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Criminal behavior results in negative, costly consequences for both individuals and society at large. Therefore, researchers have worked to identify variables that predict recidivism, or recurrence of crime. The variables with the strongest predictive power include criminal thinking, personality traits, antisocial peers, and family difficulties, among others. In addition, policy makers and stakeholders are creating interventions which target criminal thinking, to reduce criminal thinking and hopefully reduce future crime. However, little is known about measuring criminal thinking in community youth for the purposes of early intervention and prevention of future behavior problems. Therefore, this study examined a measure of criminal thinking in community youth to examine item-level and measure validity. It also sought to examine if criminal thinking acts as a mediator between other risk factors and subsequent behavior problems. Although some items may need to be revised, results suggested generally good validity for the total score. This study also supports the stability of criminal thinking in community youth, and thus could be used as a measure of change. Finally, results suggest that criminal thinking mediates the relationships between antisocial friends and parenting styles in predicting reactive aggression. The results of the item-level analysis of this study highlight the similarities between psychopathy and criminal thinking. Questions also arise about the relationship between criminal thinking in community youth and more transdiagnostic concepts, such as emotion regulation problems. Overall, criminal thinking appears to be a viable target for assessment and intervention in community youth. / Doctor of Philosophy / Researchers seeking to reduce crime, because of its negative effects on society, have identified some features of a person and situations that are closely related to a person committing future crimes. Specifically, criminals tend to think in certain ways that promote crime, called criminal thinking styles. If those thinking styles are changed, then people may be less likely to commit future crimes. However, the field does not know if these criminal thinking styles are the same for youth in the community. Therefore, this study examined a measure of criminal thinking in community youth. Results show that the measure seems to work appropriately in community youth. Although not all items are the best for these youth, overall, the measure works well in predicting behavior problems, as expected. The measure also shows that criminal thinking in youth generally stays the same over time. Finally, this study shows that some features of youth which predict behavior problems are related to behavior problems because of the presence of criminal thinking. This study shows that a measure of criminal thinking, originally created for use in a justice-involved adult population, can also be used with community youth. It may then be used to assess youth who are on the verge of getting into trouble for criminal thinking styles. Interventions could use this measure to see if the criminal thinking styles are being reduced. Finally, because criminal thinking explains the relationship between other personal factors and behavior problems, interventions can focus on just criminal thinking, and not all the other factors, as a way to reduce future behavior problems.

Critical thinking ability is imperative for nurse practitioners in the multidimensional unfolding health care arena. Consensus as to what critical thinking entails has yet to be articulated. This non-empirical study thus set out to clarify the concept "critical thinking. Walker and Avant's (1995) proposal for conducting a concept analysis was used within the qualitative research paradigm. Literature selected from the fields of education, philosophy, nursing and psychology was consulted as the main source of data. Thematic and theoretical sampling of literature were also embarked upon during the later stage of the research to add density to emergent categories and themes. Categories were organised according to the Strauss and Corbin (1995) paradigmatic model; indicating the antecedents, disposition of the thinker, attributes and critical attributes, and outcomes of critical thinking. The findings indicate that critical thinking is a complex, multidimensional, dynamic, existential and context dependent mental operation. The essence of critical thinking is further illuminated by the construction of a model case and additional cases. The concept critical thinking is finally succinctly defined. The implications that critical thinking holds for nursing education and practice are spelled out. / Health Studies / M.A. (Health Studies)

This study was undertaken in an attempt to determine the degree to which second year Mathematics education students consider critical thinking dispositions and attitudes to be important and to develop a curriculum-based mediational approach based on the data, to encourage the critical thinking dispositions and attitudes that appeared to be in need of encouragement. A literature study was undertaken to determine the positive critical thinking dispositions and attitudes students should possess. In addition it was also determined which teaching learning approaches will benefit the development of critical thinking dispositions and attitudes the most. The advantages as well as the processes and components that should form part of the mediational approach for the development of critical thinking dispositions were examined. A two-phase, sequential, explanatory mixed method study was subsequently undertaken with second-year Mathematics students at a South African university. The quantitative study made use of a self-developed questionnaire to determine the degree to which students consider critical thinking dispositions and attitudes important. Data emanating from the questionnaires were analysed and questions that had to be answered in narrative format were set for each student according to their own responses on the questionnaire. Narratives formed part of the qualitative component of the study in which students had to indicate factors that influence their critical thinking dispositions and attitudes, what could be done to improve the apparent unimportant critical thinking dispositions and attitudes and whether they regard the critical thinking dispositions and attitudes as important. Narratives were analysed and the results were used to explain the quantitative data. Results revealed that second year Mathematics education students do not consider critical thinking dispositions and attitudes, in particular inquisitiveness but also judiciousness, open-mindedness, systematicity, truth-seeking, analyticity and confidence in critical thinking to be very important and therefore these critical thinking dispositions and attitudes appeared to require encouragement. A curriculum-based mediational approach based on a section in the existing Mathematics module for second year education students was developed in order to encourage critical thinking dispositions in Mathematics. The study concluded with recommendations to encourage critical thinking dispositions and attitudes as well as proposals for future studies. / PhD, Education, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2012

