INSTRUCTOR:
DUNG, PH.D
LE
QUANG
GRADE: ___________
MARKER 1 __________________________________
______________________________
HANOI 2023
MARKER
2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ...............................................................................................................6
INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................................7
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL
FRAMEWORK .........................................................................................................9
1.1. Literature review ................................... Ошибка! Закладка не определена.
1.2. Theoretical framework ......................... Ошибка! Закладка не определена.
CHAPTER 2: Research, finding and Discussion ...............................................17
2.1. Methods ......................................................................................................17
2.2.
Findings and discussion ............................................................................19
2.1.1.
Findings ............................................................................................19
2.1.2.
Discussion .........................................................................................23
CHAPTER 3: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION .......................................26
3.1. Conclusion ...................................................................................................26
3.2. Suggestion ...................................................................................................27
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................28
LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND CHARTS
Table 1. Descriptive statistics of variables measured ...............................................19
Table 2. Pearson correlation between critical thinking and reading comprehension20
Table 3. Descriptive statistics of high and low critical thinkers. ..............................21
Table 4. Independent samples t-test between high and low critical thinkers............21
Table 5. Independent samples t-test between high and low critical thinkers............22
regarding their reading comprehension .....................................................................22
THE EFFECTS OF CRITICAL THINKING ON
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS’
READING COMPREHENSION
ABSTRACt
The aim of the research is to investigate the influence of students critical thinking on
their reading comprehension ability. The research was conducted at second semester
group 1 of English department students at Thang Long University. Furthermore, this
research was a correlational research, which has two variables. The first was X
variable (students’ critical thinking) and the second was Y variable (students’ reading
comprehension). The approach of this research is correlational research design. A
sample of 40 senior majored-English students were selected based on a purposive
sampling method. The instruments used in this research were questionnaire and test.
The findings revealed that there was a robust and positive relationship between
students’ levels of critical thinking ability and their reading comprehension. 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.
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, the field of research on reading comprehension and critical thinking
has received much attention and became a popular area in cognitive psychology.
Modern cognitivists have developed new trends and theories that provide theoretical
models for explaining and conceptualizing reading comprehension by utilizing a set
of related concepts, such as critical thinking, prior knowledge, inference-making, and
metacognitive skills (Limbach and Waugh, 2010; Zabit, 2010).
Dewey (1997) said that reflective thinking is the idea that we must train the mind to
think reflectively and that cultivation of the habit of thinking must be a goal of
education. Like Dewey, Frank Smith (1990) also believed that thinking is a natural
function of the brain. He believed that all individuals are naturally predisposed to
thinking creatively and critically and that all that people need are opportunities to
maximize that inherent ability. In the absence of critical thinking skills, people can
be vulnerable or simply less than their best. Improving students’ critical thinking
skills can be considered a universal goal of all educational endeavors.
Cottrell (2011) mentions the critical thinking skills that involve namely; identifying
other people’s positions, arguments, and conclusions; evaluating the evidence for
alternative point of view; weighing up opposing argument and evidence fairly; being
able to read between the line, seeing behind surfaces and identifying false or unfair
assumptions; recognizing technique used to make certain position more appealing
than others; reflecting on issues in a structured way, bringing logic and insight to
bear; and drawing conclusion. That is way critical thinking is a complex activity done
by reader, learner and other parties in reading comprehension. Consequently, teacher
should facilitate learners to enable them use their critical thinking when reading a
text. The need to facilitate learner to have critical thinking skills is to enable them
solve the problem in reading comprehension (Carr, 1988). In addition, by
incorporating critical thinking gives learners tools to use scepticism and doubt
constructively so that they can analyze what is before them (Cottrell, 2011).
Research questions
1) How do the pupils feel about critical thinking and reading comprehension?
2) What challenges do students encounter when reading?
3) Do reading comprehension and critical thinking have a deep association?
Research objective
This study attempted to investigate the influence of students critical thinking on their
reading comprehension ability.
CHAPTER 1.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Critical thinking
Halvorsen (2005) said that critical thinking is not an easy concept to define, as
it can mean quite different things to different people in different contexts and cultures.
