The present study aims to investigate students’ improvement in critical thinking skills and their attitudes and beliefs of the critical thinking instruction after the eight-week training. In this chapter, the first section discusses students’ progress through the analysis of t-test in their pre-test and post-test. In the second part, students’
responses in the perception questionnaire are presented and discussed. In the third section, some students’ written feedback is further examined and discussed. At the end of the chapter, a summary of this chapter is also provided.
Results of the Pre-test and the Post-test
In the following sections, students’ performances in the pre-test and the post-test are presented. The t-test was utilized to examine each critical thinking skill performed by the same group of students before and after the instruction.
In Table 4, the ability to classify is investigated. The mean score in the post-test (M=9.83) is significantly higher than the mean score of the pre-test (M=7.78). The ability to classify belongs to the second layer of “understanding” in the Bloom’s Taxonomy. Though this ability is a relatively basic skill, students still make obvious progress in this ability after the instruction. According to students’ feedback before the instruction, at first, they expected a so-called standard answer or the “only”
correct answers. In the instruction, students were encouraged to think of diverse possible answers to categorize different things based on their different qualities, factors, or attributions. There is a significant growth in students’ ability to classify after the treatment.
Table 4. Mean Scores and T-tests for the Ability to Classify
Test N Mean SD t-value df p
pre-test 60 60
7.7833 2.1557 -7.384 59 .000***
post-test 9.8333 .5261
Note. *p<.05. ***p<.001
The ability to order and rank is examined in Table 5. The mean score in the pre-test (M=5.05) is significantly lower than the mean score of the post-test (M=8.03).
The ability to order and rank is included in the fourth layer of “analyzing” in the Bloom’s Taxonomy. Although this skill is considered a more challenging one, students display significant improvement in this skill. One student mentioned in the perception questionnaire that he thought the linguistic devices signaling the time sequence or transition provided in the handouts were useful. The linguistic devices may help facilitate their analysis of the sequence of events. With the help of those transitional words or expressions, students can quickly grasp the development of events and sequence them in a correct order.
Table 5. Mean Scores and T-tests for the Ability to Order and Rank
Test N Mean SD t-value df p
pre-test 60 60
5.0583 2.4602 -8.830 59 .000***
post-test 8.0367 2.2054
Note. *p<.05. ***p<.001
As Table 6 illustrates, the ability to compare and contrast does not display any significant differences (p=.902) after the instruction. The mean score in the pre-test is 7.23 while the mean score in the post-test is 7.28. The result suggests that students’
performance in the ability to compare and contrast did not prominently improve after the instruction. In comparing and contrasting two subjects, students are required to
discuss both similarities and differences between the two subjects with regard to each factor, investigate if there are any patterns in the similarities and differences, and make a conclusion based on this investigation. According to the teacher’s classroom observation, students performed well and displayed their understanding of this skill in the classroom activities, group discussion and the analysis of reading articles.
Therefore, no significant difference in students’ improvement in the post-test may be attributed to the design of the test. In the post-test, one of the key words linked to the correct answer is “availability,” which is beyond students’ proficiency level. Though this word appears in the topic sentence and signals one of the major differences in discussing two subjects, students failed to identify this point and specify it in the compare/contrast chart. In other words, the unfamiliarity of the key word leads to the obstacle in applying this ability. Another reason may be that the ability to compare and contrast is an ability which requires more time to master. In students’ regular English courses, they have encountered articles which involve comparing and contrasting for four times from 10th grade to 11th grade; in spite of the practice before, they could only have around 70% accuracy rate in this skill on the pre-test. Moreover, after the instruction, there is still no significant improvement and the accuracy rate remains nearly the same. Thus, students need more instructional or practice time to learn this skill well.
Table 6. Mean Scores and T-tests for the Ability to Compare and Contrast
Test N Mean SD t-value df p
pre-test 60 60
7.2333 3.6701 -.124 59 .902
post-test 7.2833 2.5782
Note. *p<.05. ***p<.001
In Table 7, the results of the ability to distinguish facts from opinions in the two tests are discussed. The mean score in the post-test (M= 9.65) is significantly higher than that (M=8.65) in the pre-test by 1.00. The ability belongs to the fourth layer of
“analyzing” in the Bloom’s Taxonomy. Being able to discern the differences between facts and opinions will help learners’ evaluation of the reliability and usefulness of texts they encounter, which matters a lot when it comes to reading comprehension.
