Critical thinking and reading comprehension among postgraduate students: The case of gender and language proficiency level

Abstract

Critical thinking is believed to have significant contributions to learners’ academic context in the era of technology and explosion of information (Kealey, Holland & Watson, 2005; Oliver & Utermohlen, 1995; Yeh, 2004). The need to think critically is felt more prominently for the postgraduate students with their intense exposure to more readings. This paper aims at probing the role of critical thinking skills in EFL learners’ reading comprehension. In so doing, four hundred and forty-three male and female Iranian EFL postgraduate students in the fields of translation studies and English language teaching at Islamic Azad University, South Tehran and Science and Research branches participated in this study were selected. These students were selected based on their general English proficiency score in MA entrance examination in Iran. Considering the normal distribution of the subjects’ scores, we chose those scores one standard deviation above and below the mean to be in the sample of the study. Consequently, four hundred and forty-three of them were patterned as homogenous and selected for the purpose of this research. Watson-Glaser critical thinking questionnaire and Longman's TOEFL were used to collect data. The Pearson Correlation Coefficient was run to analyze the data. The findings of present study demonstrated that there was a significant relationship between critical thinking and reading comprehension. Also, gender and level of proficiency could not make a statistically significant difference in this respect.