The Level of Critical Thinking Among Gifted and Non-Gifted Students and the Differences between Gifted and Non-Gifted in Critical Thinking Sub-Skills

Abstract

The aim of the study was to investigate the level of critical thinking among gifted and non-gifted undergraduate students at the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Jordan and the differences between gifted and non-gifted students in critical thinking skills. The sample consisted of (340) students. The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal was administered on all the members of the sample. Frequencies and percentages of students in each category of critical thinking (low, moderate, and high) were calculated for gifted and non-gifted students, then, a one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to study the differences between gifted and non-gifted students in critical thinking skills. Main findings indicated that, first, among non-gifted students, only (2.95%) showed high critical thinking ability, whereas (48.33%) and (48.7%) showed moderate and high critical thinking ability, respectively, second, among gifted students, (10.95%) showed high level of critical thinking, (64.7%) showed moderate level of critical thinking, whereas (25%) showed low level of critical thinking ability, and finally, gifted students outperformed non-gifted students in performance on four sub-skills; namely, recognition of assumptions, deduction, evaluation of arguments, whereas there was no differences between the two groups in performance on interpretation. These results indicated that the level of critical thinking skills is not high for both gifted and non-gifted students.