Design and validation of a self-assessment questionnaire of basic thinking skills

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Since assessment of basic thinking skills is crucial in identifying an individual’s cognitive capacities and comprehending their strengths and weaknesses, developing a suitable evaluating instrument holds significant importance in scheduling the training of basic thinking skills. This study aims to develop and subsequently validate a self-assessment questionnaire of basic thinking skills for medical sciences students. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present study of designing and psychometrically testing the self-assessment questionnaire of basic thinking skills among medical sciences students was conducted between 2022 and 2023 at Isfahan University. For the validity review, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was employed. The adequacy of sample size was checked with the KMO index and Bartlett’s test of sphericity. To perform EFA, principal factor analysis with Varimax rotation was performed. To obtain evidence of reliability, the internal consistency of the questionnaire was examined using Cronbach’s alpha. The instrument stability was assessed through test-retest and intra-cluster correlation coefficient (ICC) analysis. RESULTS: The KMO (Keyser-Meyer-Elkin) sampling index was 780, and Bartlett’s sphericity test (BT) was also significant (P = .000). In analyzing the main components and checking the value, the first five components had an eigenvalue above one. The highest percentage of the total variance (67.64%) was explained by the first five factors, while the remaining variance (33.35%) was explained by the remaining 14 factors. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for 19 items of the final questionnaire was 0.83. Intra-cluster correlation index (ICC) for overall self-assessment of thinking skills (ICC = 0.77), self-assessment of basic thinking skills (ICC = 0.80), self-assessment of lateral thinking (ICC = 0.78), and the necessity of teaching thinking skills (ICC = 0.74)) were all above 0.7 (P < 0.001). DISCUSSION: This study offers the first self-assessment questionnaire for basic thinking skills of medical sciences students which can be employed as a valid and reliable instrument for self-assessment of thinking skills and gaining insight into their training experiences. While the psychometrics of this questionnaire were based on the data from medical students, this questionnaire applies to students across various academic disciplines and is not limited to medical fields.