Internal norm of the California Critical Thinking Test Form B in graduate students

Critical thinking is used to improving individual skills to determine the value and advantages of a phenomenon, factor or, information.

The current descriptive research was conducted using a cross-sectional survey method. The research population included 260 graduate students of Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences who randomly participated in the research. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, difficulty factor, and discrimination factor were used to standardize the test.

The findings of the exploratory factor analysis led to the identification of a model with 28 items and four factors "evaluation", "analysis", "deduction" and "interpretation". This model with an internal similarity of 0.832 can explain more than 41% of the changes in critical thinking. The correlation between all identified factors was positive and significant. The findings of confirmatory factor analysis showed CFI=0.861, GFI=0.838 and, RMSEA=0.049 and indicate the confirmation. Findings of difficulty and discrimination indices showed that more than half of the test questions are difficult and have a weak ability to distinguish between strong and weak students. Also, 4 questions had a discrimination index of zero or negative.

California Critical Thinking Test Form B is norm and valid for Iranian students. However, due to the high difficulty of more than half of the questions and their weak ability to distinguish weak and strong students, it needs to be modified for use in Iranian students.