Critical Thinking in Initial Teacher Education: Secondary Data Analysis from Ahelo GS Feasibility Study in Slovakia

The study presents a secondary analysis of the “Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes, Generic Skills Strand”, the international study of critical thinking skills (OECD, 2012). National secondary analyses include a comparison of student teachers (n = 110) and students of other study programmes (n = 413) in critical thinking and investigates a potential relation of contextual characteristics with their critical thinking performance. Performance Task and Multiple Choice Questions were used to measure critical thinking skills and a Contextual Questionnaire was used to collect socio-demographic data, and subjectively evaluated characteristics related to test-taking motivation and coursework. The main results showed that student teachers scored lower in critical thinking performance than students of other study programmes.

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