Critical Thinking Skills and Critical Thinking Dispositions in Freshmen and Senior Students of Health Care Management

Introduction: Nowadays, experts introduce critical thinking as the main outcome of higher education and consider teaching "how to think" as the basis for learning. This study compares the critical thinking skills and critical thinking dispositions in freshmen and senior students of health care management. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed on a sample of 60 freshmen and senior students of health care management. The data gathering tools included California critical thinking skills test, as well as California critical thinking dispositions inventory. Data was analyzed by SPSS software using descriptive statistics, T-test, and Chi². Results: The mean and standard deviation of critical thinking skills total score in freshmen and senior students was respectively 11.55±2.18 and 11.21±2.59, which was in the normal limit for both. There was no significant difference between the freshmen and senior students' score patterns. Considering critical thinking disposition total score, the mean and standard deviation in freshmen, was 282.37±27.93 and in senior students was 289.64±21.13. There was a significant difference between the score pattern of critical thinking disposition in freshmen and senior students. The scores of senior students were higher than freshmen scores. Conclusion: The total score of critical thinking skills achieved by students was in a normal limit. Also, the total score of critical thinking dispositions revealed the students' positive tendency. But, with regard to the reported scores from other similar schools of the world, administrators and teachers should pay more attention to their educational planning in developing cultivating critical thinking skills.