Building a test to assess creative and critical thinking simultaneously

The Malaysia Education Master Plan 2006–2010 expresses the importance of critical and creative thinking, by stating that one of its major goals in producing first class human resources in Malaysia is to arm the students with creative and critical thinking abilities. As a consequence, educational transformation has been initiated, and creative and critical thinking teaching and learning strategies have been implemented at the Malaysian schools. Therefore, it was anticipated that by the year 2010, students under the new school system will exhibit higher levels of thinking styles, especially creative and critical thinking styles. An attempt was initiated to build an instrument to collect and provide data concerning the two thinking styles of the students. The instrument Yanpiaw Creative-Critical Thinking Styles Test or YCREATIVE-CRITICALS, consists of 34 items, will be used to measure creative and critical thinking style of the students simultaneously. This article reports the building of the test and its validity and reliability construction.