He defines critical thinking as: "to think critically about an issue is to consider that
issue from various perspectives, to look at and challenge any possible assumptions
that may underlie the issue and to explore its possible alternative."
Edman (2008) pinpointed that although faculty members see the need for
teaching critical thinking to their students in different institutions and see it as an
important educational goal, they do not state exactly what they mean by “critical
thinking.” Students must be able to think critically inside the classroom for academic
purposes and outside the classroom as well. Students are exposed to a vast volume of
authentic materials, most noticeably, while surfing the net. Students also need critical
thinking to deal with the challenges they encounter in their workplace after graduation
or in their daily lives. Another benefit of introducing critical thinking is that it can
enable students to deal with the technological world and keep up with emerging
trends in technology (Edman, 2008; Ennis, 2018; Hervás & Miralles, 2006; Huijie,
2010; Wade, 2008).
Several definitions have been provided by various authors to define critical
thinking. For example, Facione (2011) defined critical thinking as “purposeful, selfregulatory judgment which results in interpretation, evaluation, and inference as well
as explanation of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or
contextual considerations upon which judgment is based” (p. 826). A similar
definition is suggested by Astleitner (2002), who viewed critical thinking as a higherorder thinking skill which includes evaluating arguments, and is a purposeful, selfregulatory judgment that ends in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference. It
is clear from the two definitions that critical thinking requires many things to be
achieved. This is shown by Halonen & Gray (2000), who maintain that critical
thinking is not one activity; rather, the term refers to a collection of thinking skills
that advance intellectual focus, motivation, and engagement with new ideas. These
thinking skills include the ability to recognize patterns; to solve problems in practical,
creative, or scientific ways; to engage in psychological reasoning; and to adopt
different perspectives when evaluating ideas or issues. Teaching students to think
critically inside or outside the classroom improves their abilities to observe, infer,
question, decide, develop new ideas, and analyze arguments. However, students have
to be involved in different activities to hone their critical thinking skills. Astington
and Olson (1995) asserted that it is hard to tell how students process thinking in their
minds because thinking has no behavioral standards, but rather you can deduce how
students process thinking by observing their actions as they are involved in different
tasks. In the case of reading, reading is challenging to students because teachers ask
students to read academic and scientific materials most of the time without telling
them what they are supposed to read and knowing how students have read the
assigned materials (Manarine, 2022). Alfflerbach (2022), in his description of critical
reading adds “ knowing that one is allowed -and expected- to read critically is as
important as how to read critically” (p. 158). Many of the skills associated with
critical thinking are inherent and practiced in the processes of critical reading which
falls into the category of higher order thinking processes.
According to Reed (1998), the broad concept of critical thinking has brought
about different definitions and terminologies by scholars. He says the lack of
consensus on the definition of critical thinking and also its terminology has rested in
the grounding of various theories and models in two distinct disciplines, psychology
and philosophy. Ennis (1987) explains that critical thinking is thinking that is focused
on reflection and reason in deciding what to do and believe in it involves thinking
skills.
Based on the above opinion, critical thinking done when someone is going to
take a decision or action by first looking at or reflections going on and see the reasons
why he or she should do or decide something. In line with the above statement, Beyer
(1985:270-276) said that critical thinking is closely related to all aspects of education;
curriculum development, educational research, parents of students, workers,
emphasizing the ability in collecting, evaluating, and using information effectively.
Paul and Elder (2008) define critical thinking as the art of analyzing and evaluating
thinking with a view to improve it. In line with Paul and Elder opinion, critical
thinking as the ability to analyze, criticize, and advocate ideas, to reason inductively
and deductively, and to reach factual or judgmental conclusions based on sound
inferences drawn from unambiguous statements of knowledge of belief.
Starkey (2004) asserts generally, critical thinking involves both problem
solving and reasoning. In fact, these terms are often used interchangeably. But
specifically, the critical thinking skills include the ability to: 1) Make observations.
2) Be curious, asking relevant questions and finding the resources needed. 3)
Challenge and examine beliefs, assumptions, and opinions against facts. 4) Recognize
and define problems. 5) Assess the validity of statements and arguments. 6) Make
wise decisions and find valid solutions. 7) Understand logic and logical argument.
