Development and validation of the critical thinking disposition inventory for Chinese medical college students (CTDI-M)

Abstract Background This study aimed to develop and conduct psychometric testing of the Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory to measure the critical thinking disposition of Chinese medical college students. Methods The study was conducted in two stages: (a) item generation, reliability analysis and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and (b) confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and testing of psychometric properties (Cronbach’ s alpha, test-retest reliability and convergent validity). The subjects included 1035 Chinese medical college students. The test-retest reliability of the instrument was determined at a two-week interval (n = 61). A general linear regression model was developed to examine the predictive effects of gender, age and major on CT disposition. The data were analysed with SPSS 22.0 and Amos 21.0 during item development and the reliability and validity analyses. Vista was utilized for parallel analysis during the principal axis analysis. Results Eighteen final items were sorted into 3 factors, which were identified as “Open-mindedness”, “Systematicity/Analyticity” and “Truth-seeking”, with cumulative variance of 41.37, 46.00 and 49.59%, respectively. The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.924, and the factors’ alphas ranged from 0.824 to 0.862. The correlational analysis indicated significant correlations between the subscales of the CTDI-CM and the total scores of the CTDI-CV, indicating modest evidence for the convergent validity of the CTDI-CM. Gender, age and education significantly predicted the CT disposition of Chinese medical students. Open-mindedness and Systematicity/Analyticity were higher for medical students than for nursing students. Conclusions This study presents a reliable and valid instrument for clinical thinking disposition. Future studies should explore other predictive factors of CT dispositions (e.g., cognitive/motivational) and criterion validity.