Abstract
Thinking Styles: Analysis of its structural validity using adolescents' responses to the Thinking Styles Inventory. In his theory of mental self-government, Sternberg stated that the way individuals apply their intellectual skills to various tasks, situations, or contexts is as important as the skills themselves. This author called the preferred way in which people apply their intellectual skills thinking style. He identified thirteen thinking styles that are grouped into five dimensions: function, form, level, setting, and tendency. Some recent studies of this theory have cast doubt on the existence of these dimensions. In this study, the structure of thinking styles is analyzed by means of confirmatory hierarchical factor analysis in a sample of students (n= 1153) from Obligatory Secondary Education (ESO) who are significantly older than those employed in previous studies. In general, the results coincide with those reported by other researchers, providing a thinking-style structure that is substantially different from the one suggested by Sternberg.