In general, emphasizing critical thinking skills is to analyze problems and
information, prediction, verification, and ends with a justification. Based on the above
understanding, critical thinking is not just thinking analytically and logically but also
to think rationally and objectively. In addition to critical thinking someone may be
able to identify and characterize the argument, which may eventually used to evaluate
and to conclude a problem. To be able to think critically ones must develop their
behavior, which involves: open sight and mind, a healthy skepticism, intellectually
open, free thinking, and motivation. Thus, critical thinking is thinking clearly,
accurately, based on knowledge. When doing activities always grounded logical
reasons. Three things that are always considered philosophically logical critical
thinking, epistemology, and ethics.
Reading comprehension
It is argued that there is a relationship between reading comprehension and
critical thinking. Many researchers agree that critical thinking have a positive effect
on their reading compreshension’s ability. Therefore, this research finds out what the
relationship between critical thinking and reading comprehension is and the
important of critical thinking in education at Thang Long University. Through
contribute a part of mommon theme: human cognitive processes.
As many concepts in applied linguistics, the “reading skill” does not have an
agreed-upon or straightforward definition. Different scholars have offered different
perspectives and definitions, some of which are briefly mentioned here. Snow stated
that reading comprehension is the process of simultaneously extracting and
constructing meaning through interaction and the involvement with written language
(2002, p.11). It means that reading comprehension is process of understanding and
constructing meaning from a piece of text done by students.
According to Grabe (2002:17) reading comprehension in general is the ability
to understand the information in a text and interpret it correctly. Although the actual
understanding is itself a complex capabilities. In reading comprehension there are
several processes that must be done, namely: a rapid process, an efficient process, an
interactive process, a strategic process, a flexibility process, an Evaluating process, a
purposeful process, comprehending a process, a learning process, and linguistic
process.
Goodman in Carrel et al (1988: 12) viewed reading from another point. He
defines reading from the psycholinguistic perspective, and describes reading as a
psycholinguistic guessing game". He writes "Reading is a receptive language process.
It is a psycholinguistic process in that it stars with a linguistic surface representation
encoded by a writer and ends with meaning which the reader constructs".
The relationship between critical thinking and reading is well established in
the literature. For example, Norris and Phillips (1987) point out that reading is more
than just saying what is on the page; it is thinking. Moreover, Beck (1989) asserts
‘‘there is no reading without reasoning’’(p. 677). Also, Yu-hui et al. (2010) stated
clearly that reading is a thinking process to construct meaning. In addition, Norris
and Phillips (1987) stated that critical thinking provides a means of explaining the
ability to work out ambiguous text by generating alternative interpretations,
considering them in light of experience and world knowledge, suspending decision
until further information is available, and accepting alternative explanations. They
conclude that critical thinking is the process which the reader uses to comprehend.
Richard Paul (2004) stresses the connection between critical thinking and
reading comprehension. As he states, "The reflective mind improves its thinking by
reflectively thinking about it. Likewise, it improves its reading by reflectively
thinking about how it is reading…" Facione (1992) also suggests there is a significant
correlation between critical thinking and reading comprehension. His quotation
follows "Improvements in one are paralleled by improvements in other." (p.18)
Viewing reading comprehension as a vital part of second language curriculum,
Barnett (1989) describes several reasons for its importance: It remains an important
goal in many programs; it can be maintained after students complete formal language
study; and it fosters the development of literacy skills. Some of the mental skills
employed in reading comprehension, as Grabe (1991) states, are inference, analysis,
synthesis, and evaluation which are what experts include "as being at the very core
of critical thinking" (Facione, 1992) formal language study; and it fosters the
development of literacy skills.
Based on the argument above, it is clear that, both of critical thinking and
reading comprehension have a strong relationship with each other, as reading
comprehension will be supported by critical thinking.
Studies on Critical Thinking Skills and Critical Reading
Bağ and Gürsoy (2021) did a study to explicitly teach EFL learners critical
thinking abilities and integrate it into the curriculum. The findings showed that the
inclusion of critical thinking enhanced students' linguistic competency as well as their
capacity for critical thought.
