Occupational Therapy BSc student's Critical Thinking Skills at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran

Critical Thinking is the ability of problem solving and decision making. It is the goal of learning and necessary for clinical reasoning. Rehabilitation has an important role in health care process. Rehabilitation specialists’ critical thinking skills directly influence the services they provide. The present study aimed to assess occupational therapy BSc students’ critical thinking skills in different years.
Methods and Materials: In the present descriptive-analytic study, 72 occupational therapy students were selected from Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Scineces based on Census and filled in the demographic sheet and California Critical Thinking Skills Test-B.
The mean score for students’ critical thinking was 11/60±3/15 in the first academic year, 12/56±3/73 in the second year, 13/56± 4/35 in the third year, and 11/68± 4/41 in the fourth year. However, there was no significant difference in the total Critical Thinking and skills scores among students of different academic years.
Despite the importance of Critical Thinking, it seems that it is not well-developed during their studies at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran. Two important factors might be the potential insufficiency of educational system and the occupational therapy curriculum. Thus, revising teaching methods and the occupation therapy curriculum seems necessary and beneficial.