THE EFFECT OF CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS AND EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE ON THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL BELIEFS OF STUDENTS IN A CHILD DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

Abstract

The scientific and technological advances in the current information era have given rise to the need for qualified work force. Individuals are expected to assess their strengths and weaknesses, to have curiosity, to be able to think rapidly and to make accurate decisions, in broader terms, they should have the abilities to think critically, to use emotions in ingenious, sensitive, beneficial and sensible ways, and should be aware of the significance of epistemology. The present study was intended to measure the effect of critical thinking skills and emotional intelligence on the epistemological beliefs of the students enrolled in a Child Development program in a higher education institution. Given such an objective, the Emotional Intelligence Scale, the Critical Thinking Scale and the Epistemological Belief Scale were administered to 102 participant students who were selected via convenient sampling model in the Child Development program of a Vocational School of Health Services in a state university in Turkey. In the data analysis stage, the scale sub-dimensions of skewness and kurtosis values were initially examined in and later on the multivariate normality analysis, multi correlation tests between variables and multiple linear regression tests were performed. The findings revealed that when the “perception” sub-dimension, one of the six dimensions of emotional intelligence increased, the “effort” sub-dimension in epistemological beliefs decreased.