Rationality is considered an important trait for functioning in modern society, as it is thought to be necessary for making judgments and decisions. Rationality aligns well with ambitions in higher education for teaching students to be critical thinkers and decision makers. The short-form Comprehensive Assessment of Rational Thinking (CART) might therefore be suitable for measuring this ability in higher education. Subtest total scores are used and interpreted as distinguishable units of measurement, representing single subconstructs within the concept of rationality. In this study, we explored whether the subtests can indeed be interpreted as unidimensional scales. We assessed the subtests’ dimensionality by performing a Mokken scale analysis using the performance data of 185 students of higher education on a Dutch translation of the short-form CART. For two subtests, all items formed a single ordinal scale. For three subtests, a subset of items formed a scale. For seven subtests, no items, nor any subset of items, formed a unidimensional scale. In its current form, then, not all short-form CART subtest scores could be meaningfully interpreted as measures of constituent parts of rationality, limiting its use for assessment in higher education.

理性被认为是现代社会运作的重要特征，因为人们认为理性对于做出判断和决定是必要的。理性与高等教育中的雄心壮志非常吻合，后者要求学生成为批判性思想家和决策者。因此，简短的理性思维综合评估（CART）可能适合测量高等教育中的这种能力。子测验总分用于解释为可区分的度量单位，代表合理性概念内的单个子结构。在这项研究中，我们探讨了子测试是否确实可以解释为一维量表。我们通过使用简短CART的荷兰语翻译对185名高等教育学生的表现数据进行了Mokken量表分析，从而评估了子测验的维度。对于两个子测试，所有项目都形成一个单一的顺序量表。对于三个子测试，一个项目子集构成一个量表。对于七个子测试，没有项目或项目的任何子集形成一维量表。那么，就目前的形式而言，并非所有简短的CART子测验分数都可以有意义地解释为合理性组成部分的量度，从而限制了其在高等教育评估中的使用。