An investigation into the critical thinking skills of university students

The aim of the present study was to investigate into the critical thinking skills of late adolescent Turkish university students. The subjects of the study were the 39 students from the Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance, Faculty of Education, Uludag University. Two separate discussion groups, each including five students, were: composed to discuss the chosen topics in class for five weeks. While the first group was asked to develop ideas in favor of the given topic, the other was asked to develop counter arguments against it. Discussions were held during a class hour of 50 minutes. The recorded discussions were analyzed using a content analysis method. The speeches of students were placed into one of the four categories defined beforehand as: 'Indicating a person/people as reference', 'Indicating a document as proof, 'Making rational speech' and 'Making emotional speech'. The data analyses revealed that university students had a tendency to speak emotionally most of the time. This was followed, in order of frequency, by 'Speaking rationally', 'Indicating a document as proof, and 'Indicating a person/people as reference'. The results are discussed in the light of the related literature.