Abstract

This study aims to identify the relationship between thinking styles and the need for cognition in students of the faculty of education, as well as the existence of significant differences between these two variables according to gender, department of study, class level, educational background from secondary school level, monthly incomes of families and the place where families have resided longest. The study was conducted with 820 students studying at different departments of the Faculty of Education at Gaziantep University, during the 2014-2015 academic year. In the study, data was collected using the Thinking Styles Scale and the Need for Cognition Scale, while demographic details of students were obtained through a Personal Information Form created by the researcher. Pearson’s correlation test, t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were employed in SPSS 20 software for data analysis. According to the findings of the study, students of the education faculty use the legislative thinking style the most and the conservative thinking style the least among the others given in the Thinking Styles Scale. According to the findings regarding the relationship between thinking styles and the need for cognition; the Thinking Styles Scale shows that there are significant differences between the legislative, executive, judicial, hierarchic, oligarchic, anarchic, local, internal, liberal dimensions of thinking and the need for cognition, while there is no significant difference between the global and conservative thinking styles and the need for cognition. It is seen that legislative, executive and hierarchic dimensions of the Thinking Styles Scale differ significantly according to the gender variable. Local, conservative and oligarchic dimensions of the Thinking Style Scale also show significant differences according to the department where the students study. This differentiation is seen in favor of the classroom teaching department against the Psychological Counselling and Guidance (PCG) students in the local thinking style dimension, while it is more favorable for the mathematics teaching department against the PCG students in both conservative and oligarchic dimensions. It is also seen that the legislative and local dimensions of the Thinking Styles Scale differ significantly according to the monthly incomes of families. This differentiation is in favor of the 2000 TL and above income group in each of these thinking styles, against those with monthly incomes between 500-1000 TL. On the other hand, the place where families have resided the longest, which is often the same place where students have completed their secondary education, do not differ significantly according to class levels. The Need for Cognition Scale scores differ significantly in favor of the 4th grade students according to the class level variable. A similar significant differentiation in the Need for Cognition Scale scores is also seen in favor of urban areas (provinces) against rural areas (villages) according to the place where families have resided the longest. Finally, the Need for Cognition Scale scores do not show any significant difference in terms of the departments students study at, their secondary school majors and monthly incomes of families.

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