cognitive abilities do not have the potential to influence critical thinking. Generally, one can conclude that morality is one of the main factors for the study of critical thinking, but cognitive abilities have no role in the tendency of individuals to think critically.