Abstract:
The purposes of this research were (1) to develop a thinking ability scale for mathayomsuksa three students. (2) to investigate a quality of the thinking ability scale. (3) to construct national norms and local norms from the thinking ability scale. The sample consisted of 2,532 mathayomsuksa three students. The research instrument consisted 2 parts; part 1 used to test creative thinking in essay test form and part 2 used to test analysis thinking, synthesis thinking and critical thinking in multiple choice test form. Data were analyzed by items analysis; level difficulty, discrimination power, reliability coefficient, slope parameter and guessing parameter through TAP 6.63, MULTILOG 7.0.3, SPSS 11 and confirmatory factor analysis through LISREL 8.54. Major results of the study were as follow: 1. The developing of the thinking ability scale for mathayomsuksa three students consisted of 2 parts; part 1 creative thinking scale of 4 items and part 2 of 34 multiple choice items; analysis thinking scale of 11 items, synthesis thinking scale of 13 items and critical thinking of 10 items. 2. The items analysis of the scale by The Classical Test Theory showed in creative thinking scale providing level difficulty of the items in the ranged of 0.17-0.35, discrimination power of the items in the ranged of 0.26-0.38, Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient of 0.82. The analysis thinking scale provided level difficulty of the items in the ranged of 0.56-0.76, discrimination power of the items in the ranged of 0.40-0.59, KR 20 reliability coefficient of 0.75. The synthesis thinking scale provided level difficulty of the items in the ranged of 0.36-0.72, discrimination power of the items in the ranged of 0.29-0.64, KR 20 reliability coefficient of 0.72. In addition, the critical thinking scale provided level difficulty of the items in the ranged of 0.40-0.60, discrimination power of the items in the ranged of 0.37-0.63, KR 20 reliability coefficient of 0.60. 3. The items analysis of the scale by The Item Response Theory showed in creative thinking scale providing slope parameter in the ranged of 0.48-12.54. The analysis thinking scale provided discrimination parameter in the ranged of 0.50-0.94, difficulty parameter in the ranged of -1.30- 0.25, guessing parameter in the ranged of 0.00-0.29. The synthesis thinking scale provided discrimination parameter in the ranged of 0.52 - 2.06, difficulty parameter in the ranged of -0.66 - 1.92, guessing parameter in the ranged of 0.08 - 0.29. In addition, the critical thinking scale provided discrimination parameter in the ranged of 0.50-0.98, difficulty parameter in the ranged of -0.47-1.56, guessing parameter in the ranged of 0.00- 0.26. 4. The construct validity was confirmed by using the second order confirmatory factor analysis through LISREL 8.54. The results indicated the creative thinking model, the analysis thinking model, the synthesis thinking model and the critical thinking model were fit to the empirical data. The models provided the chi-square statistics of 4.20, 10.21, 30.71 and 8.16, the degree of freedom of 10, 19, 49 and16, the probability of .938, .948, .901 and .944, GFI and AGFI of 1 all models, and RMR of .0037, .0059, .0096 and .0060. 5. The National Norms were the starting at T22 in creative thinking score, the ranged of T21 – T67 in analysis thinking score, the ranged of T20 – T70 in synthesis thinking score, and the ranged of T25 – T70 in critical thinking score.