A Study On Critical Thinking Disposition And Critical Thinking Skills Of English Majors

Western thought of critical thinking can be traced back to Greek philosophy over2500years ago, and educators in the United States are taking the lead as proponents. While in China, the study of critical thinking has come into prominence in recent ten years. The cultivation of critical thinking in the tertiary education has been more attended in the classroom of medicine and science disciplines rather than in the foreign languages. Up to now, there are studies conducted in the field of English language, and the majority focuses on the theoretical review or the skills of critical thinking, the pragmatically constructive recourses for teaching and learning are however far from being adequate, especially the empirical researches from a microscopic perspective are fairly lacking.This study has examined the characteristics of English majors’critical thinking disposition and critical thinking skills, both qualitative research and quantitative research were applied in this study. The research underlines the following questions:1. Has junior class demonstrated greater ability than freshman class in critical thinking due to the different length of academic years?2. What components contribute to the lacking of English students’ critical thinking?3. How is the improvement of students’ critical thinking to be adequately implemented?English students (N25+N29) from two classes at different grades (freshmen25, sophomore29) in Nanchang University were recruited as the subjects. Both experimental student groups took the Chinese version of Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CTDI-CV) modified by Peng Meici and Critical Thinking Skills Test invented by Ye Yuzhu. The researcher also did classroom observation and interviews to find out what factors contribute to the lacking of English majors’critical thinking and how to improve their critical thinking.The study reveals that:1. As a whole, the juniors’ critical thinking disposition and critical thinking skills are not much better than freshmen’after three years’study; instead, the freshmen’overall mean scores of critical thinking disposition and critical thinking skills are higher than the juniors’.2. Freshman class has demonstrated greater ability in critical thinking disposition than junior class; six subscales (truth-seeking, open-mindedness, analyticity, critical thinking self-confidence, inquisitiveness and cognitive maturity) mean scores of freshmen are higher than that of juniors, except in the subscale of systematicity. And freshman class also demonstrated greater ability in critical thinking skills than junior class; freshmen’s four subscales (induction, deduction, explanation and evaluation) mean scores of critical thinking skills are higher than juniors, except in the subscale of hypothesis.3. Both freshmen and juniors have overall weak critical thinking dispositions and critical thinking skills.4. Chinese tradition, students’classroom anxiety and their learning motivation, teachers’ teaching method, questioning techniques and their personal charisma play an important role in freshmen and junior’s current level of critical thinking. Therefore, both teachers and students should take actions to change the current situation.