GLOBAL AND LIBERAL THINKING STYLES OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS: AHI EVRAN UNIVERSITY SAMPLE
In this study, it was aimed to determine global and liberal thinking styles of undergraduate students. The sample of the study was composed of 208 randomly chosen students at Ahi Evran University from various departments in 2014-2015 terms. The data of this descriptive research were gathered by “Thinking Styles Inventory” developed by Sternberg and Wagner (1992) and adopted to Turkish by Fer (2005). In addition to validity and reliability (0,86) calculations of 20-item scale, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were done to get the reliability. This current study has limitation of two dimensions (Global and liberal) of the original scale which consists of 5 dimensions with 13 sub-dimensions. At the end of the study, female participants were found more liberally thinking, the departments and grades of the students have made no significant difference in their thinking likewise the scores up to vocational and technical schools or other faculties. As a conclusion, the findings indicate that vocational schools are in need of executing the responsibilities to provide students think globally and innovatively.

Keywords
Vocational and technical education, global thinking, liberal thinking