خلاصة:
This study intended to investigate the interplay of critical thinking explicit instruction, academic writing performance, critical thinking ability, and critical thinking dispositions of Iranian students. To this end, 140 students of Jahrom University of Medical Sciences (73 males and 67 females) were selected. They were divided into the experimental and control groups. Both groups received instruction in academic writing course for 15 weeks 3 hours per week. However, the experimental group received instruction integrated with critical thinking strategies. The students in both groups were administered pre- and post-instruction tests to examine the effectiveness of instruction. Three instruments were utilized in this study including, the researcher-developed essay test, Ennis-Weir Critical Thinking Essay Test, and California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory (CCTDI). Descriptive statistics and independent-samples t-test were used to analyze the data. The results indicated that there were statistically significant differences between the mean scores of the experimental and the control groups. The results also showed that some CCTDI subscales were not significantly different at the posttest such as, truth-seeking, cognitive maturity, and open- mindedness, whereas the mean posttest scores of other CCTDI subscales had significant difference such as, analyticity, CT inquisitiveness, CT self-confidence, and systematicity. The experimental group had a higher score in the academic writing test compared with the control group. Changes in students’ critical thinking ability, academic writing performance, and their critical thinking dispositions suggest that the CT techniques have been fruitful, and more efforts should be made to integrate the explicit instruction in critical thinking into academic courses.
ملخص الجهاز:
Keywords: Academic Writing Performance, Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory, Critical Thinking Explicit Instruction, Ennis-Weir Critical Thinking Essay Test Introduction Psychologists, philosophers, and educators (Halpern, 2007; King, 1994) believe that making rational decisions needs the ability to analyze, evaluate, interpret, and synthesize information accurately from various sources, and it is an indispensable tool for successfully accomplishing tasks in a complex and ever-changing world for students, staff, and citizens.
The instructor integrated the critical thinking techniques into the content of academic writing course in the experimental group via (a) providing CT explicit instruction, (b) teaching students how to make use of those techniques to synthesize, analyze, and evaluate texts, (c) presenting support materials in CT classrooms (including leaflets, models) of the instructional techniques, (d) leading Socratic discussions based on the elements and criteria suggested in the instructional techniques, (e) assigning classroom activities and giving them adequate time to practice each skill, using both oral and written techniques, and assessing students’ performance.
Data Analysis The means and standard deviations for the three instruments, namely Academic Writing Skills Test (AWST), Ennis-Weir Critical Thinking Essay Test, and the CCTDI are presented in Table 4.
The relationship between students’ achievements in essay writing skills, critical thinking ability, and dispositions toward critical thinking for Iranian students Table 7 provides the results of correlation analysis for AWST, E-W CTET, and CCTDI.
The extent of the difference between these two groups indicated that these critical thinking instructions had an educative and statistically significant impact on students’ ability to perform better in writing.