The disposition toward critical thinking of high school and university science students: an inter-intra Israeli-Italian Study

The California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI) was used to assess the disposition of Israeli and Italian high school and university sc ience students toward critical thinking. The study sought to establish base -lines for these groups as well as quantifying the differences between two national populations. Significant differences between the Israeli and Itali an high school science students in the total score and those of five subsca les of the CCTDI have been found, the largest on the Open-Mindedness and Se lf-Confidence subscales. The overall scores of high school and university s cience students on the CCTDI in both countries were essentially the same, w ith quite a similar pattern in the corresponding disposition profiles. Alth ough the CCTDI can be reliably used for establishing base-line differences between science student populations, the effect of a specific approach to t eaching (e.g. HOGS-orientation vs traditional) on the stability or change o f this aspect of critical thinking remains an open question.