VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HOCHIMINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE THE IMPACT OF TEACHING CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS ON READING COMPREHENSION Submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By PHAN THI TRA KHUC Supervised by PHO PHUONG DUNG, Ph.D HO CHI MINH CITY, JULY 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HOCHIMINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE THE IMPACT OF TEACHING CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS ON READING COMPREHENSION A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By PHAN THI TRA KHUC Supervised by PHO PHUONG DUNG, Ph.D HO CHI MINH CITY, JULY 2014 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify that this thesis, entitled “The impact of teaching critical thinking skills on reading comprehension” is my own work This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institution Ho Chi Minh City, May 25, 2014 Phan Thi Tra Khuc i RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, Phan Thi Tra Khuc, being the candidate for the degree of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of theses Ho Chi Minh City, May 25, 2014 Phan Thi Tra Khuc ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my sincere gratitude to many individuals who supported me during the implementation of this thesis I wish to acknowledge first and foremost my thesis supervisor, Dr Pho Phuong Dung for her endless patience reading my drafts over and over again with extremely great care, her thoughtful comments and her gentle-but-incisive feedback, without all of which, this thesis would have been impossible I will always be thankful for her dedication and support during this thesis work I extend heartfelt thanks to Dr Le Hoang Dung, Dean and Dr Nguyen Thi Kieu Thu, former Dean of the Faculty of English and Literature, who have created favorable conditions for me to pursue the Master’s program and finish my thesis I am also deeply grateful to all my teachers in my MA and BA courses for their instruction and dedication I would like to thank my close friend, Ms Hoang Thi Nhat Tam, who has been inspiring and motivating both my teaching and my doing research My special thanks also go to Ms Ngo Thi Duyen An and Ms Trinh Hoang Yen for their practical guidance and their constant encouragement I am greatly indebted to Mr Truong Hon Huy and Ms Nguyen Nha Tran for their willingness to share materials which are necessary for me to accomplish this thesis I, last but not least, would like to dedicate this thesis to my beloved mother and father, my aunt’s family and my boyfriend Their love and support were my greatest source of inspiration and motivation in completing this study iii ABSTRACT Reading comprehension requires a tight connection with readers’ critical thinking However, Vietnamese students are commonly stereotyped as noncritical students; hence, the lack of critical thinking skills is one of the factors resulting in the poor performance of Vietnamese students in reading comprehension This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of explicit teaching of critical thinking skills on students’ reading comprehension using the revised Bloom’s taxonomy and examine the attitudes of the experimental students towards this teaching approach To this aim, 78 freshmen in the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature were invited to participate in this quasiexperimental study The findings of this study indicate that teaching critical thinking skills works effectively in promoting the students’ reading comprehension, especially when they respond to reading questions requiring their understanding and analyzing skills This approach is also empirically proved to bring better effects to the students in the low level group In addition, the results collected through the questionnaire with follow-up interviews revealed that the students had positive attitude towards this teaching approach iv CONTENTS CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study 1.2 Context of the study 1.2.1 The course Language Skills 1A 1.2.2 Perceptions of the teachers and students of a reading comprehension class 1.3 Aim of the study 1.4 Research questions 1.5 Significance of the study 1.6 Organization of the study CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 10 