Enhancing students� critical thinking skills in reading class using the directed reading thinking activity (DRTA) teaching strategy

Abstract

This research aims to analyze the effectiveness of the DRTA strategy in enhancing students� critical thinking skills in English reading. It applied a pre-test and post-test quasi-experimental design. The samples of this study were 37 students of the XI-MIPA of Madrasah Aliyah Miftahul Huda Tayu. The instrument for collecting data was a test. It was six questions of analytical exposition text presented in an essay-type form. A t-test was used to analyze the mean score difference between the control and experiment groups. After treatment, there was an improvement in students� critical thinking skills. The value of t0 is 2.274 and ttable is 2.030. The result of the computation was 2.274 > 2.030, while the sig. (2-tailed) was 0.029 < 0.05. There was a significant difference in the students� critical thinking skills between those who were taught reading using the DRTA strategy and those who were not. The DRTA strategy effectively enhanced the student�s critical thinking skills in reading.