Investigating the Relationship between Critical Thinking and Religious Beliefs of Medical Students at Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz

Background and Purpose: Fostering critical thinking is one of the most important goals of higher education in any country. Considering the controversial issues regarding the role of religious beliefs in human life and reports on the impact of critical thinking on religious beliefs, the present study aimed to investigate the Relationship between critical thinking and religious beliefs in medical students in Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences in 2020. Materials and Methods: This descriptive-correlational study was performed on 154 (79 female and 75 male) medical students of Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences in 2020 by convenience sampling method. The California Critical Thinking Skills Test  (Form B) and  Glock and Stark's questionnaires were used for data collection. To investigate the Relationship between critical thinking skill and religiosity, the data were analyzed in SPSS software (version 18) using the Pearson correlation coefficient. A p-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Regarding gender, 75 (48.5%) students were male, and 79 (51.5%) cases were female, with a mean age of 23.1±3.2 years. The mean scores of students' critical thinking skills and religious beliefs were obtained at 12.95±4.7 and 76.88± 17 17.4, respectively. The results demonstrated no statistically significant relationship between the mean scores of critical thinking skills and religious beliefs (r = -0.01, P= 0.455). Conclusion: As evidenced by the results of this study, there was no significant relationship between critical thinking skills and the religiosity of students. That is to say, critical thinking and religious beliefs are not inherently incompatible, and religious beliefs do not create a barrier to students' critical thinking.