2.1 Theoretical concepts 10 2.1.1 Reading comprehension 10 2.1.2 The relationship between reading comprehension and critical thinking skills 12 2.1.3 Critical thinking and the revised Bloom’s taxonomy 14 2.2 Review of previous studies 21 2.3 The conceptual framework of the thesis 24 2.4 Summary of the chapter 25 CHAPTER METHODOLOGY 27 3.1 Research site 27 3.2 Participants 27 v 3.2.1 Description of the participants 27 3.2.2 Grouping 29 3.3 Research instruments 31 3.3.1 Pretest and posttest 31 3.4 Data collection procedure 35 3.5 Data analysis procedure 36 3.5.1 Analysis of the pretest and posttest 36 3.5.2 Analysis of the questionnaire 36 3.6 Summary of the chapter 37 CHAPTER 4.1 DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS 38 Statistical analysis on the students’ reading comprehension performance in the pretest and posttest 38 4.1.1 Test of normal distribution of the data 38 4.1.2 Comparison between the pretest scores of the two groups 39 4.1.3 Comparison between the pretest and posttest scores of each group and posttest scores of the two groups 41 4.2 Statistical analysis of questionnaire results 52 4.2.1 Statistical analysis of students’ viewpoint on the usefulness of the treatment 53 4.2.2 Statistical analysis of students’ viewpoint on the effectiveness and level of difficulty of the activities used in class 56 4.2.3 Students' satisfaction with the reading course 67 4.2.4 Summary of the results 68 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 70 vi 5.1 Conclusion 70 5.2 Suggestions 71 5.2.1 For English reading teachers 72 5.2.2 For syllabus designers 75 5.3 Limitations of the study 75 5.4 Recommendations for further studies 76 5.5 Summary of the chapter 77 REFERENCES 78 Appendix 1: Syllabus of language skills 1a 88 Appendix 2: The cognitive process dimension of the revised bloom’s taxonomy96 Appendix 3: Conceptual framework and classroom activities 100 Appendix 4: A lesson plan for the control group 103 Appendix 5: A lesson plan for the experimental group 106 Appendix 6: The pretest 111 Appendix 7: The posttest 123 Appendix 8: Questionnaire in english 137 Appendix 9: Questionnaire in vietnamese 141 Appendix 10: Normal distribution 145 Appendix 11: Pretest independent samples t-tests 148 Appendix 12: Posttest independent samples t-tests 150 Appendix 13: Paired samples t-tests of the control group 151 Appendix 14: Paired samples t-tests of the experimental group 154 vii LISTS OF TABLES Table 2.1: The revised Bloom’s Taxonomy Table 17 Table 2.2: Changes in terminologies in the revised Bloom’s taxonomy 18 Table 2.3: The cognitive process dimension of the revised Bloom’s taxonomy 19 Table 2.4: The conceptual framework of the study 25 Table 3.1: Demographic data of the subjects 30 Table 3.2: Types of questions in the TOEFL iBT Reading .34 Table 3.3: Format of the pretest and posttest 36 Table 4.1: Summary data of the pretest scores 40 Table 4.2: Comparison of the control group’s performance on the pretest and posttest 42 Table 4.3: Comparison of the experimental group’s performance on the pretest and posttest 42 Table 4.4: Statistics for the students’ performance on the posttest 43 Table 4.5: Comparison of the control group’s performance on the Remembering questions of the pretest and posttest 44 Table 4.6: Comparison of the experimental group’s performance on the Remembering questions of the pretest and posttest 45 Table 4.7: Statistics for the students’ performance on the Remembering questions of the posttest 45 Table 4.8: Comparison of the control group’s performance on the Understanding questions of the pretest and posttest 46 Table 4.9: Comparison of the experimental group’s performance on the Understanding questions of the pretest and posttest 46 viii Bạn vui lịng đánh giá tính hiệu hoạt động tổ chức khóa học Hoạt động lớp học Không hiệu 2.1 Làm tập Đúng/ Sai trả lời câu hỏi trắc nghiệm liên quan đến kiện đọc 2.2 Đọc lướt tìm chủ đề ý đọc 2.3 Đọc để tìm chi tiết (scanning) 2.4 Xác định đại từ câu 2.5 Đoán nghĩa từ dựa vào văn cảnh 2.6 Phân tích cấu trúc đoạn văn đọc áp dụng cấu trúc để viết đoạn văn 2.7 Thảo luận làm để vận dụng giải pháp đề xuất đọc vào tình hình thực tế Tp.HCM 2.8 Vẽ sơ đồ minh họa cho cấu trúc đọc 2.9 Viết dàn ý cho đọc 2.10 Đánh giá viết sinh viên khác 2.11 Đánh giá tính lơ-gic đọc 2.12 Đề xuất giải pháp sáng tạo cho vấn đề nêu đọc 142 Tương đối hiệu quà Hiệu Khá