فهرست نشریات علمی دسترسی آزاد ایران

BACKGROUND: Thinking styles’ effect on academic achievement is a challenging topic that hasbeen raised with very different results in previous studies. Since thinking styles are influenced bythe contexts, this study was conducted in the context of the occupational therapy, which is one ofthe disciplines in the rehabilitation sciences in Iran and its educational studies are still developing.The purpose of this research is to study thinking styles and their relationship with the educationalachievement of occupational therapy students at Shiraz School of Rehabilitation Sciences.METHODS: This was a descriptive correlational study conducted at Shiraz School of RehabilitationScience in 2015. As sampling was considered by the census of all students in the 2nd–4th yearof Bachelor of Occupational Therapy, demographic data questionnaire and the “Short form ofWagner‑Sternberg Thinking Styles Inventory (1992)” were distributed among all 78 students. Students’academic achievement was also considered by grade point average obtained from the educationaloffice at school. The data were analyzed by descriptive and analytic statistics utilizing SPSS21software. Pearson’s correlation coefficient and linear regression tests were used for data analysis.RESULTS: Forty‑two students participated in this study with their personal consents. The resultsrevealed that hierarchic  (18.47  ± 2.54) and external  (18.47  ± 3.23) were the dominant thinkingstyles of the occupational therapy students, followed by judicial, legislative, oligarchic, executive,conservative, liberal, monarchic, anarchic, local, global, and internal thinking styles. In addition,there was no correlation between any of the thinking styles and students’ achievement (P = 0.354).Thinking styles predicted only 4.9% of changes in academic achievements in this study.CONCLUSION: Thinking styles could predict only limited amount of the academic achievementsof occupational therapy students. Furthermore, as the dominant thinking styles of the occupationaltherapy students are hierarchic and external, it seems that occupational therapy students prefer tohave a hierarchy of academic goals and seek tasks that provide them with the opportunity to interactwith the others.