1-5 Definition of Key Terms. 18

 

 

1-5-1 Reading Comprehension. 18

 

 

1-5-2 Critical Thinking. 18

 

 

1-5-3 Analysis. 18

 

 

1-5-4 Inference. 19

 

 

1-6 Significance of the study. 20

 

 

1-7 Limitation and Delimitations of the Study. 27

 

 

1-8 Assumptions. 27

 

 

CHAPTER ΙΙ: Review of the Related Literature

 

 

2-1 Introduction. 29

 

 

2-2 Thinking. 29

 

 

2-2-1 Types of Thinking. 33

 

 

2-3 A brief History of the Idea of Critical Thinking. 37

 

 

2-3-1 What Is Critical Thinking?. 41

 

 

2-3-2 Characteristics of the Critical Thinker 46

 

 

2-3-3 Critical Thinking Skills and Dispositions. 50

 

 

2-3-3-1 Inference and Analysis. 57

 

 

2-4 Teaching Critical Thinking. 59

 

 

2-4-1 How to Teach Critical Thinking. 62

 

 

2-5 Advantages of Critical Thinking. 67

 

 

2-6 Problems in Teaching Critical Thinking. 70

 

 

2-7 Language and Thought 73

 

 

2-8 Reading Comprehension. 77

 

 

2-8-1 Reading. 79

 

 

2-8-2 Comprehension. 81

 

 

2-8-3 Nature of Reading. 83

 

 

2-9 Theories in Second Language Reading. 84

 

 

 

2-9-1 Process Approach. 84

 

 

2-9-2 Schema Theory. 86

 

 

2-10 Reading Processing. 88

 

 

2-10-1 Bottom-up Processing. 88

 

 

2-10-2 Top-down Processing. 89

 

 

2-10-3 Interactive Processing. 89

 

 

2-11 Reading Comprehension Strategies. 90

 

 

2-11-1 How to Teach Reading Comprehension by Inference and Analysis. 92

 

 

2-12 Models of Reading. 97

 

 

2-12-1 Bottom-up Models. 97

 

 

2-12-2 Top-down Models. 98

 

 

2-12-3 Interactive Models. 99

 

 

2-13 Types of Reading. 100

 

 

2-13-1 Intensive Reading. 100

 

 

2-13-2 Extensive Reading. 101

 

 

2-13-3 Scanning and Skimming Reading. 102

 

 

2-13-4 Receptive and reflective Reading. 103

 

 

2-14 Critical Reading. 103

 

 

2.14.1 Approaches to Critical Reading. 106

 

 

2-15 Related Studies on Critical Thinking and Reading Comprehension  107

 

 

CHAPTER III: Methodology

 

 

3-1 Introduction. 113

 

 

3-2 Participants. 114

 

 

3-3 Instrumentation. 115

 

 

3-3-1 PET. 115

 

 

3-3-2 Reading Comprehension Pre-Treatment Test 116

 

 

3-3-3 Reading Comprehension Post-Test 117

 

 

3-3-4 Instructional Materials. 118

 

 

3-3-4-1 Course Book. 118

 

 

3-3-3-2 Pamphlet 118

 

 

3-3-4 Procedure. 118

 

 

3-3-6 Data Analysis. 136

 

 

CHAPTER IV: Results and Discussion

 

 

4-1 Introduction. 138

 

 

4-2 Participant Selection. 139

 

 

4-2-1 Descriptive Statistics of the Piloting PET Proficiency Test 140

 

 

4-2-2 Descriptive Statistics of the PET Proficiency Test 141

 

 

4-2-3 Dividing the Participants into Two Groups. 143

 

 

4-3 Pre-treatment Test 146

 

 

4-4 Post-test 151

 

 

4-5 The Results of Testing the Null Hypothesis. 154

 

 

4-6 Discussion. 156

 

 

CHAPTER V:  Conclusion, Pedagogical Implications

 

 

5-1 Introduction. 162

 

 

5-2 Summary of the Findings. 162

 

 

5-3 Conclusion. 164

 

 

5-4 Pedagogical Implications. 165

 

 

5-5 Suggestions for Further Research. 168

 

 

References. 171

 

 

APPENDICES

 

 

Appendix A.. 194

 

 

Appendix B.. 195

 

 

Appendix C.. 214

 

 

Appendix D.. 224

 

 

LIST OF TABLES

 

 

Table 4-1 Descriptive Statistics for PET Proficiency Test piloting. 139

 

 

Table 4-2 Reliability of the PET Proficiency Test Piloting. 139

 

 

Table 4-3 Descriptive Statistics for PET Proficiency Test 140

 

 

Table 4-4 Reliability of the PET. 141

 

 

Table 4- 5 Inter-rater Correlation for Writing Section of the PET. 141

 

 

Table 4-6 Descriptive statistics of the PET scores of the two groups at the outset 142

 

 

Table 4-7 the Results of Normality Check of the Distribution of scores on PET. 143

 

 

Table 4-8 Group Statistics for Two Experimental Groups’ PET scores. 144

 

 

Table 4-9 Independent Sample T-test for Two Experimental Groups’ PET scores. 144

 

 

Table 4-10 Descriptive Statistics for the Results of the Pre-treatment Test 145

 

 

Table 4-11 Results of Normality of Distribution of Scores for Reading Comprehension Pre-treatment Test 147

 

 

Table 4-12 Results of Normality of Distribution of Scores for Reading Comprehension Pre-treatment Test 147

 

 

Table 4-13 Group Statistics T- Test for Pre-treatment Test 148

 

 

Table 4-14 Independent Samples T- Test for Pre-treatment Test 148

 

 

Table 4-15 Descriptive statistics for the results of the post-test 150

 

 

Table 4-16 Results of Normality of Distribution of Scores for Reading Comprehension Post-test 150

 

 

Table 4- 17 Results of Skewness Ratio for Reading Comprehension Post-test 150

 

 

Table 4-18 Group Statistics of Two Experimental Groups on the Post-test 153

 

 

Table 4-19 Independent Samples t-Test of Two Experimental Groups on the Post-test 153

 

 

 

 

 

                                             LIST OF FIGURES

 

 

Figure 2-1 Elements of Thought (Elder & Paul, 2007) 30