relationship between critical thinking dispositions and academic achivement in urmia secondary school students

relationship between critical thinking dispositions and academic achivement in urmia secondary school students     vahdat r [1] , zeinali a [2] , ahmadi doyran z [3] *     received: 2 sep, 2011 accepted: 5 dec, 2011     abstract   background& aims : these days critical thinking has been introduced as the main output of education by field experts. they notice teaching of thinking as a principal of learning. this study aimed to examine the association between critical thinking and high school students' educational progress.   materials & methods : this correlational study was conducted on 355 high school students in 2010-2011. california critical thinking willing test was used as data collection tool. descriptive and analytical tests including t-test and anova were applied for data analysis using spss.   results: mean and standard deviation of total score was 289.60 ±34.09. the lowest and highest scores were 190 and 398, respectively. accordingly, the trend of critical thinking and educational achievement has no relationship with sex, major, and degree.   conclusion : in the study, total score of critical thinking was high. education of critical thinking between instructor and students required interaction each other and creating an organized frame work for intellectual processes and using relevant skills and positions.   keywords : critical thinking, academic achievement, attitudes     address : islamic azad university, urmia branch, urmia, iran, tel: (+98) 09371706132   email : [email protected]   [1] instructor, islamic azad university, urmia branch, urmia, iran  [2] assistant professor, psychology department, islamic azad university, khoy branch, khoy, iran  [3] master student in education planning, islamic azad university, urmia branch, urmia, iran (corresponding author)