Research On Correlation Between College Students' Critical Thinking Competency And English Writing Levels

Stella Cottrell's 'Critical thinking:Knowledge,skills and attitudes' questionnaire is adopted to measure the college students' critical thinking through three dimensions.On the basis of the studies of related researchers,a research framework consistent with the three dimensions of CT is constructed,which serves as the reference for evaluating the college students' CTS presented in their English argumentative compositions.This study starts from the aspect of English argumentative compositions,meanwhile,two turns of evaluation respectively on critical thinking skills and general evaluation of the students' English argumentative compositions reveals the college students' application levels of CTS in their English argumentative compositions as well as their English argumentative writing levels.On that basis,comparison of correlations among the college students' CT questionnaire results,application levels of CTS in their English argumentative compositions and their English argumentative writing levels is therefore conducted.Two research questions are addressed in this study:(1)What are the current situations of Chinese college students' critical thinking competency and their actual application levels of critical thinking skills in their English argumentative compositions?(2)What are the relationships among college students' critical thinking competency,actual application levels of critical thinking skills in their English argumentative compositions and their English argumentative writing levels?The research findings are as follows.The college students' CT questionnaire results show that more than two thirds of the students show 'confidence' in their own critical thinking;however,there are almost one third of the students appear to be lack of confidence in their own critical thinking.The overall students being tested perform best in the dimension of critical thinking attitudes,and they are relatively positive in the dimensions of critical thinking knowledge and skills.However,accounting for that the students being tested come from a key university and the general evaluation of their English argumentative compositions also declare their good command of English argumentative writing,nevertheless,it is concluded that there is still large room for improvement considering comprehensively.Probing further into the correlations among the college students' CT questionnaire results,their corresponding application levels of CTS in English argumentative compositions and their English argumentative writing levels,it is found out that:(1)The students' English argumentative writing levels are strongly positively correlated with both their CTS application levels(presented in their argumentative compositions)and their CT levels(questionnaire results),which indicates that the students' English argumentative writing level is positively affected by their critical thinking skills and overall critical thinking levels.(2)Correlations between the students' English argumentative writing levels and respectively with the three dimensions of CT,from higher to lower are with skills,with knowledge and with attitudes.Moreover,their writing levels are significantly positively correlated with the dimension of skills,indicating that the students' English argumentative writing level connected most closely with the dimension of critical thinking skills.(3)Correlations between CTS presented in the students' English argumentative compositions and respectively with the three dimensions of CT,from higher to lower are with knowledge,with skills and with attitudes.Besides,the students' writing levels are significantly positively correlated with the dimensions of critical thinking knowledge and skills,which implies a close connection between the students' application levels of CTS in their English argumentative compositions and the dimensions of critical thinking knowledge and skills.Some implications on the fostering of critical thinking competency and English argumentative writing teaching practice are put forward according to the research findings:(1)for the fostering of students' critical thinking affective dispositions,attitudes that are in conflict with Chinese traditional cultures and doctrines should raise their awareness;(2)to improve students' critical thinking competence,an adequate and constant input of critical thinking knowledge(activated knowledge)and skills is necessary;(3)to improve students' English argumentative writing,it is better to improve their critical thinking skills and advance their activated knowledge;on the contrary,to foster students' critical thinking competence,the teaching process can be combined with appropriate English argumentative writing tasks,which serve as a means of practice as well as a testing method for students' critical thinking.