Thinking styles in occupational therapy students

The identification of the thinking styles plays an essential role in determining the educational methods according to the needs of the students. The aim of this study is determination of the relationship between thinking styles, metacognition, and academic achievement of occupational therapy students (OTS). In the 2018-2019 academic year, OTS (n = 117) completed student data form, the Inventory of Thinking Styles, and the Scale of Metacognitive Skills. Kruskal–Wallis variance analysis was used to determine whether there was a significant relationship between thinking styles and class variables, and Spearmen correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship between thinking styles and academic averages. OTS prefer legislative, hierarchic, judicial, and liberal thinking styles most frequently. OTS tend to prefer the oligarchic, local, and liberal thinking styles towards the last year. Furthermore, a positive low to moderate correlation was found between the metacognition and the legislative, executive, hierarchic, local, internal, and liberal thinking styles. Thinking styles of OTS is crucial for occupational therapy education. To better understand the complexity of students thinking styles, future studies should conduct different regions.