Common thinking styles according to Sternberg's theory of mental self-authority among international students studying at the Islamic University of Madinah - a cross-cultural comparative study

Abstract

The aim of this study was to reveal the common thinking styles of international students studying at the Islamic University of Madinah, and to find out the differences in thinking styles according to the continent to which the student belongs, and his academic specialization, and the study used the comparative descriptive approach, by applying the list of thinking styles prepared by Sternberg and Wagner (Sternberg & Wagner, 1992) in its abbreviated form, to a stratified random sample, consisting of (384) international students studying at the Islamic University of Madinah.  The results showed that the hierarchical thinking style was common among the study sample members, followed by the judgmental style, the executive style, and then the legislative style, with statistically significant differences in the following thinking styles: hierarchical, minority, and chaotic, attributed to the academic specialization variable, in favor of students of theoretical disciplines, and there were no statistically significant differences in other thinking styles, as well as no differences in thinking styles attributed to the continent to which the student belongs, and there was no statistically significant effect of interaction between the continent to which the student belongs, and his academic specialization, on any of methods of thinking.