The Effect of Using Critical Reading Strategies on Developing University Students' Critical Thinking Skills

Abstract

This study aimed at identifying the degree of
undergraduate students' practicing critical thinking skills
through using the strategies of critical reading. These
strategies include the students' ability to identify, summarize,
analyze, hypothesize, and evaluate any text. It also aimed at
recognizing the effect of being motivated to read on the degree
of applying critical thinking skills. To achieve these two goals
a questionnaire of 56 items was developed. The validity of this
instrument has been ascertained through submitting it to a
qualified jury; and its reliability has been established by
conducting a test-re-test. The coefficient of reliability was 0.81
and 0.89 respectively. Wigfield and Guthrie's (1995)
Motivation for Reading Questionnaire (MRQ) was also used
to measure the effect of students' motivation for reading on
developing their critical thinking skills. The population of the
study consisted of all 414 students specialized in English
Language Classroom Teacher major at Al-al-Bayt University
during the second semester of 2005-2006. The target sample
of the study was restricted to the senior students. The results
indicated that there were statistically significant differences at
α= 0.05 due to using critical reading strategies of identifying,
analyzing, hypothesizing and evaluating in favor of the
experimental group except for summary which was in favor of
the control group. The findings also showed that there were
statistically significant differences at α= 0.05 only in the
domains of analysis and evaluation due to the reading
motivational variable in favor of the motivated readers.
However, by using MANCOVA, it was revealed that there
were no significant differences at α= 0.05 due to the
interaction between the strategies of teaching reading and
reading motivation variables. It is recommended that teaching
should focus on practicing critical reading strategies that
have effect on developing the students' critical thinking skills.
Similar studies should be conducted to measure the effect of
the other critical reading strategies on developing students'
skills of critical thinking.