Jordanian TEFL Graduate Students' Use of Critical Thinking Skills (as Measured by the Cornell Critical Thinking Test, Level Z)

Titre

Jordanian TEFL Graduate Students' Use of Critical Thinking Skills (as Measured by the Cornell Critical Thinking Test, Level Z)
International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

Est référencé par

WAXMKUTW

Résumé

This study investigates the critical thinking skills of 50 students currently enrolled in the Master's TEFL Programme at Yarmouk University, Jordan. The Cornell Critical Thinking Test, Level Z is utilised to test the students' use, or lack thereof, of the critical thinking skills of deduction, semantics, credibility, induction, definition and assumption identification, and assumption identification. The effect of the variables of gender, age and grade point average on the students' critical thinking abilities is also investigated. The findings reveal that the respondents performed quite poorly on the test. Gender, age and grade point average were all found to have an effect. Male students outperformed female students. However, while older male students outperformed younger ones, younger female students outperformed their older counterparts. Respondents with higher grade point averages scored better on the test. The findings have implications for TEFL education in Jordan and other similar contexts. As teachers can be highly influential in creating a classroom environment that promotes critical thinking, they need to be informed about the importance of developing their students' critical thinking skills. To make this possible, EFL teachers should be allowed pre-service and in-service training opportunities to encourage the development of critical thinking.

volume

9

pages

33-50

Date

January 15, 2006

doi

10.1080/13670050608668629

Source

ResearchGate

Date de soumission

2017-10-09T12:16:29Z

is compiled by

is in semantic relation with

Annotations

...