Thinking culture in the classroom and its relation with need for cognition of teachers and students

The purpose of this study was to identify current status of culture of thinking, need for cognition of teachers and students and their relationship between them in classrooms. Method of This research is descriptive, survey from correlation type. Statistical population include third grade to fifth grade classes of state elementary schools of Tehran. Using a multistage randomized cluster sampling, 52 schools were selected and in each school one class was observed using culture of thinking check list which made by the researchers. Moreover, 209 teachers and 1125 students of selected classes answered respectively to the Cacioppo, Petty & Kao (1984) of adult and Kokis, Macpherson, Toplak, West & Stanovich (2002) of children need for cognition scales. Results indicated mean of all thinking culture components, except modeling thinking, are significantly less than scale mean. Teachers’ need for cognition was at the average level and students’ need for cognition was significantly upper than average level. In addition, there is no significant relation between thinking culture components with teachers’ and students’ need for cognition. According to the importance of elementary school, policy makers and education planners should adopt measures for institutionalizing thinking culture and fostering thinking in students which are one of the most important goals of educational systems.