A Study of the Relationship between Critical T hinking and Learning Strategies selected for Listening by Iranian EFL Learners at B.A. Level abstract
In foreign language learning and education, philosophical and psychological variables are of utmost importance. These variables can highly affect the learners' performance and their achievement level, especially when they learn in a community of peers. One of the most influential philosophical domains in language pedagogy is critical thinking ; ''an individual ’s power to think wisely and intelligently '' (Moon, 2003). This thesis has been conducted to investigate the relationship between critical thinking ability of Iranian B.A. students of English and their selected strategies for listening. The needed data were gathered through the application of original versions of two standard questionnaires: Watson-Glaser’ s (2000) 17-item Scale of critical thinking Appraisal Form A with reliability of .95 and in the areas of ''Inference'' , '' Recognition of Assumption'' , ''Deduction'', ''Interpretation'' and '' Evaluation of Arguments'' Cheng’ s (2003) 30-item Listening Strategy Scale with reliability of .83 and subscales of ''
Metacognitive , ''cognitive, and '' Socio-affective''. The participants of the study were students from different classes of freshman, sophomore, junior and senior at Semnan State and Islamic Azad University, Iran. From the total number of 120 students participated in the study,80 pairs of questionnaires (from 97 students of English Language and literature in B.A. level were gathered based on completion of requested demographic information and answering the questions of the sales. After obtaining the raw data, The SPSS software (version 16) was used to change the data into numerical interpretable form. To determine the relationship between critical thinking and listening strategies, correlational analysis was employed. Pearson product-moment correlation was used and the correlation coefficient(r) was .53 (p>.05). The result showed that the participants' critical thinking skill has a direct relationship with the strategies they use for listening improvement. Also, further calculations were done about the type and rate of the influence of demographic variables (namely age, gender, academic seniority, and educational level) on students' critical thinking and listening strategies. According to the One-Way ANOVA results, no meaningful relationship was observed between age, gender, academic seniority, and educational level of participants, and their critical thinking ability or the strategies the students choose for listening improvement. Based on the findings of the study, the rate of critical thinking ability (i.e. thinking and deciding well) seems to play a key role in selecting listening strategies and a vital parameter in their full-functioning and efficient learning.