hiệu Rất hiệu 2.13 Viết đoạn văn tranh luận câu tục ngữ liên quan đến đọc Bạn vui lịng đánh giá độ khó hoạt động tổ chức khóa học Hoạt động lớp học Khơng khó chút 3.1 Làm tập Đúng/ Sai trả lời câu hỏi trắc nghiệm liên quan đến kiện đọc 3.2 Đọc lướt tìm chủ đề ý đọc 3.3 Đọc để tìm chi tiết (scanning) 3.4 Xác định đại từ câu 3.5 Đoán nghĩa từ dựa vào văn cảnh 3.6 Phân tích cấu trúc đoạn văn đọc áp dụng cấu trúc để viết đoạn 3.7 Thảo luận làm để vận dụng giải pháp đề xuất đọc vào tình hình thực tế Tp.HCM 3.8 Vẽ sơ đồ minh họa cho cấu trúc đọc 3.9 Viết dàn ý cho đọc 3.10 Đánh giá viết sinh viên khác 3.11 Đánh giá tính lơ-gic đọc 143 Hơi khó Trung bình Khó Rất khó 3.12 Đề xuất giải pháp sáng tạo cho vấn đề nêu đọc 3.13 Viết đoạn văn tranh luận câu tục ngữ liên quan đến đọc Bạn có hài lịng với việc dạy mơn đọc hiểu khóa học hay khơng? Rất khơng hài lịng Khơng hài lịng Bình thường Hài lịng Chân thành cảm ơn bạn! 144 Rất hài lòng APPENDIX 10: NORMAL DISTRIBUTION Case Processing Summary Class Cases Valid N Pretest - Total score Missing Percent N Total Percent N Percent The control group 39 100.0% 0% 39 100.0% The experimental group 39 100.0% 0% 39 100.0% Descriptives Class Pretest - Total score The control group Statistic Mean 20.85 95% Confidence Interval Lower Bound for Mean Upper Bound 22.18 20.88 Median 21.00 Variance 16.870 4.107 Minimum 11 Maximum 30 Range 19 Interquartile Range Skewness 5.00 -.117 145 658 19.51 5% Trimmed Mean Std Deviation Std Error 378 Kurtosis The experimental group Mean 95% Confidence Interval Lower Bound 137 741 20.44 553 19.32 for Mean Upper Bound 21.56 5% Trimmed Mean 20.46 Median 21.00 Variance 11.937 Std Deviation 3.455 Minimum 13 Maximum 27 Range 14 Interquartile Range 5.00 Skewness -.188 378 Kurtosis -.797 741 Tests of Normality Class Kolmogorov-Smirnov(a) Statistic Pretest - Total score df Shapiro-Wilk Sig Statistic df Sig The control group 147 39 033 983 39 812 The experimental group 136 39 066 971 39 409 146 40 30 Pretest - Total score 20 37 10 N= 39 39 The experimental group The control group Class 147 APPENDIX 11: PRETEST INDEPENDENT SAMPLES T-TESTS Group Statistics Std Error Group Pretest - Remembering Pretest - Understanding Pretest - Analyzing Pretest - Evaluating Pretest - Total score N Mean Std Deviation Mean The control group 38 6.74 1.655 269 The experimental group 39 6.77 1.459 234 The control group 38 6.79 1.833 297 The experimental group 39 6.51 1.636 262 The control group 38 5.29 1.800 292 The experimental group 39 5.00 1.622 260 The control group 38 2.29 1.088 177 The experimental group 39 2.15 745 119 The control group 38 21.11 3.826 621 The experimental group 39 20.44 3.455 553 Independent Samples Test Levene’s Test for Equality of Variances t-test for Equality of Means Sig F Sig t df (2- Mean 95% Confidence tailed Differ Std Error Interval of the ) ence Difference Difference Lower Pretest - Equal variances Remembering assumed 240 626 -.091 148 75 928 -.03 355 -.740 Upper 676 Equal variances not assumed Pretest - Equal variances Understanding assumed 733 395 Equal variances not assumed Pretest - Equal variances Analyzing assumed 326 570 Equal variances not assumed Pretest - Equal variances Evaluating assumed 9.394 003 Equal variances not assumed Pretest - Total Equal variances score assumed Equal variances not assumed 029 866 -.091 73.319 928 -.03 356 -.742 677 699 75 487 28 396 -.512 1.065 698 73.575 487 28 396 -.513 1.066 742 75 461 29 390 -.488 1.067 741 73.762 461 29 391 -.489 1.068 640 75 524 14 212 -.287 558 637 65.246 527 14 213 -.290 561 806 75 423 67 830 -.985 2.323 805 73.795 423 67 831 -.987 2.326 149 APPENDIX 12: POSTTEST INDEPENDENT SAMPLES T-TESTS Group Statistics Posttest - Remembering Group The control group The experimental group Posttest - Understanding The control group The experimental group Posttest - Analyzing The control group The experimental group Posttest - Evaluating The control group The experimental group The control group Posttest - Total score 38 Mean 7.55 Std Deviation 1.201 Std Error Mean 195 39 38 7.64 7.24 1.158 1.384 185 225 39 38 8.15 5.63 1.136 1.514 182 246 39 38 39 6.79 2.61 2.49 1.794 790 683 287 128 109 38 39 23.03 25.08 2.871 2.528 466 405 N The experimental group Independent Samples Test Levene’s Test for Equality of Variances F Posttest Remembering Equal variances assumed 055 Sig .815 Equal variances not assumed