The Relationship between the Level of Participation in Knowledge Management and the Critical Thinking Tendency of Librarians of Central Libraries of Public Universities in Tehran

The main purpose of this study is to identify the relationship between the level of participation in knowledge management and the critical thinking tendency among librarians of central libraries of public universities in Tehran.

This research is descriptive-correlational in terms of research method and is a survey branch. In addition, according to the purpose, it falls into the category of applied research. The statistical population of this study consisted of librarians of the central libraries of public universities in Tehran, whose number was 210 people. Using the Morgan table, a sample number of 136 people was obtained. Data were collected using two standard questionnaires: Employee Participation in Knowledge Management (Kulkarni et al. (2007)) and the California Critical Thinking Tendency Questionnaire (1992). The supervisor validated both questionnaires. The reliability of the questionnaires was obtained using Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the questionnaire on employee participation in knowledge management was 0.946 and for the questionnaire of critical thinking tendency was 0.933. The data analysis was done through descriptive statistics and inferential statistics using SPSS software.

The results of data analysis showed that there is a significant positive relationship between the variable of critical thinking tendency and participation in knowledge management.

Researchers define and examine critical thinking in two dimensions: critical thinking skills and tendencies, in previous researches the relationship between knowledge management and the skills dimension was investigated, but in this research, the relationship between participation in knowledge management and the dimension of tendency to critical thinking was investigated.