A Study On Pre-service English Teachers’ Critical Thinking Disposition And Its Influencing Factors

In the current educational context with high-speed change and rapid development of 21st century,higher level of thinking such as critical thinking has become one of the essential qualities of modern teachers’realization of professional development.Meanwhile,whether teachers have critical thinking can directly influence and determine their students’ cultivation and development of critical thinking.Pre-service English teachers,as reserve forces of the future teachers,should consciously cultivate and develop their critical thinking when they are being trained in teacher education.Critical thinking disposition,as an essential part of critical thinking and a prerequisite for stimulating critical thinking,plays an important role in cultivating and promoting the critical thinking of pre-service English teachers.Gradually being valued in the field of education,teachers’ critical thinking disposition has been investigated by a lot of research in the literature,but few studies explore pre-service teachers’ critical thinking disposition,among which pre-service English teachers as target subjects of the research are numbered.Being as students of master of English education as well as pre-service English teachers who are engaging themselves actively in the targeting teacher education program in which a variety of learning tasks and teaching activities are provided for them,their critical thinking disposition should be put great emphasis with which they need to use their critical thinking to become successful learners and effective teachers in the future.Based on the above,this research takes 50 pre-service English teachers and English M.Ed.students at the same time as research subjects,and all of them are investigated with questionnaires,which mainly intends to explore pre-service English teachers’ current level of critical thinking disposition.Besides,12 of these pre-service English teachers are conducted semi-structured interviews later.Through the collection of data integration and analysis,the changes and influencing factors of pre-service English teachers’ critical thinking disposition during M.Ed.studying period are explored.Therefore,this study aims to explore three questions:(1)What is the current situation of pre-service English teacher’ critical thinking disposition during the studying period of M.Ed.?(2)Is there any discernible change in pre-service English teachers’ critical thinking disposition in this period?(3)What factors influence critical thinking disposition level and development of pre-service English teachers in this period?The research finds that pre-service English teachers’critical thinking disposition is at a low-and-medium level during M.Ed.studying period,that their awareness towards critical thinking disposition has enhanced and Self-confidence and Inquisitiveness sub-dimensions improved prominently during the period,and that influencing factors turn out to be mainly related to their professional background,personal cognitive styles and teaching practicum experience though the factors that affect pre-service English teachers’ critical thinking disposition vary and may not be limited to these.Based on the results,some suggestions are made for pre-service English teachers and teacher educators respectively to help cultivate and develop pre-service English teachers’critical thinking disposition.For pre-service English teachers,they should enhance the awareness and seize various opportunities to cultivate and improve their own critical thinking disposition.For teacher educators,it is recommended that they should consciously design various learning activities,use a variety of learning methods to enrich pre-service English teachers learning experience and to improve their critical thinking disposition.At the same time,in the teaching practicum,constructive feedback on critical thinking skills and dispositions are supposed to be timely given for pre-service English teachers for their development.