Said Riza Fasito, Rivo Panji Yudha, Tri Rijanto
Global population aging underscores the need to understand cognitive capacities among retired professionals. Retired teachers represent valuable human capital with substantial cognitive reserve from decades of intellectually demanding work; however, their critical thinking abilities during retirement remain underexplored. This study examined critical thinking performance among retired Indonesian teachers and investigated associations with post-retirement activity engagement and cognitive reserve. A cross-sectional correlational design involved 178 retired public school teachers aged 55–70 years from East Java Province. Critical thinking was assessed using the Watson–Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal–Short Form (α = .87). Post-retirement activities were measured across six domains (cognitive, social, physical, productive, leisure, domestic), and cognitive reserve was operationalized through educational attainment, occupational complexity, and lifetime cognitive engagement. Hierarchical multiple regression and structural equation modeling were employed. Results indicated strong critical thinking performance (M = 28.7/40, SD = 5.4). Hierarchical regression revealed that post-retirement activities explained significant variance beyond demographics and cognitive reserve (Δ R2 = .118, p < .001), with cognitive activities (β = .26, p = .002) and productive activities (β = .18, p = .024) emerging as significant predictors. Cognitive reserve demonstrated the strongest effect (β = .34, p < .001). Structural equation modeling confirmed excellent fit, with cognitive reserve and activity engagement jointly explaining 48.3% of critical thinking variance. Findings support cognitive reserve theory and highlight the importance of sustained cognitive and productive engagement in later life. Results have implications for policies leveraging retired teachers' expertise in educational and community contexts while promoting healthy cognitive aging. © 2025 The Authors,This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Postgraduate School, Doctoral Program in Educational Research and Evaluation, State University of Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia
