Assessing critical thinking skills of faculty of education undergraduate students with MaCTIv4 (Malaysian critical thinking instrument - Version 4)

Abstract

The actual current state of critical thinking skills of Malaysian undergraduate students is still vague, particularly the one that is assessed based on a Malaysian version of critical thinking test instrument. In response, this research adopted the Malaysian Critical Thinking Instrument - Version 4 (MaCTIv4). This instrument is based on the conceptualization of the Malaysian society critical thinking model namely the "Akbar Critical Thinking Model", which is designed to measure four cognitive skill areas: cognitive complexity, thinking disposition, metacognition, and conscience. This study employed a quantitative survey design with descriptive data analyses to examine the 173 test items.The sample involved 188 undergraduate final-year students from the Bachelor of Education program in the Faculty of Education, UniversitiTeknologi Malaysia. The results revealed that in overall, the general critical thinking ability of the final-year undergraduate students is at mediocre level. The students have an average critical thinking ability across all four areas of analysis (cognitive complexity, thinking disposition, metacognition, and conscience). The overall mean per centage scores for each cognitive skill areas are approximately 50 per cent with an overall grand mean per centage of 52.8 per cent. The higher order cognitive complexity component skills appeared to be the most problematic for the students. The findings imply the need for Malaysian universities to continuously explore and design various innovative instructional interventions to enhance students' critical thinking skills especially those that can inculcate cognitive complexity ability.