The Relationship between Dimensions of Family/Teachers Communication Patterns and Student's Critical Thinking Dispositions with the Mediation of Basic Psychological Needs Satisfaction

The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating effect of basic psychological needs satisfaction in the relationship between dimensi-ons of family/teachers communica-tion patterns and students’ critical thi-king dispositions. In this study 437 (275 females and 162 males) underg-raduate students were selected throgh a multistage random cluster sampling method from Shiraz University. Par-ticipants completed the Revised Fam-ily Communication Patterns Instrume-nt, the Teachers Communication Pa-tterns Instrument, the general form of Basic Needs Satisfaction Scale and the California Critical Thinking Dispo-sitions Instrument (CCTDI). The orig-inally proposed seven factor structure of CCTDI by Facione et al. was tested which yielded a new factor structure with four types of critical thinking dispositions. The results of the path analysis and the model goodness of fit indices supported the meditational effect of satisfaction of basic psych-ological needs. The patterns in which satisfaction of basic psychological needs mediated the relationship bet-ween dimensions of family/teachers communication patterns and each of the critical thinking dispositions were different. In this study, these different patterns and their implications have been discussed.