The relationship between cognitive skills and critical thinking abilities of Liberal Arts students in Rajamangala University of Technology Rattanakosin

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to study cognitive skills, critical thinking abilities and the relationship between cognitive skills and critical thinking abilities of the undergraduate students at the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Rajamangala University of Technology Rattanakosin. The sample group used in this study were 180 undergraduate students at the Faculty of Liberal Arts in the second semester of academic year 2013 and they were selected by the stratified random sampling technique. Two instruments used in this study were the cognitive skills test and critical thinking abilities test. Data were analyzed by frequency distributions, percentages, means and standard deviations, the simple correlation and One- way ANOVA. The findings of this study were as follows: 1. The relationship between cognitive skills and critical thinking abilities The cognitive skills of total undergraduate students of Faculty of Liberal Arts were positively related to the critical thinking abilities at the 0.05 level of significance; except for the comparing skill and the differentiating skill were not statistically related to the critical thinking abilities. 2. Different majors did not have an effect in cognitive skills and critical thinking abilities of the undergraduate students of Faculty of Liberal Arts significantly at statistic level of 0.05. In addition, different majors did not have an effect in critical thinking abilities of the undergraduate students of Faculty of Liberal Arts significantly at statistic level of 0.05.