Wilson (2016) conducted a study to look into the implementation of critical
reading by three English teachers in three contexts for teaching and learning English
for academic reasons. According to his research, teaching pupils how to read critically
and critically think helped them become better readers and develop their
metacognitive and cognitive abilities to approach texts. Wilson emphasized the
necessity to combine these abilities with a well-balanced framework of critical
thinking dispositions, such as character, attitude, self-efficacy, and being openminded, even if teachers used a variety of techniques to teach critical reading.
Another finding was that students were more motivated when they used critical
thinking skills since the materials were authentic and the environment was
supportive.
In a different study, Salameh, Salameh, and Al-Emami (2019) looked into how
cognitive and metacognitive methods can enhance students' comprehension in the
three reading sub-skills of comprehending, critical thinking, and quality schema. The
study found that by connecting prior knowledge with new material, cognitive and
metacognitive strategies helped students become better readers and develop their
critical thinking abilities. Also, after reading the target content, students were able to
respond to inquiries they had anticipated.
Moreover, Moeiniasl, Taylor, deBraga, Manchanda, Huggon, and Graham
(2022) looked at the critical thinking abilities of EFL undergraduate psychology
students. The results of this study demonstrated that students' poor English
proficiency negatively impacted their performance on tests of critical thinking skills.
Because of this, it was important for pupils to adopt a critical reading strategy, and
teachers needed to implement lessons that encouraged critical thinking.
The effect of teaching critical reading skills on students' academic achievement
in social studies courses was examined by Ozensoy (2021). As compared to a control
group that did not practice critical reading skills, he discovered that there was a
substantial difference in the academic development of the children. Another result
was that there were other aspects to take into account while teaching essential skills,
including the school, the classroom atmosphere, and how activities were incorporated
into the curriculum.
In a different study, Wong (2016) looked into the efficacy of combining reading
comprehension techniques with critical thinking abilities to enhance Saudi students'
academic reading comprehension. After studying documents, the researcher
discovered that Saudi students had trouble adjusting to degree programs in the US
because of their educational background, which did not adequately develop their
critical thinking skills. For this reason, he created a critical thinking resource guide
to assist teachers in addressing students' reading issues through various reading
activities conducted both within and outside of the classroom using online literature.
Students were asked to engage in a range of critical responses to the texts being
presented as part of these activities, including studying, interpreting, and occasionally
assessing them.
In a recent study, Karakoc, Ruegg & Gu (2022) carried out a study to explore
the reading requirements for undergraduate students. The study showed that students
had to be exposed to a wide range of reading materials such as academic book
chapters and journals. However, for students to meet the demands of university
courses, they need to learn more complex reading skills to be able to read more deeply
and critically.
Gao (2019) studied how reading analytically affected students' ability to think
critically with university students. The study came to the conclusion that reading in
an analytical mode improved students' ability to think critically. The higher and more
difficult level of profundity and flexibility was easier for students to transition from
than the initial level of relevance, clarity, and logic. Because learning a skill involves
a technique followed by practice, the study stressed the need for analytical reading
approach training.
Last but not least, Olifiant, Cekiso, and Rautenbach (2020) conducted a study to
comprehend English language learners' real practices and perspectives of critical
reading. The findings showed that students had high self-perceptions of their reading
abilities and used a wide range of reading methods to successfully complete reading
comprehension problems. Nevertheless, their statements of using various tactics did
not match what they actually performed when reading passages in class. Their reading
comprehension was limited to what was explicitly stated within the lines, but they
were unable to comprehend what was said outside of those lines.
CHAPTER 2.
RESEARCH, FINDING AND DISCUSSION
2.1. Methods
Design of the research
This research is a correlational research. According to Creswell (2008, p.356),
correlational research is a quantitative method with a statistical inferences to describe
and measure the degree of magnitude or relationship between two variables. From
the definition above, it is clear that the purpose of the correlational research is to find
out whether there is a relationship between two or more sets of data. There were two
variables in this research; they were students’ critical thinking and the students’
reading comprehension. The students’ critical thinking was the independent variable
and students’ reading comprehension was the dependent variable.
