خلاصة:
The present study aimed to investigate the possible relationship between ESP
learners’ critical thinking abilities and their reading comprehension. For this
purpose, from the population of students studying in different fields of
engineering at Amol Islamic Azad University, a sample of 202 ESP
participants were selected based on a purposive sampling method. A critical
thinking questionnaire was then given whereby the targeted respondents
answered the prompts underlying the critical thinking construct.
Subsequently, a valid reading comprehension test with an acceptable
reliability index was administered and the data were analyzed using the
related descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings revealed that there
was a robust and positive correlation between ESP learners’ levels of critical
thinking ability and their reading comprehension. Moreover, it was found
that ESP students regarded as high critical thinkers significantly
outperformed those with lower levels of critical thinking on the reading
comprehension test. Notably, the results may offer useful implications to
both language teachers and English learners indicating that critical thinking
strategies play a pivotal role in the reading comprehension process.