Evaluation of general English coursebooks in Iranian universities: A critical thinking perspective

Abstract

The present study aimed at providing an evaluation of General English coursebooks used at universities in Iran. To this end, a retrospective evaluation was designed to examine the reading comprehension questions of a single sample of such coursebooks in terms of the degree to which they foster critical thinking. Each question was analyzed based on Facione's (2011) critical thinking model (consisting of 6 features); then, the data were analyzed and occurrence percentage of each feature was calculated. The results revealed the extent to which the coursebook matched the criteria in fostering critical thinking. Furthermore, the findings of the study seem to suggest that Iranian university students could not be expected to become critical thinkers through the study of such coursebooks. © 2012 ACADEMY PUBLISHER Manufactured in Finland.