Time and location of the research
The research was conducted from December 2022 to January 2023 in Senior
majored-English student at Thang Long University.
Participants
The subject of the research are the senior majored-English students of Thang
Long University and the object was to find out the significant relationship between
critical thinking and their reading comprehension.
Instruments
-
Critical Thinking Questionnaire
This Critical Thinking test measures student ability to think critically and draw
logical conclusions based on written information. Critical Thinking tests are often
used in job assessments in the legal sector to assess a
candidate's analytical critical thinking skills. A well known example of a critical
thinking test is the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal. The test comprises
of the following five sections with a total of 10 questions:
1. Analysing Arguments
2. Assumptions
3. Deductions
4. Inferences
5. Interpreting Information
-
IELTS Reading Test:
The reading section of IELTS Test is implemented to check its possible
correlation with ESP learners’ critical thinking abilities. The test is taken from
Cambridge Practice Tests for IELTS 1 (Jakeman & McDowell, 2006) from page 19
to page 30 in references. IELTS test is a standard means of assessing learners’
language ability and due to this reason it is chosen as the main measure of reading
evaluation in this study. The test consists of three passages of forty one questions
required to be answered in 60 minutes. The passages are taken from books, journals,
magazines, and newspapers, and have been written for a non-specialist audience. All
the topics are of general interest. They deal with issues which are interesting,
recognizably appropriate, and accessible to test takers.
Procedure
Respondents provide the necessary data for researching. After that, researchers
would gather data, divide into characteristics then analyze them.
Survey design: There are two sections in the survey questionnaire and two mini
tests of critical thinking and reading comprehension. The first part is the personal
information, which respondents fill in their general information about their names,
courses and gender. The second part includes five questions relevent research.
Data Analysis
The instruments, both critical thinking test, and reading comprehension test,
were analyzed in order to gain the data of the study. After giving the critical thinking
test, and then I checked, and then scored the results manually to know students’
critical thinking level. The results of critical thinking level were analyzed by using
percentage of students’ choice. To interpret the students’ individual score, the range
of scores of critical thinking used as follows: High, Medium, and Low. The reading
comprehension test consisted of 40 items. The highest score were 100 so it meant that
the score of each item was 2,5. In this study, independent Samples T-test in SPSS
were run to analyze data. If p-value is higher than 0.5 then it was normal and vice
versa. In this study, linearity test was conducted to know whether the data of critical
thinking andreading comprehension test was linear or not. If the score was higher
than 0.05, the two variables were linear.
2.2. Findings and discussion
2.1.1.
Findings
Students’ critical thinking and reading comprehension
Table 1. Descriptive statistics of variables measured
N
Minimum Maximum
Mean
Std.Deviation
Critical thinking
40
40
100
70
17,02
Reading comprehension
40
37,5
95
65
15,80051
According to Table 1, the mean score of learners’ critical thinking is M=70
(SD=17,02). The mean score of learners’ reading comprehension is M=65
(SD=15,80051). To check the possible relationship between the two variables,
Pearson correlation was run. Table 2 provides the results of correlation. According to
the results, there is a significant relationship between students’ critical thinking and
their reading comprehension skill (p=0.00≤0.01). It means the higher critical thinking
ability students have, it is likely they show higher reading ability.
The relationship between critical thinking and reading comprehension
Table 2. Pearson correlation between critical thinking and reading comprehension
Critical thinking
Critical
Reading
thinking
comprehension
1
.125*
Pearson Correlation
Sig.(2-tailed)
.2
Reading
Pearson Correlation
.125*
comprehension
Sig.(2-tailed)
.2
1
*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)
It was shown that the correlational coefficient of the test was 0.125 in which
based on Fraenkel, Wallen, and Hyun (2012) state that correlation below 0.35 show
very weak relationship between variables. These relationships have almost no value
in any predictive sense. Moreover, from the statistical analysis, it was also shown
that the p-value was 0.2 which was higher than 0.05. Therefore, these scores
explicitly indicated that it was insufficient to reject the null hypothesis that is in the
other words, there was a significant relationship between students’ critical thinking
and their reading comprehension.
