A Comparative Study On Critical Thinking Ability Of Liberal Art Postgraduates And Science And Engineering Postgraduates

Postgraduate education plays an important role in China's higher education.Because postgraduates are not only the reserve force of Chinese high-level talents,but also are the important foundation of the innovative country.Critical thinking is not only an important standard to measure the quality of talents,but also an indispensable psychological quality in the process of learning and innovation.A lot of studies on the cultivation of postgraduates'critical thinking are aimed at medical nursing.Relatively speaking,there is little research on critical thinking of science and engineering and liberal art postgraduates.Although studies have shown that postgraduates lack critical thinking,studies of postgraduates' critical thinking are still in the embryonic stage,and they are far from enough in their depth and breadth.Based on the current situation,this study is based on the Double-Core Structural Model of Facione to research the following problems.1)What is critical thinking status quo of two postgraduate groups respectively?2)Are there any differences between two postgraduate groups in critical thinking?Are there any differences between two postgraduate groups in the subscales of critical thinking disposition and critical thinking skill?If yes,are there significant differences?3)What are the main factors influencing the critical thinking of two postgraduate groups?This study is a comparative study.The subjects are all from Hunan University,and 150 postgraduates of Grade I from college of civil engineering,college of mechanical and vehicle engineering,college of physics and microelectronics science and 150 postgraduates of Grade lform college of China Language Institute,college of Marxism,Yue Lu Academy Institute,Science and Education Institute and college of Foreign Language.The Chinese version of California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory(CCTDI-CV)and Chinese version of California Critical Thinking Skills Test(CCTST)are applied to test subjects' critical thinking disposition and critical thinking skill and then analyze the data collected from the test with Statistical Package for the Social Sciences(SPSS)to do the descriptive and comparison analyses.The results show that:1)The critical thinking of science and engineering postgraduates and liberal arts postgraduates are in the middle level.Specifically,two postgraduate groups are comparatively strong in the inquisitiveness subscale while they are rather weak in CT-confidence and truth-seeking.The subjects showed outstanding performance in the analysis skill,but were relatively weak in evaluation and inference skills.2)There is no significant difference in the total score of critical thinking dispositions and critical thinking skills between two postgraduate groups.For the seven subscales of critical thinking dispositions,there is significant difference between the two postgraduate groups'open-mindedness disposition and no significant difference in other six sub dispositions.And for the three skills of critical thinking skills,there is no significant difference in evaluation and inference but there is significant difference in the analysis skill.3)As a whole,the main factors that influence critical thinking of science and engineering postgraduates and liberal arts postgraduates are education environment,attitude of critical thinking,learning methods,think set and education system.This study shows that there is no significant difference between two postgraduate groups in critical thinking,but their critical thinking needs to be further cultivated.The author suggests that we can improve the critical thinking of postgraduates from the aspects of education environment,attitude of critical thinking,learning methods,think set and education system.