A Study On The Correlation Between Senior High School Students' Critical Thinking Disposition And English Reading Achievements

As one of the four basic skills of language,reading plays an important role in English learning in senior high school.The New English Curriculum Standards for senior high school explicitly proposes that students should be equipped with critical thinking abilities to judge the author's view and the process of argumentation in English reading.However,based on the analysis of English reading achievements in NEMT in recent years,it can be found that the senior high school students have a poor performance on the items which reflect critical thinking ability,such as induction,summary,analysis and reasoning.Therefore,it is urgent to explore the critical thinking in English reading.Based on the Facione's research about critical thinking disposition and English reading comprehension test at home,this research adopts qualitative method and quantitative method to explore the following questions:(1)What is the overall situation of senior high school students' critical thinking disposition?(2)What is the difference between females and males in critical thinking disposition?(3)What is the correlation between senior high school students' critical thinking disposition and English reading achievements?Participants in this study are 94 freshmen from two parallel classes of the third senior high school in Lv Shunkou district.They take 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 one is an English reading comprehension test which is used to test the participants' reading comprehension achievements.Finally,this research adopts SPSS 19.0 to make descriptive analysis,correlation analysis and independent-samples T test according to the related data.The research reveals that senior high school students have a weak critical thinking disposition in general.Besides,there is an apparent gender difference in critical thinking disposition.Males are stronger in analyticity,systematicity,CT confidence and inquisitiveness,while females are stronger in truth-seeking,open-mindedness and maturity.There is no obvious positive correlation between senior high school students' critical thinking disposition and English reading achievements in general.However,there is a certain correlation among several specific scales of the two.Finally,the research proposes some practical suggestions for education departments,English teachers and students to elevate senior high school students' critical thinking disposition and English reading achievements.Besides,this research is expected to provide some valuable references for further study.