THE TESTING AND DESIGN OF A CAUSAL MODEL FOR FAMILY COMMUNICATION PATTERNS (CONVERSATION AND CONFORMITY) OF METACOGNITION AND PERSONALITY TRAITS (OPENNESS TO EXPERIENCE AND CONSCIENTIOUSNESS) WITH CRITICAL THINKING DISPOSITION MEDIATED BY EPISTEMIC BELIEF

The purpose of this study is testing and desigan the causal relationship model of family communication patterns (conversation and conformity) of metacognition and personality traits of openness to experience and conscientiousness with critical thinking disposition mediated by epistemic beliefs of male students in various high school grades in the city of Ahvaz.The statistical population consisted of all high school male students in the city of Ahwaz and we selected 405 individuals from this population based on stratified random sampling method. In this study, we collected the data through five questionnaires, i.e. family communication patterns by Koerner & Fitzpatrick (2002), metacognitive awareness by Schraw & Dennison, NEO Five-Factor questionnaire, epistemic beliefs questionnaire and critical thinking disposition questionnaire. We evaluated the proposed model using structural equation modeling. The results showed that across all the samples, all path coefficients between the variables were significant relative to critical thinking disposition. In this model, the relationship of conversation, metacognition, personality traits, conscientiousness, openness to experience and epistemic beliefs with critical thinking disposition was significant and positive but the relationship of conformity with critical thinking disposition was significant negative. Fitness indicators showed that the model reasonably fits the data across all the samples. We checked the indirect hypotheses using bootstrapping method and the results showed that all indirect hypotheses were confirmed.