Much of what people read is a mixture of facts and the author's opinions. Thus, becoming a critical reader means realizing that opinions are not evidence. For opinions to be valid, they must be supported by facts such as statistics. According to the teacher’s classroom observation, in the beginning, students commented that they found this ability was a little bit difficult for they did not know how to distinguish the neutral facts from the author’s own viewpoints. But later, with the aid of the linguistic devices marking the facts and opinions, students could perform better in analyzing the reading passages. Therefore, students demonstrated significant improvement in the ability to distinguish between facts and opinions.
Table 7. Mean Scores and T-tests for the Ability to Distinguish Facts from Opinions
Test N Mean SD t-value df p
pre-test 60 60
8.6500 2.4343 -3.379 59 .001***
post-test 9.6500 .6845
Note. *p<.05. ***p<.001
The ability to identify the textual relationship between two pieces of information is explored in Table 8. The mean score in the post-test (M= 6.23) is significantly higher than that (M=5.70) in the pre-test. This ability is more related to the fourth layer of “analyzing” in the Bloom’s Taxonomy. As some researchers (Grabe & Stoller, 2002 ; McCarthy & Carter, 1994) suggest, language teachers are encouraged to
analyze the textual relationships and present them to learners so that learners may make appropriate interpretation and comprehend the implications of the writer and thus have a tendency to be good and efficient readers. During the instruction, the teacher provided tools and linguistic devices for text analysis. The teacher connected this ability with the instruction of English writing as well. As one student (student 19) noted in the perception questionnaire, “I thought the analysis of textual relationship was quite challenging since it was also related to their reading and writing ability.”
Nonetheless, despite the fact that it is a relatively difficult thinking skill, students still exhibited improvement in this ability.
Table 8. Mean Scores and T-tests for the Ability to Identify the Textual Relationship
Test N Mean SD t-value df p
pre-test 60 60
5.7000 1.7202 -2.062 59 .044*
post-test 6.2333 1.7697
Note. *p<.05. ***p<.001
In Table 9, the total scores of the two tests are analyzed. The total scores of the pre-test and post-test are 50 points. The mean score in the post-test (M=41.03) is significantly higher than the mean score (M=34.42) of the pre-test. Among the abilities tested, almost all the abilities have significant differences between the pre-test and post-test, except the ability to compare and contrast. Hence, the total score of the two tests also demonstrates an obvious progress.
Table 9. Mean Scores and T-tests for the Total Scores in the Tests
Test N Mean SD t-value df p
pre-test 60 60
34.4250 7.6369 -7.806 59 .000***
post-test 41.0367 4.3608
Note. *p<.05. ***p<.001
Results of the Perception Questionnaire
In the following sections, the results of students’ responses in the perception questionnaire are presented. Every item is measured on a 6-point scale: a score of 6 indicating strongly agreed (SA) with a particular statement while a score of 1 referring to strongly disagreed (SD) with the statement. Students’ responses ranging from 4 to 6 were counted as agreement while responses from 1 to 3 were referred to as disagreement. The responses of 1 to 6 weighed the points from 1 to 6 and the mean scores were calculated accordingly. The number, the percentage and the mean score of each question item are displayed below.
Table 10. Numbers, Percentage, and Mean Scores of Questions 1 to 4
(SD) 1 2 3 4 5 6 (SA) Mean
Q1 N 1 0 5 14 14 25 4.68
% 2 0 8 24 24 42
Q2 N 1 0 3 7 31 17 5.15
% 2 0 5 12 53 29
Q3 N 0 3 5 23 18 10 4.51
% 0 5 8 39 31 17
Q4 N 5 4 20 19 3 8 3.45
% 8 7 34 32 5 17
Note:
Q1. I think critical thinking is a skill that can be taught and learned.
Q2. I think critical thinking is a skill that is not influenced by different nationalities or cultures.
Q3. I think critical thinking is an important life skill.
Q4. I think critical thinking is an important skill in taking tests.
The first four questions aim to explore students’ perception of the essence of critical thinking skills and the role these skills play in students’ lives. In question 1, 90% of the students believe that critical thinking skills can be taught explicitly and can be learned through instruction. Kennedy et al. (1991) points out that students of
all intellectual levels can benefit from critical thinking instruction. Likewise, Lewis and Smith (1993) argue that critical thinking skills are for everyone, not just for any specific group of people. In question 2, almost 95% of the students consider that the acquisition of critical thinking skills will not be affected by different cultural or ethical backgrounds. Although Atkinson (1997) views critical thinking skills as culture-specific and doubts the success of critical thinking instruction in the ESL/EFL classroom, students’ opinions echo other researchers’ belief (Kabilan, 2000) that L2 learners can still acquire and master critical thinking skills.
