A Correlation Study On Senior High School Students’ Critical Thinking Disposition And English Reading Comprehension Achievement

As one of the four basic language skills,reading plays a vital role in senior high school English learning.Senior High School English Curriculum Standards（2020）clearly puts forward that students should have the ability of critical thinking and be able to reflect and judge the author’s views and argumentation in the process of reading.However,influenced by the traditional teaching methods,students are accustomed to accepting the knowledge passively and lack of the awareness and motivation of reflection and evaluation.In the long run,the goal of improving students’ thinking ability through English teaching is out of reach,which is also difficult to meet the needs of the new curriculum standard and the requirements of society.Critical thinking is composed of critical thinking skills and critical thinking disposition.Critical thinking disposition,also known as critical thinking quality or critical spirit,can predict an individual’s attitude towards critical thinking and the possibility of using critical thinking.It can be seen that critical thinking disposition plays no less important role in the formation of students’ critical thinking than critical thinking skills.Therefore,cultivating students’ critical thinking can not only focus on the improvement of skills,but also the cultivation of critical thinking consciousness and spirit should be implemented in the teaching process.In order to investigate the current situation of senior high school students’ critical thinking disposition and explore its relationship with students’ English reading comprehension achievement,this study takes three parallel classes in senior three of Leling No.1 middle school as the research subjects,a total of 195 students.The purpose of this study is to answer the following two questions:（1）What is the current situation of senior high school students’ critical thinking disposition?（2）What is the correlation between senior high school students’ critical thinking disposition and their English reading comprehension achievement?The results shows that:（1）The current situation of high school students’ critical thinking disposition shows positive traits,but it shows significant differences in the seven sub-dimensions.Students show significant positive disposition in the dimension of Inquisitiveness（m=45.39）,Cognitive maturity（m=43.51）,Open-mindedness（m=42.22）and Analyticity（m=41.82）,while students are still in a negative state in the dimension of Truth-seeking（m=37.84）,Systematicity（m=38.23）and Self-confidence（m=35.19）.（2）There is a significantly positive correlation between students’ CTD score and their English reading achievement（correlation coefficient r=0.459）.Specifically,senior high school students’ English reading achievement is positively correlated with the six dimensions of critical thinking disposition,with the highest correlation with the sub-dimension of Self-confidence（correlation coefficient r=0.346）,followed by Open-mindedness,Systematicity,Analyticity,Inquisitiveness and Cognitive maturity.From the correlation analysis,it can be seen that the higher the critical thinking disposition,the higher the students’ English reading achievement.Therefore,students’ English reading achievement can be improved by improving their critical thinking disposition.In the end,the implications for teaching and learning are put forward:（1）Establish a harmonious and democratic relationship between students and teachers;（2）Train students’ consciousness of questioning and inquiring;（3）Use “questions” to guide and cultivate students’ critical thinking;（4）Encourage students to write a learning journal to record their gains,feelings,questions,thoughts or reflections in the learning process.