Validity and Reliability of the Chinese Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory

Abstract

Objective Aim In collaborating nurse educators from different Chinese communities, this study aimed to test the validity and reliability of a Chinese version of critical thinking disposition inventory (CTDI CV), which has conceptual equivalence with the California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI), and at the same time is culturally sensitive to be applied in Chinese speaking students.Method The study comprised two phases. The first phase was focus group interviews and expert panel review for establishing the content validity of CTDI CV. The second phase was questionnaire survey, for testing CTDI CV's comprehensibility and reliability, and establishing the normative index of disposition toward critical thinking of nursing students in different Chinese communities. Two rounds of questionnaires were conducted. The first round involved 460 students from five Chinese cities. And the second round had 1829 students from six Chinese cities.Results CTDI CV is adopted from CCTDI, which conceptualizes the constituents of CT disposition in seven aspects. They are truth seeking, open mindedness, inquisitiveness, analyticity, systematicity, critical thinking self confidence, and cognitive maturity. CTDI CV has three major modifications. First, the item wordings were selected from the focus interview verbatim transcriptions. This is to ensure that the language used is comprehensible by students at high school level. Second, 16 items were contextualized by adding a hypothetical situation or by accommodating the Chinese cultural norms that takes modesty as a virtue in the item descriptions. Third, CTDI CV simplifies the scoring formula of CCTDI, but retaining the same subscale and total scoring points. The overall CVI was 0.89 , with the subscale CVI ranging from 0.6 to 1. The overall alpha was 0.90. Subscale alphas ranged between 0.54 and 0.77. These readings show satisfactory content validity and internal consistency. The total CTDI CV score was 287.89, and five subscale scores were 40. The Chinese students showed overall positive critical thinking disposition except in the aspects of truth seeking and systematicity.Conclusion CTDI CV is instrumental to help students reflect on their own critical thinking capabilities. The results are indicative for teachers to design learning activities for enhancing students' critical thinking, and to evaluate the effect of such teaching activities.

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