In question 3, up to 87% of the students recognize critical thinking as an important skill in daily-life situations. The result demonstrates that critical thinking is not restricted to those who pursue majors in logic or advanced knowledge. Instead, it is a basic survival skill within the competence of all people and can be utilized in everyday lives (Brookfield, 2007). Therefore, students learn the skill not because they can get higher grades in exams but because they can tackle their daily problems with critical thinking. In question 4, 54% of the students considered it a test-taking skill.
Critical thinking is beneficial to students’ understanding or analysis of questions, which is beneficial to take tests. On the other hand, integrating critical thinking skill into test items has been implemented in Taiwan’s large standardized tests such as Scholastic Aptitude Test or Department Required Test (Yeh, 2011). Though critical thinking skills are not treated as the target of assessment, the mastery of these skills are beneficial to analyzing test items and answering the questions correctly.
Table11. Numbers, Percentage, and Mean Scores of Questions 5 to 7
(SD) 1 2 3 4 5 6 (SA) Mean
Q5 N 1 2 8 14 15 19 5.18
% 2 3 14 24 25 32
Q6 N 10 16 13 12 2 6 2.65
% 17 27 22 20 3 10
Q7 N 0 1 6 17 12 23 4.58
% 0 2 10 29 20 39
Note:
Q5. I think learning critical thinking is necessary at senior high school level.
Q6. I think critical thinking is covered in normal English classes.
Q7. I think featured courses provide another chance to learn critical thinking.
Questions 5 to 7 attempt to explore whether critical thinking instruction has been emphasized or implemented in the current textbooks or curriculum. In question 5, about 80% of the students assume that critical thinking is essential at senior high school level, which corresponds to the predominant goal of the 2010 High School Curriculum Guidelines (MOE, 2008). In the Curriculum Guidelines, eight critical thinking skills, including three basic abilities and five advanced abilities, are expected to be acquired through English learning. However, in question 6, only 34% of the students believed critical thinking instruction is integrated in their normal English classes. This discrepancy indicates that though the concept of critical thinking has been highlighted in Curriculum Guidelines, it has not been fully practiced in the language learning classrooms. That is the reason why in question 7, up to 88% of the students believed that the featured course, which were more flexible and innovative (Wu, 2008), could be the possible channel to learn critical thinking skills. Moreover, featured courses provide additional teaching hours and freedom of course design to liberate students from fixed textbooks or curriculum, which also facilitate the learning of critical thinking.
Table 12. Numbers, Percentage, and Mean Scores of Questions 8 to 12
(SD) 1 2 3 4 5 6 (SA) Mean
Q8 N 1 1 9 17 13 18 4.43
% 2 2 15 29 22 31
Q9 N 5 4 15 22 9 4 3.66
% 8 7 25 37 15 7
Q10 N 2 2 11 20 12 12 4.18
% 3 3 19 34 20 20
Q11 N 0 2 12 21 5 19 4.15
% 0 3 20 36 8 32
Q12 N 3 5 14 19 10 8 3.85
% 5 8 24 32 17 14
Note:
Q8. I think critical thinking is helpful to my reading ability.
Q9. I think critical thinking is helpful to my listening ability.
Q10. I think critical thinking is helpful to my speaking ability.
Q11. I think critical thinking is helpful to my writing ability.
Q12. I think critical thinking is helpful to my performances in the English subject.
Question 8 to question 12 investigate the benefits of critical thinking instruction on four basic language skills of reading, listening, speaking, writing and overall performances in the English subject. The overall results are positive but differences in four basic skills can be detected. Critical thinking is most helpful in improving students’ reading ability (82%) but least beneficial in improving their listening ability (59%). As for the writing and speaking ability, 74% and 76% of the students find themselves improving respectively. This inconsistency of improvements may result from the way of critical thinking instruction. During the instruction, many activities and different skills are utilized and the most frequently-used skill is reading. Students are required to read almost two reading articles in order to practice using that specific critical thinking skill taught by the teacher every week. Therefore, students may have more input of reading strategies and more exposure of handling the reading articles, which may lead to their significant growth in their reading ability. In addition, critical literacy is a vital realm when it comes to reading. Critical literacy views readers as active, reflective participants in the reading process and invites them to move beyond
accepting the text’s message passively to question, examine, and even dispute with the texts or authors. It promotes readers’ reflection, transformation, and action (Freire, 1970). Hence, through critical thinking instruction, students can manipulate the skills they learn to better understand and interact with different reading articles. In terms of speaking ability, a lot of group discussion is encouraged and welcomed in the classroom and students are given ample opportunities to share their opinions with others verbally. This teaching method may be responsible for students’ improvement in speaking skill. As for the listening ability, students cannot observe obvious progress in their listening ability. The reason may result from the different nature of listening questions and reading comprehension questions. Since short-term memory is an important factor of auditory input (Call, 2012), the questions focus mainly on factual questions. However, reading questions are more likely to have thought-provoking questions, which are closely related to critical thinking ability. Therefore, students may find more significant improvement in their reading skill than in the listening skill.
