Exploring of Dispositions toward Critical Thinking in Pre-service Elementary Science Teachers

The purpose of this study is to examine on the dispositions towards critical thinking of pre-service elementary science teachers. This study is a descriptive research and the research model of this study is relational screening model. Study group was determined through the using of homogeneous sampling which is one of the purposive sampling methods. In this context, 540 students in the department of elementary science teaching were included in study group from Ahi Evran University, Gazi University and Aksaray University during 2010-2011 academic year. As a data collection tool, The California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI-R) which was developed by Facione, Facione and Giancarlo (1998) and translated into Turkish by K kdemir (2003) was used. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the latest scale which has six dimensions and 51 items was calculated as .88. The scale was prepared as ten-point likert scale. In this study, the data gathered through the CCTDI-R was analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) 15. According to the findings, dispositions toward critical thinking of pre-service elementary science teachers are generally above medium-level (60%).