Challenging the well?known and exploring the unknown? Testing a new measure of dogmatism among students

​In an era often described as post-factual, the role of HEIs in the provision of an environment encouraging cosmopolitanism and critical-thinking is highly relevant. Although most HEIs publicly commit themselves to open-mindedness, diversity and pluralism of opinions, there is a lack of empirical evidence on the question whether students actually acquire these competences during their studies. In an aim to close this research gap, we have drawn on a scale for measuring closed-mindedness allowing us to explore dogmatism, viz. dogmatic mindsets since dogmatic individuals tend to cling uncritically to their beliefs and have trouble accepting other points of view.

The first part of our study will focus on a psychometric evaluation of the measurement, whereas the second part will deal with the effect of education on students’ open-mindedness. We will also describe how the degree of open-mindedness relates to personal variables, such as age, gender, social class and employment status. Overall, our findings suggest that the scale we have drawn on proves to be a good starting point for measuring whether or not studying may indeed be considered “a voyage of discovery which develops the ability to think criticall“***Footnote 1 “Mission Statement of University of Stavanger, Norway)