Relationship Between Vocational College Students’Critical Thinking Disposition And Reading Comprehension

Since1960s, critical thinking has become a hot issue in the western countries. Especially in the recent30years, a critical thinking movement in higher education is very prosperous. Domestic research on critical thinking began in the early1980s. However, it mainly concentrates on theoretical research and most studies are carried out in the fields of psychology, logic, education and nursing. Few are related to second language acquisition. Even though there are some, they mostly focus on oral English, writing skills and so on. The correlation between reading comprehension and critical thinking disposition is almost a blank.Taking Facione’s research on critical thinking disposition as the theoretical framework and considering English reading comprehension tests at home, this study tries to explore the characteristics of vocational college students’ critical thinking disposition and the relationship between critical thinking disposition and English reading comprehension achievement. The thesis mainly addresses the following questions:(1) the characteristics of Chinese vocational college students’ critical thinking disposition;(2) the distribution of their English reading comprehension achievements;(3) the correlation between vocational college students’ critical thinking disposition and English reading comprehension.Participants in this study are94freshmen from two natural classes in Electronic Information Engineering Department who entered Anhui Wonder Information Engineering College in September in2012. They took part in two tests. One is the adapted Chinese version of California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory, which is used to test the participants’critical thinking disposition. The other is an English reading comprehension test, which is used to test the participants’ English reading comprehension ability.Findings of the study are as follows:(1) Chinese vocational college students have a weak critical thinking disposition in general. The participants are relatively more mature, confident, inquisitive and analytic compared with the dispositions of Systematicity, Truth-seeking and Open-mindedness. There is statistically significant difference between males and females in critical thinking disposition. Males are more Analytical, Systematical, CT confident and Inquisitive while females are more Truth-seeking, Open-minded and Mature. Critical thinking disposition scores do not affect reading comprehension scores. However, reading comprehension achievements have a slight effect on critical thinking dispositions.(2) Generally, the reading ability of Chinese vocational college students is at an intermediate level. They are good at inferring the author’s attitude and view, distinguishing facts and details, however they are weak in reasoning and making judgment, inducing and making generalization. There is no statistically significant difference between male and female groups. Critical thinking disposition has no definite effect on reading comprehension achievements.(3) There is no statistically significant correlation between critical thinking disposition and reading comprehension achievement in general. But there is correlation between several components of critical thinking disposition and English reading comprehension.