Translation and validation of the California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory

Abstract

The California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory (CCTDI) developed by Facione and Facione in 1992 is designed to measure critical thinking dispositions. This 75-item instrument includes seven major subscales: truth-seeking, open-mindedness, analyticity, systematicity, inquisitiveness, self-confidence and maturity. The purpose of this methodological study was to: (1) translate the CCTDI from English to Chinese; (2) ascertain the reliability and validity of the Chinese CCTDI; and (3) assess psychometric equivalencies across Chinese and English versions of the CCTDI. The conceptualization of critical thinking includes two dimensions: cognitive skills and affective dispositions. Personal factors, academic achievement, knowledge base, and environmental factors are thought to be related to each dimension. Based on translation theory, the comparative study goal precisely matched with the strategy of decentered translation. The CCTDI was translated in multiple stages and backtranslated by a panel of bilingual experts. To ascertain content validity for the Chinese CCTDI two Chinese experts rated the item-objective relevancy. The CVIs ranged from .50 to .80, with an overall CVI of .85. To ascertain test-retest reliability, 40 Chinese undergraduate nursing students completed the Chinese CCTDI on two separate occasions. The Pearson r ranged from .33 to .79, with an overall correlation of .79. Evidence for stability of the truth-seeking, open-mindedness, and self-confidence subscales existed. To ascertain internal consistency reliability and construct validity, monolingual samples of 214 and 196 undergraduate nursing students were obtained from Taiwan and the United States, respectively. For the Chinese CCTDI, subscale alphas ranged from .34 to .73, with an overall alpha of .71. For the English version, subscale alphas ranging from .52 to .73 and an overall alpha of .71 were obtained. Alphas were below .70 for the subscales of the Chinese version except for inquisitiveness. A confirmatory factor analysis with LISREL 8 was used to determine construct validity for the Chinese CCTDI. Evidence for construct validity existed for the truth-seeking, open-mindedness, systematicity, and maturity subscales. After allowing some error covariances to exist and deleting three items, evidence for construct validity existed for the remaining subscales. The results of the psychometric equivalencies across the Chinese and English CCTDI showed similarity for content validity and reliability for inquisitiveness. In terms of multisample analysis, there were equal forms across all subscales of the two versions. Consequently, although translation adequacy of the Chinese CCTDI needs to improve, there is evidence that it is useful for evaluating critical thinking dispositions.