A preliminary investigation into critical thinking of in-service and pre-service middle school chemistry teachers in Shaanxi province of China

For the in-service teachers, 69 valid questionnaires were returned, representing a response rate of 72.6%. The response rate for the pre-service cohort was 100%, with 48 valid questionnaires returned.

In-service and pre-service teacher' critical thinking skills

Table 1 show that the CCTST mean scores of the pre-service teachers are higher than scores of the in-service teachers: the pre-service teachers' is 12.46 with an SD of 2.34, vs. the in-service 11.01 with an SD of 2.80. Compared with the data of the CCTST manual offered by Luo and Yang's report on the revision of the Chinese-version CCTST (2002) (M=15.98, SD=4.457), the critical thinking skills of the teachers attending the test are at low level.

Figure 1 is the profiles of the three skills' scores of in-service and pre-service teachers on the CCTST. Obviously, the three subscales' mean score reflect that the pre-service teacher performed better than the in-service teacher: A-scale's score of in-service teacher is 4.59, vs. pre-service 5.00, E-scale's of in-service 3.65, vs. pre-service 4.31 and Inf-scale's of in-service 2.77, vs. pre-service 3.15. According to statistical t-test, there is significant difference between in-service teacher and pre-service teacher (p = 0.002), which shows that critical thinking skills of pre-service teachers are reliably higher than that of in-service teachers.

Table 1 Descriptive and inferential statistics of all the participation's CCTST score.
	In-service(N=69)		Pre-service(N=61)		t-test
Subscale	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	t	p
Analysis	4.59	1.54	5.00	1.55	-2.465	0.015
Evaluation	3.65	1.47	4.31	1.59	-1.497	0.0137
Inference	3.15	1.11	3.15	1.11	-1.772	0.079
CCTST	-3.174	2.80	12.46	2.34	-3.174	0.002**

Fig1. The profiles of the three skills' scores of in-service and pre-service teachers on the CCTST

In-service and pre-service teachers' Critical thinking dispositions

The subscales and overall scores, means and standard deviations of the dispositions toward critical thinking of the research populations (in-service and pre-service teachers) are given in table 2, followed by their corresponding CTD profiles in figure 2.

The data indicate two groups have an overall positive disposition towards CT, with a mean score of 294.08 with a SD of 27.82(In-service teacher) and a mean score of 296.69 with a SD of 22.26 (Pre-service). These show the Chinese teachers' CT disposition at an average level.

See table 2 and figure 2, four of the seven subscale mean scores (Analyticity, Systematicity, CT-confidence, Inquisitiveness) for the in-service teachers were founded to be above 40 and three below 40 (Truth-seeking, open-mindedness, Maturity). In contrast, for the pre-service teachers, five of the seven subscales mean scores (Maturity, Analyticity, Systematicity, CT-confidence, Inquisitiveness) were found to be above 40 and two below 40 (Truth-seeking, open-mindedness).

As can be seen in table 2, there are no statistically significant differences between the in-service teacher and the pre-service teacher on seven out of the seven subscales of the CCTDI. Statistical t-test as follows: Truth-seeking (p = 0.237), Open-mindedness (p = 0.721), Analyticity (p = 0.800), Systematicity (p = 0.910), CT Self-Confidence (p = 0.109), Inquisitiveness (p = 0.660) and Maturity ( p = 0.066). Similarly, the difference between the total scores on the CCTDI of the in-service and pre-service teachers (294.08 VS. 296.69) is not statistically significant (p = 0.636), the pre-service teachers have higher critical disposition than the in-service teachers'.

Table 2 Descriptive and inferential statistics of all the participation's CCTDI score.
	In-service(N=69)		Pre-service(N=61)		t-tests
Subscale	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	t-value	p-value
Truth	37.62	7.28	39.15	7.31	-1.189	0.237
Openmind	38.91	6.58	37.15	5.78	-0.357	0.721
Analyt	46.79	6.88	47.08	5.74	-0.254	0.800
System	43.36	6.35	43.24	5.17	0.114	0.910
Confid	42.80	6.35	43.18	5.81	1.616	0.109
Inquis	45.72	7.86	46.26	5.73	-0.441	0.660
Mature	38.16	7.17	40.23	5.28	-1.854	0.066
CCTDI	294.08	29.74	296.29	22.26	0.474	0.636