The second reason may be that students’ exposure to the listening input in the featured course was mostly about teacher’s instruction and classroom guidance or their peer’s discussion. The topics and the content were different from the exposure they got in the daily-life scenarios; thus, students may not connect their listening ability with the instruction.
Table 13. Numbers, Percentage, and Mean Scores of Questions 13 to 16
(SD) 1 2 3 4 5 6 (SA) Mean
Q13 N 2 6 6 14 17 15 4.58
% 3 10 10 24 29 22
Q14 N 0 3 6 21 12 17 4.41
% 0 5 10 36 20 29
Q15 N 1 1 2 16 17 22 4.75
% 2 2 3 27 29 37
Q16 N 2 1 12 12 19 14 4.53
% 3 2 20 20 32 24
Note:
Q13. I think my ability to classify, order and rank improves.
Q14. I think my ability to compare and contrast improves.
Q15. I think my ability to distinguish facts from opinions improves.
Q16. I think my ability to identify the textual relationship between two pieces of information improves.
Questions 13 to 16 are designed to explore students’ self-evaluation in developing the four target critical thinking skills. In general, students have positive comments in their own improvement in these thinking skills, although, disparities of their feedback toward different skills still can be identified. The ability to distinguish facts from opinions is considered to be the skill which improved most and up to 93%
of the students acknowledge the effect of this instruction in enhancing this thinking skill. The concept of distinguishing facts from opinions is seldom mentioned in the formal education. Students have little exposure to this skill before so they are unfamiliar with this thinking skill. According to Moore & Parker (2009), critical thinking has been described as “the careful and deliberate determination of whether to accept, reject, or suspend judgment about a claim.” That is, critical thinking is the process of evaluating people’s statements in order to determine whether to believe their arguments or not. Developing this ability can be difficult since people tend to make hasty judgments based on opinions and biases rather than on evaluating facts and arguments. In addition, this ability is a very essential step to critical reading because students can wisely analyze the information if they can identify the speaker's or writer’s viewpoints. The second highest improvement can be seen in the ability to compare and contrast with 85% of the students reporting their progress. However, students’ self-evaluation of the learning of this thinking skill is contradictory to the analysis of the pretest and posttest. According to the statistics, the ability to compare
and contrast is the only skill whose significant difference (p=.902) cannot be observed.
The plausible explanation may be though the progress in tests cannot be identified clearly, students believe they can apply this skill to real-life situations and make good use of this skill to deal with some problems.
On the other hand, the ability to classify, order, and rank and the ability to identify the textual relationship between two pieces of information display a similar result. Around 77% of the students have positive response to the former skill while about 76% of them report their progress in the latter thinking skill. These two abilities have less positive feedback of students’ improvement. The possible reason may be that the ability to classify, order, and rank is considered an elementary critical thinking skill and is not frequently seen in courses or textbooks; thus, this ability tends to be ignored by students. The ability to identify the relationship of information is highly related to students’ English writing ability and their command of understanding the structure of a reading article, which requires a large amount of time to practice and master. Thus, the training period is not long enough to display obvious progress.
Moreover, according to the teacher’s informal investigation in class, around 60% of the students reflect that they did not receive any explicit training regarding English writing before, which may lead to their unfamiliarity of this skill.
Table 14. Numbers, Percentage, and Mean Scores of Questions 17 to 18
(SD) 1 2 3 4 5 6 (SA) Mean
Q17 N 0 3 11 20 14 11 3.96
% 0 5 19 34 24 19
Q18 N 1 3 14 15 13 13 3.86
% 2 5 24 25 22 22
Note:
Q17. I think I can apply critical thinking skills to real-life situations.
Q18. I think critical thinking training makes me think of different solutions when encountering a new
problem.
Questions 17 and 18 focus on students’ application of critical thinking instruction to their daily lives and the transferability of critical thinking skills. Around 77% of the students note that they can apply critical thinking skills to daily-life situations but only 69% of them believe that they can think of different alternatives when dealing
Questions 17 and 18 focus on students’ application of critical thinking instruction to their daily lives and the transferability of critical thinking skills. Around 77% of the students note that they can apply critical thinking skills to daily-life situations but only 69% of them believe that they can think of different alternatives when dealing