The relationships of critical thinking skills, critical thinking dispositions, and college experiences of theological students in Indonesia.

摘要

The purposes of this study were to assess the critical thinking skills of theological students in Indonesia and to explore the relationships between these students' critical thinking skills and their demographic profiles, critical thinking dispositions, and college experiences. All third-year students who pursued either the Sarjana Theologi (a bachelor degree in theology) or Master of Divinity degree from 6 theological schools in Java, Indonesia, participated in this study. These 6 schools were selected based on their accreditation status.;This study utilized the California Critical Thinking Skills Test, the California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory, and the College Student Experience Questionnaire, and 3 additional questions. The sample consisted of 152 usable data (91 females, 61 males) out of 171 survey questionnaires gathered for this study. The data were analyzed by using ANOVA tests and Tukey post hoc procedures, Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U post hoc procedures, Chi-square, and Spearman Rho tests to find the differences between schools, and to search for the relationships between critical thinking skills and critical thinking dispositions, college experiences, and demographic profiles.;The findings revealed that theological students in this population had lower critical thinking skills than 4-year college students in the United States. The correlation results indicated that critical thinking dispositions, especially analyticity and maturity attitudes, played important roles in motivating students to perform critical thinking, though the impact was not very strong. Age, gender, GPA, and educational background had significant relationships with critical thinking skills, but the effect sizes of age and gender were small compared to those of GPA and educational background. Relationships with faculty had small and negative significant impacts on critical thinking skills. The overall findings showed that quantitative experiences in using libraries, doing course- related activities, and having relationships with faculty and peers had no, or little, impact on critical thinking skills when those experiences were not accompanied by intentions to develop students' critical thinking ability.;Further studies in a larger population are recommended for comparison with the findings of this study. Moreover, other research procedures or instruments are suggested to gain more insight into Indonesian students' critical thinking and its relationship with college experiences.