Critical Thinking, Writing Performance and Topic Familiarity of Indonesian EFL Learners

Abstract

This study seeks the evidence for the best pattern of relationship among critical thinking, writing performance and topic familiarity of EFL students at an Islamic university in Indonesia. Understanding the patterns of relationship is important to develop teaching syllabus, materials and evaluation method for teaching critical writing class. It employs ex-post-facto design to English department students. The instruments used were writing prompts and rubrics for assessing the observed skills namely critical thinking, writing performance and topic familiarity. Path analysis was used to figure out the pattern of relationship. The verified patterns of relationship show that on student initiated topic, critical thinking skills are triggered by topic familiarity and can be mediated by writing performance. Topic familiarity also has direct contribution toward critical thinking skills on student initiated topic. Similarly, on teacher initiated topic, critical thinking skills are supported by topic familiarity and can be mediated by writing performance as well. However, topic familiarity of teacher initiated topic does not have direct contribution toward critical thinking skills. The finding also indicates that the verified path model serves as the best pattern and can be used as a framework to predict the success of the student’s critical thinking skills.