An empirical investigation of critical thinking, dogmatism, and gender

Graduation date: 1990Many educators are currently revising their curricula\ud to include critical thinking. However, there are factors\ud which apparently allow some students to become better\ud critical thinkers than others. Such factors are the concern\ud of two mentors of this researcher: Ron Manuto and Lloyd\ud Crisp. Both the Manuto and Crisp (1987) and the Crisp and\ud Manuto (1987) studies inquired into possible characteristics\ud relating to critical thinking, as measured by the Watson-\ud Glaser Critical Thinking Test, form A (1980): dogmatism,\ud self-distortion, gender, age, and academic major. The first\ud hypothesis of this study predicted that there was an inverse\ud relationship between dogmatism and critical thinking, a\ud hypothesis supported in the Manuto-Crisp (1987) study. The\ud second hypothesis predicted that males would score higher\ud on the Cornell Critical Thinking Test (1985) than would\ud females. Crisp and Manuto found that males scored\ud significantly higher on the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking\ud Test than did females. An aim of this study was to\ud determine whether the use of different critical thinking\ud measures would generate different findings. The final area\ud of investigation of this study was a research question: Do\ud females and males score differently on dogmatism?\ud The first hypothesis of this study predicted that there\ud would be an inverse relationship between critical thinking\ud and dogmatism and was supported by the findings. The\ud critical thinking and dogmatism findings of this study were\ud very similar to the results of the Manuto-Crisp (1987) study\ud indicating that the two different critical thinking measures\ud apparently do not generate different results when relative\ud to Rokeach's Dogmatism Scale.\ud The second hypothesis of this study was that males\ud would score higher on the Cornell Critical Thinking Test\ud than would females was not supported by the findings. Males\ud scored higher than females, as predicted, however not\ud significantly higher.\ud Finally, the findings of this study indicated that\ud males scored significantly higher than females on Rokeach's\ud Dogmatism Scale