Private sector, government and the academia have been recognizing the value of a \'designerly\' approach to business problems, in the context that the traditional technical-rationality has been insufficient to address issues in the contemporary volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment. Design Thinking has been growing since Tim Brown, CEO of a prestigious global design agency, started advocating and disseminating this approach in the business environment ten years ago. As more organizations are implementing Design Thinking (DT), this research aims to analyze the relation between individuals\' Readiness for adopting DT in organizations and their thinking styles, namely Rationality and Experientiality. From the literature review, some authors characterize Design Thinking by its focus on human needs, open objectives so creativity can arise, iteratively, reliance on qualitative methods, intuition and experience, - to name some of the characteristics. Accordingly, the initial hypothesis of this research stated that individuals with high Experientiality score would be the ones with higher Readiness to adopt Design Thinking. A quantitative survey was designed based on existing instruments in the academic literature. For assessing the thinking styles, the Rationality-Experientiality Inventory (REI) developed by Pacini & Epstein (1999) was integrally applied; for measuring the individual\'s Readiness for adoption of Design Thinking, the Readiness for Organizational Change Measure (ROCM) developed by Holt, Armenakis, Feild, & Harris (2007b) was partially applied; and to collect the respondents\' understanding on Design Thinking, questions were designed based on the paper published by Glen, Suciu & Baughn (2014). The sample size had 251 valid respondents from the state of Sao Paulo (Brazil), with declared knowledge or experience with Design Thinking. One-way ANOVA was conducted to determine significant differences within the terciles of Rationality, Experientiality and Readiness-for-change and between the thinking styles terciles and the score of Readiness for adopting Design Thinking; Regression Analysis was conducted to determine, among all variables in the research, which are the ones explaining Readiness for adopting Design Thinking. The results pointed out that the group of individuals with high score of Rationality (third tercile) presented higher Readiness for adopting Design Thinking, as well as the third and first terciles of Experientiality. Furthermore, when Rationality and Experientiality scores were analyzed together, both thinking styles did have influence on the individuals\' Readiness for adopting Design Thinking. The understanding of the level of individual\'s thinking styles provides some light on the challenges ahead regarding the acceptance of Design Thinking. Smoother and more efficient change management programs can be designed for educational programs relying on Design Thinking or for departments in organizations implementing Design Thinking. These findings may implicate in further researches in the cognitive field of Design Thinking, as the success of DT adoption in organizations can be influenced by the thinking style profile which is dominant in the selected department or functional area to be implemented. / Private sector, government and the academia have been recognizing the value of a \'designerly\' approach to business problems, in the context that the traditional technical-rationality has been insufficient to address issues in the contemporary volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment. Design Thinking has been growing since Tim Brown, CEO of a prestigious global design agency, started advocating and disseminating this approach in the business environment ten years ago. As more organizations are implementing Design Thinking (DT), this research aims to analyze the relation between individuals\' Readiness for adopting DT in organizations and their thinking styles, namely Rationality and Experientiality. From the literature review, some authors characterize Design Thinking by its focus on human needs, open objectives so creativity can arise, iteratively, reliance on qualitative methods, intuition and experience, - to name some of the characteristics. Accordingly, the initial hypothesis of this research stated that individuals with high Experientiality score would be the ones with higher Readiness to adopt Design Thinking. A quantitative survey was designed based on existing instruments in the academic literature. For assessing the thinking styles, the Rationality-Experientiality Inventory (REI) developed by Pacini & Epstein (1999) was integrally applied; for measuring the individual\'s Readiness for adoption of Design Thinking, the Readiness for Organizational Change Measure (ROCM) developed by Holt, Armenakis, Feild, & Harris (2007b) was partially applied; and to collect the respondents\' understanding on Design Thinking, questions were designed based on the paper published by Glen, Suciu & Baughn (2014). The sample size had 251 valid respondents from the state of Sao Paulo (Brazil), with declared knowledge or experience with Design Thinking. One-way ANOVA was conducted to determine significant differences within the terciles of Rationality, Experientiality and Readiness-for-change and between the thinking styles terciles and the score of Readiness for adopting Design Thinking; Regression Analysis was conducted to determine, among all variables in the research, which are the ones explaining Readiness for adopting Design Thinking. The results pointed out that the group of individuals with high score of Rationality (third tercile) presented higher Readiness for adopting Design Thinking, as well as the third and first terciles of Experientiality. Furthermore, when Rationality and Experientiality scores were analyzed together, both thinking styles did have influence on the individuals\' Readiness for adopting Design Thinking. The understanding of the level of individual\'s thinking styles provides some light on the challenges ahead regarding the acceptance of Design Thinking. Smoother and more efficient change management programs can be designed for educational programs relying on Design Thinking or for departments in organizations implementing Design Thinking. These findings may implicate in further researches in the cognitive field of Design Thinking, as the success of DT adoption in organizations can be influenced by the thinking style profile which is dominant in the selected department or functional area to be implemented.