Posttest Understanding Equal variances assumed 717 400 Equal variances not assumed Posttest - Analyzing Equal variances assumed 1.128 292 Equal variances not assumed Posttest - Evaluating Equal variances assumed 1.315 255 Equal variances not assumed Posttest - Total score Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed 052 820 t t-test for Equality of Means Sig Mean (2Differ Std Error tailed) ence Difference df 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower Upper -.329 75 743 -.09 269 -.624 447 -.329 74.705 743 -.09 269 -.624 448 -3.181 75 002 -.92 288 -1.491 -.343 -3.173 71.527 002 -.92 289 -1.493 -.341 -3.070 75 003 -1.16 379 -1.918 -.409 -3.077 73.514 003 -1.16 378 -1.917 -.410 702 75 485 12 168 -.217 453 701 72.898 486 12 168 -.218 454 -3.329 75 001 -2.05 616 -3.278 -.823 -3.323 73.289 001 -2.05 617 -3.280 -.821 150 APPENDIX 13: PAIRED SAMPLES T-TESTs OF THE CONTROL GROUP Paired Samples Statistics Std Error Mean Pair Pretest - Total score Posttest - Total score Pair Pretest Remembering Posttest Remembering Pair Pretest Understanding Posttest Understanding Pair Pretest Analyzing Posttest Analyzing Pair Pretest Evaluating Posttest Evaluating N Std Deviation Mean 21.11 38 3.826 621 23.03 38 2.871 466 6.74 38 1.655 269 7.55 38 1.201 195 6.79 38 1.833 297 7.24 38 1.384 225 5.29 38 1.800 292 5.63 38 1.514 246 2.29 38 1.088 177 2.61 38 790 128 151 Paired Samples Correlations N Pair Correlation Sig Pretest - Total score & Posttest - 38 622 000 38 293 075 38 691 000 38 338 038 38 514 001 Total score Pair Pretest Remembering & Posttest Remembering Pair Pretest Understanding & Posttest Understanding Pair Pretest - Analyzing & Posttest Analyzing Pair Pretest Evaluating & Posttest Evaluating 152 Paired Samples Test Sig (2Paired Differences Mean Pair t Std 95% Confidence Std Error Interval of the Deviation Mean Difference Lower Upper df tailed) Pretest - Total score - Posttest - -1.92 3.035 492 -2.92 -.92 -3.902 37 000 -.82 1.738 282 -1.39 -.24 -2.894 37 006 -.45 1.329 216 -.88 -.01 -2.074 37 045 -.34 1.921 312 -.97 29 -1.098 37 279 -.32 962 156 -.63 00 -2.024 37 050 Total score Pair Pretest Remembering Posttest Remembering Pair Pretest Understanding Posttest Understanding Pair Pretest - Analyzing - Posttest Analyzing Pair Pretest Evaluating Posttest Evaluating 153 APPENDIX 14: PAIRED SAMPLES T-TESTS OF THE EXPERIMENTAL GROUP Paired Samples Statistics Std Error Mean Pair Pretest - Total score Posttest - Total score Pair Pretest Remembering Posttest Remembering Pair Pretest Understanding Posttest Understanding Pair Pretest Analyzing Posttest Analyzing Pair Pretest Evaluating Posttest Evaluating N Std Deviation Mean 20.44 39 3.455 553 25.08 39 2.528 405 6.77 39 1.459 234 7.64 39 1.158 185 6.51 39 1.636 262 8.15 39 1.136 182 5.00 39 1.622 260 6.79 39 1.794 287 2.15 39 745 119 2.49 39 683 109 154 Paired Samples Correlations N Pair Correlation Sig Pretest - Total score & Posttest - 39 683 000 39 308 057 39 763 000 39 362 024 39 366 022 Total score Pair Pretest Remembering & Posttest Remembering Pair Pretest Understanding & Posttest Understanding Pair Pretest - Analyzing & Posttest Analyzing Pair Pretest Evaluating & Posttest Evaluating 155 Paired Samples Test Sig (2Paired Differences Mean Pair t Std 95% Confidence Std Error Interval of the Deviation Mean Difference Lower Upper df tailed) Pretest - Total score - Posttest - -4.64 2.529 405 -5.46 -3.82 -11.462 38 000 -.87 1.559 250 -1.38 -.37 -3.492 38 001 -1.64 1.063 170 -1.99 -1.30 -9.637 38 000 -1.79 1.936 310 -2.42 -1.17 -5.791 38 000 -.33 806 129 -.59 -.07 -2.584 38 014 Total score Pair Pretest Remembering Posttest Remembering Pair Pretest Understanding Posttest Understanding Pair Pretest - Analyzing - Posttest Analyzing Pair Pretest Evaluating Posttest Evaluating 156 ... eight sessions of treatment using debate in the classroom as a kind of critical thinking activity The analysis of collected data from a critical thinking appraisal and a reading comprehension test... to the syllabus of the Language Skills 1A, reading does not accompany critical thinking skills and the syllabus lays a focus on language and three basic reading skills namely skimming, scanning... second part of the taxonomy, the psychomotor domain, deals with physical movement, coordination, and use of the motor-skill area While the affective domain deals with feelings and emotional areas