The second research question of the study explored whether there is any
significant difference between high- and low-critical thinkers regarding their
reading achievement. Independent samples t-test was applied to check the
difference. To begin with, learners were divided to two groups of high and low
critical thinkers based on the mean score of critical thinking ability (M=70). As
Table 1 shows, cut-point was indicated according to average of minimum (40) and
maximum (100) scores of the students in the questionnaire. Based on learners’
score, the score under 50 with 11 students belong to the low group and the score
above 80 with 7 sudents enter the high critical thinker group. The descriptive
statistics of the two groups are presented in Table 3
Table 3. Descriptive statistics of high and low critical thinkers.
Group
N
Mean
Std.Deviation
Std.Error Mean
Critical
1
11
46,36
5,045
1,521
thinking
2
7
92,86
4,880
1,844
To test whether high and low critical thinkers are significantly different, an
independent samples t-test as run. According to Table 4, high critical thinkers are
significantly better in reasoning and problem solving compared to low critical
thinkers
Table 4. Independent samples t-test between high and low critical thinkers
Levene's Test
t-test for Equality of Means
for Equality of
Variances
F
Sig.
t
df
Sig.
Mean
Std.
95% Confidence
(2-
Differ-
Error
Interval of the
tailed
ence
Differe-
Difference
)
nce
Lower
Upper
Equal
variances
,452
,511 -19,295
16
,000 -46,494
2,410
-51,602 -41,385
-19,448 13,259
,000 -46,494
2,391
-51,648 -41,339
assumed
Critical
thinking
Equal
variances
not
assumed
The influence of critical thinking to reading comprehension
In order to check whether there is a significant difference between the two groups
regarding their reading comprehension ability, an independent samples t-test was run.
According to Table 5, there is a significant difference between high and low critical
thinkers in their reading performances (t (40)=16, p=.000). Higher critical thinkers
significantly understand the receptive input better than the low critical thinkers.
Table 5. Independent samples t-test between high and low critical thinkers
regarding their reading comprehension
Levene's
t-test for Equality of Means
Test for
Equality of
Variances
F
Sig.
t
df
Sig.
(2taile
d)
Mean
Std.
Differe Error
nce
Differ
ence
95% Confidence
Interval of the
Difference
Lower
Upper
Equal
variances
Reading
,812 ,381 -14,275
16 ,000 -41,396 2,900 -47,544
-35,249
-15,230
15,383 ,000 -41,396 2,718 -47,177
-35,615
assumed
comprehe Equal
nsion
variances
not
assumed
2.1.2. Discussion
First, to support the result in terms of the first question that proves the impact
of critical thinking skills on reading comprehension ability it is necessary to state the
views of some cognitive experts regarding these two variables. Some of the mental
skills employed in reading comprehension, as Celce-Murcia (2001) quotes Grabe
(1991), are inference, synthesis, analysis, and evaluation which are what experts
include as being at the very core of critical thinking. "As to the cognitive skills here
is what experts include as being at the very core of critical thinking: interpretation,
analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self- regulation."(Facione, 1992, p.4)
In this regard, taking the definition of reading comprehension by Dorothy
Durkin (1993), "intentional thinking during which meaning is constructed through
interactions between text and reader", this construction of meaning during reading is
"a complex merger of skills, prior knowledge and text mediated by the language
skills, motivation and interest of the reader" (Collins, Gambrell, & Pressley, 2002;
Almasi, 2002, and Cambourne, 2002, cited in Robinson, 2006, p.32), which
according to Sweet and Snow (2002, in Robinson, 2006, P.32) "covers the full
spectrum of Bloom's taxonomy in critical thinking including knowing facts,
understanding concepts, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation". Thus the
above claim has been crystallized in the significant improvement of experimental
group in reading comprehension. As it can be seen critical thinking and
comprehension both are cognitive abilities having cognitive skills in common so that
improving the first can contribute to the improvement of the other reading
comprehension. This supports the purpose of the study that critical thinking skills has
a positive effect on reading comprehension.
