Psychometric Properties of Critical Thinking Test among Managers of Iran Gas Transmission Company

Critical thinking helps people to consider and analyze a wide range of information. The importance of strengthening this skill is significant for managers because it leads to success and the overcoming of crises. The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Test, is a tool for measuring critical thinking and has been designed to combine the aspects of skill and tendency for critical thinking. The purpose of this study is to investigate psychometric properties of this test amomg the Iran Gas Transmission Company managers and to evaluate its psychometrics properties using validation and reliability methods as suitable tools for identifying and measuring critical thinking in the Iranian sample, especially among managers. The sample of the present study included 472 staff managers, who participated in the study of "The Development of Psychological Identity of the Managers at the Iran Gas Transmission Company" in 2018-2019, and responded to 80 questions of a computer-based version of the test. The findings of this study showed that the test on our sample society has four dimensions of analytical thinking, evaluation, interpretation, and assumption while its original version has five dimensions. Moreover, an exploratory factor analysis revealed that the two components of inference and inferring had to be merged and this new component was called analytical thinking. In addition, confirmatory factor analysis of the model with the four components was meaningful and desirable in all fit indices of the model. According to the results of this research, the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Test can be used to achieve research goals.