The Relationship between Media Literacy Rates and Students’ Critical Thinking

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between literacy rate and Critical thinking of undergraduate students at Bu-Ali Sina University. This research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-correlation in terms of nature. The statistical population of the study were all students of Hamedan University of Bu Ali Sina who were studying in the academic year of 98-97. Based on the Karjesi and Morgan tables, 500 people were selected using a comparative stratified sampling method. Data collection was done by means of two questionnaires (Researcher-made Literacy Questionnaire and Rickets Critical Thinking Survey Questionnaire 2005). The content validity of the questionnaire was confirmed. The reliability of the questionnaires was also obtained by calculating the Cronbach's alpha coefficient as 0.74 and 0.85. To analyze the data, descriptive and inferential statistics- such as mean, percent, Kolmogrov-Smirnov test, single-group T test, Pearson correlation test and stepwise regression test- were used in the spss software environment. Based on the findings of the present study, the rate of literacy and critical thinking of undergraduate students at Bu-Ali Sina University is higher than the average (3). Also, the results of Pearson correlation tests and stepwise regression show that there is a direct correlation between literacy and students' critical thinking; in other words, the higher the level of Media Literacy, the more cognitive thinking will increase and if the level of literacy skills is lower, the student's critical thinking will be at a low level too, and it is obvious that all components of the Media Literacy can predict the student's critical thinking.