Comparative Analysis of In-service and Pre-service Teachers’ Critical Thinking Skills; A Thematic Approach Based on the California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory

Aims: This paper compares the critical thinking abilities and dispositions of pre-service and in-service teachers to delineate factors that account for their difference. The tertiary pre-service programme is a major source of teachers for the schools in Botswana and as such there is a need for a deliberate alignment of teacher development programme objectives and classroom practice in the field. One area of concern is the difference in the critical thinking skills between tertiary students and practicing teachers. The apparent difference in the conceptualization of critical thinking as a construct between pre-service and in-service teachers is an indication of a possible misfit between conditions within schools and what pre-service teachers expect to find in the classroom when they start teaching. This has implications for in-service and pre-service teacher development, subject-matter organization and general classroom processes.

Methodology: A qualitative multiple case study approach was used to collect and analyze textual data from pre-service and in-serve teachers in Botswana. Participants from the two subgroups responded to a critical thinking instrument designed to capture their opinion regarding different aspects of the critical thinking construct. The data was analyzed using thematic mapping based on the subcategories of the California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory

Results: The results showed that pre-service teachers were mostly preoccupied with the analyticity aspect of critical thinking while their in-service counterparts exhibited a much broader understanding of the construct. However, the two groups expressed similar ideas in matters relating to factors that impede successful development of critical thinking skills and dispositions.