ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Healthcare Professions Education
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1561786
This article is part of the Research TopicNurturing Medical Professionalism in Different Cultural ContextsView all 8 articles
Association of critical thinking disposition with personality traits and differentiation of self in medical undergraduates, a multicenter crosssectional study in China
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Medical Education, Tongji Hospital, School of Medicine, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
- 2Tongji University, Shanghai, China
- 3James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital, United States Department of Veterans Affairs, Tampa, Florida, United States
- 4Gannan Normal University, Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province, China
- 5Soochow University Medical College, Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China
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Background: Critical thinking is one of the seven essential competencies of the Global Minimum Essential Requirements in Medial Education. It is essential to cultivate medical students' critical thinking as it influences their clinical decision-making. The undergraduate years represent a critical period for medical students in terms of personality development and self-differentiation, which are essential foundations for shaping critical thinking. Therefore, this multicenter cross-sectional study aimed to explore the relationships of critical thinking disposition with personality traits and differentiation of self in medical undergraduates.Methods: 1338 medical students from three institutions in China were selected for this study using a stratified cluster sampling method. The Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory-Chinese Version (CTDI-CV), Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) and Differentiation of Self Inventory-Revised (DSI-R) were applied to assess medical students' critical thinking disposition, personality traits and differentiation of self. Multiple linear regression analysis was conducted to test the relationships of critical thinking disposition with personality traits and differentiation of self. Binary logistic regression model was established for sensitivity analysis.Results: Linear regression analysis showed that psychoticism and neuroticism could negatively influence critical thinking disposition [β, 95% confidence interval (CI)= -0.363 (-0.411, -0.316); -0.129 (-0.189,-0.070)]. Conversely, extraversion and differentiation of self could positively influence with critical thinking disposition [β, 95% CI = 0.145 (0.096, 0.194); 0.279 (0.224, 0.334)]. The results of the binary logistic regression were consistent with those of the linear regression model.Discussion: This study suggested the potential need for tailored critical thinking development strategies for medical students with different personality traits and degrees of differentiation of self.
Keywords: Critical Thinking, differentiation of self, Medical students, Personality, undergraduates
Received: 16 Jan 2025; Accepted: 26 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zeng, Wang, Sun, Thai, Gan, Li and Huang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Lei Huang, Department of Medical Education, Tongji Hospital, School of Medicine, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
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