A Study On The Relationship Of Critical Thinking Ability And English Performance Of High School Students

Issued by the Ministry of Education in 2017,the New Curriculum Standard clearly stated that teachers must cultivate senior high students’ critical thinking disposition and skills for meeting the communicative needs and cognitive development.Nevertheless,due to exam-oriented education,senior high school students are in a passive position in absorbing knowledge without considering the purpose of learning.Moreover,the teachers pay much attention to senior high students’ scores rather than their thinking abilities.Consequently,English is barely used for real communication even after several years of learning.Worse still,when students encounter problems with their lives or studies,they fail to perform and analyze properly;therefore,they cannot solve these difficulties.Given the situations,a mounting number of experts attach great importance to the need for cultivating senior high students’ critical thinking ability.This study tries to explore the differences between critical thinking disposition and skills among senior high school students in terms of regional places and which factor has a more significant impact on senior high students’ English performance,critical thinking disposition,or critical thinking skills.Qualitative and quantitative methods were adopted to answer research questions summarized above: 1)Descriptive statistics were performed to describe the results of participants’ critical thinking disposition,critical thinking skills as well as their English performance;2)Independent Sample T-test was used to explore differences of critical thinking disposition and critical thinking skills between students from rural and urban regions;3)Pearson correlation analysis was conducted to illustrate the relationship between thinking disposition,critical thinking skills,and English performance;4)Multiple linear regression analysis was employed to analyze effects of critical thinking disposition and critical thinking skills on English performance,and a correlation model will be built up accordingly;5)An interview was carried out to analyze students’ understanding about critical thinking ability,so as to have a deep insight in the attitude towards critical thinking ability in urban and regional areas.The results were as follows:(1)Based on the descriptive statistics of critical thinking disposition,we found that the students’ critical thinking disposition was at a middle level.In other words,students developed critical thinking disposition unevenly.Additionally,participants’ critical thinking skills fell within the lower middle level.Furthermore,there were significant differences among students in both their critical thinking disposition and skills in terms of regional places.(2)As for the relationship among critical thinking disposition,critical thinking skills,and English performance,the results of the Pearson correlation revealed critical thinking disposition,critical thinking skills and English performance were positively correlated with one another.(3)The result of multiple linear regression indicated that both critical thinking disposition and critical thinking skills could be great predictors of senior high students’ English performance.Meanwhile,critical thinking disposition had a more significant impact than critical thinking skills on senior high students’ English performance.(4)The ultimate model of path analysis was drawn,which revealed a causal relationship between critical thinking disposition and critical thinking skills.In other words,critical thinking disposition could directly predicate English performance and has a mediating impact on critical thinking skills.Additionally,critical thinking skills could also act in English performance.In conclusion,critical thinking disposition has an indirect effect on English performance via the impact of critical thinking skills,which can be seen from the ultimate model of path analysis.(5)According to the result of interview,it can be found that students in urban areas have developed their critical thinking abilities under the guidance of teachers.However,teachers from regional areas have paid little attention on students’ critical thinking ability compared to peers in urban cities.