Philippine E-Journals

Determining the Construct Validity of a Critical Thinking Test

Marcos Y. Lopez

Discipline: Psychology

 

Abstract:

This study deals with verbal reports of thinking in relation to determining the construct validity of each item of The CEU-Lopez Critical Thinking Test (Lopez, 2012) which is multi-aspect general knowledge critical thinking test designed for Filipino tertiary students. The procedure is based on the adapted methodology of Norris (1992) in validating his co-authoredTest on Appraising Observations (Norris & King, 1983). Seven methodological phases were utilized in this study: determining the participants who would be part of sets of interviewees, adapting an interviewing methodology for eliciting trustworthy reports of thinking, collecting verbal reports of thinking, scoring verbal reports of thinking and choice of answer, comparing performance and thinking scores as basis for judging items, modifying suspected items, and retrying the revised or the replaced items in accord with steps 3 to 6. Items were revised, retained, and discarded based on the correlation of thinking and performance scores together with looking into the relevant insights of verbal reports of thinking given by examinees to establish construct validity of the test. It is concluded that verbal reports of thinking are useful in establishing the construct validity of a multi-aspect general knowledge critical thinking test.