A Study On The Correlation Between English Majors' Critical Thinking Disposition And Content Knowledge In English Writing

As one of the necessary skills for citizens in the 21 st century,critical thinking has become the main driving force for the advancement of the knowledge society.It is widely recognized as the goal of education at all levels,especially for higher education.Content knowledge is the information used to interpret,emphasize and support the view of English writing,which is divided into content knowledge resources and presentation strategies.According to the requirements of the New National Standards,English majors should not only have strong English language ability,but also have strong ability of pragmatic understanding and expression,and learn to use strategies in the process of listening,speaking,reading,writing and translating.There are relevant studies conducted in the correlation between critical thinking and writing or reading performance at home and abroad.However,the studies on the correlation between critical thinking and concrete content knowledge in English writing are relatively rare.The lack of richness of writing content has always been a weak link in second language writing.Thus,in order to enhance English majors' critical thinking disposition and promote the use of content knowledge resources and presentation strategies in English writing,the present study is conducted with the purpose of exploring the correlation between English majors' critical thinking disposition and content knowledge in English writing.The qualitative and quantitative methods are adopted to explore the relationship between English majors' critical thinking disposition and content knowledge in English writing.The research questions of the present study are as follows:(1)What is the general situation of English majors' critical thinking disposition and content knowledge in English writing?(2)Is there a correlation between critical thinking disposition and content knowledge in English writing?(3)How to propose strategies to enrich content knowledge in English writing from each dimension of critical thinking disposition based on the research conclusions of correlation?A questionnaire survey is conducted on sophomores majoring in English in ShandongNormal University,which involves 233 students,and ten participants of them are selected for a semi-structured interview.SPSS 23.0 is adopted to analyze the collected data.The conclusion of this study is drawn based on the results of data analysis as follows.(1)Descriptive statistical results show that 70.4% of the participants have a moderate critical thinking disposition among all participants,which indicates that English majors' overall critical thinking disposition is at a moderate level.English majors frequently use knowledge resources and their overall presentation strategies are also at a frequently used level.(2)Besides,the participants' critical thinking disposition correlates significantly with the total content knowledge resources and total presentation strategies,which indicates that the stronger the critical thinking disposition of the participants is,the more widely the content knowledge resources and presentation strategies are used.(3)Based on the research conclusions of linear regression analysis,English majors' critical thinking disposition has a predictive validity on their content knowledge resources and presentation strategies.Therefore,the concrete strategies should be put forward from the sub-dimensions of critical thinking disposition with predictive validity.Based on the major findings of this study,pedagogical implications are provided to promote the development of students' critical thinking disposition and the use of content knowledge in English argumentative writing.Finally,limitations of this study and recommendations for further study are elaborated.