Development and Validation of the Chinese Critical Thinking Disposition Scale among Foreign Language Students

Abstract

Although much research acknowledges the positive contributions of CT dispositions to learning a foreign language, less scale development work has focused on the dispositions towards critical thinking of foreign language students in the Chinese language, leading to the limited availability of reliable and valid Chinese critical thinking disposition measurements in foreign language education. The current research aims to develop and validate the Chinese Critical Thinking Disposition Scale using Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) in two foreign language student samples from China. It filled the gap of limited reliable and valid Chinese scales assessing critical thinking disposition. A total of 538 (103 for EFA and 435 for CFA) foreign language students in China from Zaozhuang University and Jiangxi Normal University participated in the study. Results of the CFA confirmed a five-factor CHCTDS with 17 items on a seven-point Likert scale as an acceptable model fit for the data (χ2/df= 3.492, NFI= .911, CFI= .934, TLI= .918, IFI= .935, and RMSEA= .076) with good reliability and convergent as well as discriminant validity. The Cronbach’s α was .934 for the overall scale, and that of the five subscales ranged from .776 to .851. Therefore, the CHCTDS developed in this paper may be recommended as a valid Chinese scale measuring foreign language learners’ critical thinking dispositions. Still, it needs further validation among larger populations and across gender.