The purpose of this study was to develop a critical thinking disposition scale for nursing students.

The developmental process was construction of a conceptual framework, development of preliminary items, verification of content validity, development of secondary items, verification of construct validity and extraction of final items. The conceptual framework and first preliminary 60 items were obtained through a review of relevant literature and the development of critical disposition scales by 10 researchers who had been studying critical thinking for one year. These items were reviewed by five specialists for content validity and finally 55 items were chosen. The data was collected from October 1 to 15, 2004 and was analyzed using factor analysis and Cronbach's alpha with the SPSS program. The subjects were composed of 560 Bachelor of Science nursing students from 8 nursing schools.

There were 35 final items which were sorted into 8 factors. The factors were identified as ‘ intellectual integrity(6 items)’, ‘ creativity(4 items)’, ‘ challenge(6 items)’, ‘ open-mindedness(3 items)’, ‘ prudence(4 items)’, ‘ objectivity(4 items)’, ‘ truth seeking(3 items)’ and ‘ inquisitiveness(5 items)’. The cumulative percent of variance was 55.107%. The reliability of the scale, Cronbach's alpha was .892 and the factors' ranged from .562-.836.

The result of this study could be used for measuring critical thinking dispositions of nursing students. However, for further validity and reliability, repeated research is necessary.