Assessing the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory

The purpose of this study was to: (1) translate the California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI) from English to Chinese; (2) ascertain the reliability and validity of Chinese CCTDI; and (3) assess the psychometric equivalencies across Chinese and English versions of the CCTDI. The CCTDI was designed to measure critical thinking dispositions of truth-seeking, open-mindedness, analyticity, systematicity, inquisitiveness, self-confidence and maturity, which has been approved with a significant difference from prior conceptualizations of critical thinking dispositions. It is the only measurement that has been validated to measure critical thinking disposition and is appropriate for use in nursing. Based on translation theory, the comparative study goal precisely matched with the strategy of decentered translation. The CCTDI was translated in multiple stages and back translated by a panel of bilingual experts. Content validity index (CVI) ranged from 0.50 to 0.80, with an overall CVI of 0.85. Pearson r ranged from 0.33 to 0.79, with an overall correlation of 0.79, indicating that evidence for stability in truth-seeking, open-mindedness and self-confidence existed. To ascertain internal consistency reliability and construct validity, monolingual samples were obtained from 214 and 196 undergraduate nursing students from Taiwan and the USA, respectively. For the Chinese CCTDI, subscale alphas ranged from 0.34 to 0.73, with an overall alpha of 0.71. For the English CCTDI, subscale alphas ranging from 0.52 to 0.73 and an overall alpha of 0.71 were obtained. In terms of a confirmatory factor analysis with LInear Structural RELationships (LISREL), the results indicate that evidence for construct validity existed for truth-seeking, open-mindedness, systematicity, and maturity for the Chinese CCTDI. After allowing some error to exist and deleting three items, evidence for construct validity existed for the remaining subscales. The results of the psychometric equivalencies across Chinese and English CCTDI showed similarity for content validity and reliability for inquisitiveness. In terms of multisample analysis, there were equal forms across all subscales of the two versions. Consequently, although the translation adequacy of the Chinese CCTDI needs to be improved, there is evidence that it is useful for evaluating critical thinking dispositions.