VALIDATION OF CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS SCALE (CTSS) FOR UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Abstract: The cultivation of critical thinking skills is paramount for students, notably at the tertiary education level. The objective of this study is to determine the factor structure of an instrument, the Critical Thinking Skill Scale (CTSS henceforth) . The instrument utilised in this study encompasses five skills that are important in students’ critical thinking skills, namely (1) interpretation, (2) analysis, (3) inference, (4) evaluation, (5) explanation. A two-stage sampling procedure was implemented, and the first stage involved selecting undergraduates to build a pool of samples. Subsequently, snowball sampling was employed in the second stage. Collectively, a total of one hundred eighty-two responses were obtained. The data underwent descriptive analysis, reliability analysis, and exploratory factor analysis (EFA). This 49-item instrument obtained a reliability score of 0.982, which translates as an excellent measure of critical thinking skills. The exploratory factor analysis revealed that the scale retained one component only, instead of the original five, which explains 53.714%. Another notable finding in this study was that one item was removed from the first component. The validation of this instrument will not only deepen the critical thinking skills measurement literature, but also sheds light on the critical thinking sub-skills that need to be cultivated across all learning programmes. Keywords: Critical Thinking; Critical Thinking Skills Scale; CTSS; Exploratory Factor Analysis; EFA