EFFECT OF CREATIVE THINKING TENDENCIES ON REFLECTIVE THINKING SKILLS

This study aimed to examine whether the effect of creative thinking tendencies of prospective Turkish teachers on reflective thinking levels and predictive level and whether these two latent variables differed significantly in terms of gender and grade level variables. The study group of the research determined by random sampling method consisted of 210 prospective teachers who were studying their 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th years in Turkish Language Teaching Department at Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University in the fall semester of 2018-2019 academic year. Creative Thinking Tendencies and Reflective Thinking Level Scale was used to collect the data of the study which was conducted with relational screening model. IBM SPSS 23 and AMOS (Analysis of Moment Structures) 22.0 software were used for data analysis. Central tendency and measures of dispersion (frequency, percentage, mean, kurtosis and skewness) were calculated for the descriptive statistics and demographic variables in the study. The analyses of confirmatory factor and structural equation modeling were conducted with AMOS 22.0 software. Maximum likehood method was preferred for the estimation of the parameters related to the structural equation model. Fit indices of χ2/df, CFI, GFI, TLI, NFI, IFI, RMSEA and SRMR were used to evaluate the goodness of fit index values obtained from the analyses. According to the results of the research, creative thinking tendencies explained 29% of reflective thinking level and predicted it at a positive and significant level. In addition, it was found that the creative thinking tendencies of prospecitve Turkish teachers differed significantly in favor of male prospecive teachers in terms of gender variable in the dimensions of novelty seeking, curiosity, doubt and flexibility dimensions. Reflective thinking tendencies had similar characteristics in terms of gender variable. It was found that the scale showed significant differences only in the dimension of courage in terms of grade level variable in favor of 4th year students. It also showed significant differences in the total scale in terms of reflective thinking tendencies in favor of 4th year students. Based on these results, although there are other variables that affect the reflective thinking levels of prospective Turkish teachers, it can be said that some implementations should be performed towards increasing creative thinking tendencies in order to increase reflective thinking levels.

Keywords

creative thinking, reflective thinking, grade, gender, structural equation modeling.