CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS OF SELECTED YOUTH LEADERS: THE EFFICACY OF CRITICAL THINKING DISPOSITIONS, LEADERSHIP, AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

摘要

The purpose of this correlational study was to identify and explain the agricultural and leadership specific critical thinking skills of selected youth leaders in the National FFA Organization. From the conceptual model of critical thinking skills development in Figure 1, the following sets of variables were related to critical thinking skills: Grade point average (GPA), leadership training score, and the critical thinking disposition of innovativeness explained 12% of the variance in combined critical thinking skill; GPA, gender, age, and innovativeness explained 13% of the variance in the specific sub-skill of Analysis; and GPA and the Innovativeness disposition explained nine percent of the variance in the specific sub-skill of Inference.