Mediating effect analysis of Critical thinking disposition and Academic self-efficacy between Students' participation in research activities and Research competency improvement in humanities for College students

Objectives The purpose of this study is to investigate the mediating effect of critical thinking disposition and academic self-efficacy between students' participation in research activities and research competency improvement in Humanities for college students. Methods The data from 317 college students enrolled in liberal arts track nationwide were collected in order to measure variables. Hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrapping were performed using SPSS 26.0 and Process Macro 4.0 version. Results The results are as follows. First, the mediating effect of critical thinking disposition and academic self-efficacy was statistically significant between students’ participation in the curricular activities such as writing research papers or learning research methods in major and research competency improvement. The mediating effect of academic self-efficacy was statistically significant between students’ participation in extra curricular activities such as writing research papers or learning research methods and research competency improvement; however, mediating effect of critical thinking disposition was not statistically significant between them. Second, the mediating effect of academic self-efficacy was statistically significant between students’ participation in curricular research meetings or research projects in major and research competency improvement; however, the mediating effect of critical thinking disposition was not statistically significant between them. Especially, none of the mediating effect of critical thinking disposition and academic self-efficacy was statistically significant between students’ participation in extra curricular research meetings or research projects and research competency improvement. Conclusions The results suggest that writing research papers or learning research methods may as well be provided for students as curricular activities with more deepening research contents and continual time interval to improve students' research competency mediating critical thinking disposition. Also, college instructors need supporting continuously by the university in order that they can be qualified and get ready to facilitate the research class seamlessly.