Secondly, the data distribution showed that most of the students were in the
medium level of critical thinking. This finding was the same as the study conducted
by Hosseini, Khodaei, Sarfallah, and Dolatabadi (2012). They state that the critical
and analytical thinking skills among the engineering students at University
Kebangsaan Malaysia were at moderate level despite their high academic
achievement. This might happen because the students act as passive learners who
think that they should memorize all the facts and information. It is in line with what
Fahim and Ahmadian (2012) state that the practice in the academic setting usually
views education as the transfer of knowledge. Morever, Chaffee (1992) argues that
critical thinking is barely taught explicitly and systematically within the educational
framework. It results in the inability of the students to apply higher order thinking
skills in evaluating information, situation, facts, assumptions, concepts or statements.
Next, for reading comprehension the data distribution shows that there was a
little percentage of those below medium achievement. And there was nearly a quarter
of students in a very good level of reading comprehension. We can see that their
ability in thinking critically also influences their achievement in reading
comprehension. Furthermore, the finding revealed that there was significant
correlation between critical thinking and reading comprehension achievement, and
the strength of the correlation was high. It indicates that the more the students think
critically, the higher the students’ achievement would be in reading comprehension.
It is likely caused by the skills involved in critical thinking, i.e. analyzing, evaluating,
and extending argument, which helped them in comprehending the reading passage.
Results of this study show that students with higher critical thinking skill are
more likely to receive higher scores in reading. It can be due to the fact that critical
thinking in general can help students to participate in tasks, and students with high
critical thinking skill set higher goals and engage themselves in tasks which require
considerable fact and evidence. This is contrary showed a large significant positive
correlation between critical thinking and reading ability of students in Florida State
University; in reading activities for college students of Florida State University,
students’ level of critical thinking skill affect students’ ability in reading.
In short, the total contribution of students’ critical thinking and their reading
comprehension skill showed significant relationship and influence. However, the
unexplained factors also had contribution on student’s reading comprehension. The
findings of this study may have some pedagogical implications for teachers, students,
and next researcher. Finally, this study was successful in investigating the correlation
and the influence between critical thinking and reading comprehension of the senior
majored-english students of Thang Long University.
CHAPTER 3: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
3.1. Conclusion
The objective of this research was to find out whether there is a significant
relationship between students’ critical thinking and their reading comprehension in
Senior majored-english student at Thang Long University or not. Based on data
analysis in the previous chapter, it is concluded that the Students’ reading
comprehension in here was categorized into enough level and there is considerable
evidance that critical thinking both encourages and measures reading comprehension
ability of student. This has been proved by the value of correlation between the
critical thinking and reading comprehension of the forth-year students.
The findings of the study support the improvement of the learners’ thinking
skill, which will result in the promotion of reading skill. Teachers should instruct
learners to read critically during reading. They should be taught to focus on
information from context, and tasks to get the points. This study also indicated that
higher critical learners are more successful in their reading. It is implied that helping
students to apply logical considerations result in a better development in language
improvement especially a receptive ability like reading.
Although the research also collects certain results, it has some limitations.
Firstly, there are quite few students doing the survey because of Covid-19 pandemic.
Hence, it is difficult to take a broad view and analyze figures. Secondly, the
questionnaire of the research only a mini sample for testing critical thinking level.
Therefore, it desn’t completely reflect the level of participants. In the future, I hope
this research will be done on a larger group ò subjects.
In conclusion, students’ success in reading comprehension was significantly
affected by their critical thinking.
3.2. Suggestion
Regarding the conclusion stated previously, I would like to propose several
suggestions, as follows:
1. It is suggested for students to increase their critical thinking, because critical
thinking is the ability to understand, construct, and criticize arguments and
communicate the ideas clearly and effectively not only in reading comprehension but
also in other language skills in language learning.
2. For the English teacher, I recommend to also concern on students’ difficulties in
learning English. Teacher has to give more attention the students to upgrade their
ability in reading comprehension. The teacher should also make a joyful and
attractive learning in order to invite the students to share their opinions when they
perform any kind reading texts in the classroom. Thoughout the course of teaching,
teachers always should be ask the questions for students so that student’s brain can
work in the most effective way.
3. These findings are also expected to be a reference for futher researchers that
concerning with critical thinking and reading comprehension.
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