The Relationship between Students' Information Technology Literacy and their Critical Thinking

Subject Areas : Higher Education

Saeid Saffarian Hamedani ¹ ( Assistant Professor, Educational Management Department, Sari Branch, Islamic Azad University, Sari, Iran )
Alireza Alipoor ² ( Ph.D. Student of Educational Management, Islamic Azad University, Sari Branch, Instructor of Naval Science University, Nowshahr, Iran )
Azin Azimi Ashrafi ³ ( M.A. Graduate in Educational Technology, Sari Branch, Islamic Azad University, Sari, Iran )

Received: 2014-08-18 Accepted : 2014-11-04 Published : 2015-08-01

Keywords: Higher Education, Critical Thinking, information technology literacy,

Abstract :

The main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between information technology literacy and critical thinking skills of graduate students. Adopting a descriptive survey, the statistical population of the study included graduate students of Islamic Azad University of Sari Branch. Using Krejcie and Morgan table, 331 were randomly selected. The research instruments were researcher-made information technology literacy questionnaire and critical thinking questionnaire, the validities of which were confirmed by the experts in the field of educational sciences. The reliabilities for the given questionnaires were estimated through Chronbach's alpha coefficient by distributing the questionnaires among a group of 30 participants, the result of which was 0.93 for IT literacy questionnaire and 0.80 for critical thinking skills. Regarding the establishment of parametric statistics, the Pearson correlation was used to analyze the data. The results of the study showed that there was no relationship between IT literacy and critical thinking skills (creativity, maturity and commitment) among higher education students. It means that IT literacy was not a reason for the existence of critical thinking, perhaps the best time for improving the thinking power among people through using information technology is before their entrance to higher education.  

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