Metacognitive Awareness and Critical Thinking Abilities of Pre-service EFL Teachers

Dilek Cakici

doi:10.5539/jel.v7n5p116

Abstract

The primary aim of current study was to investigate the possible relationship between Metacognitive Awareness (MA) and Critical Thinking Skills (CTS) in a foreign language learning context. In addition, this research aimed to probe the effect of gender and years of pre-service English language teachers on the relation between metacognitive awareness and critical thinking abilities. 218 pre-service EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers participated in the study. Metacognitive Awareness Inventory and Critical Thinking Questionnaire were employed to gather necessary data. Obtained results confirmed that there existed a highly significant positive correlation between MA and CTS. Besides, the results indicated that there was a strong relation between the years of pre-service EFL teachers and their MA and CTS. Seniors were found to be more metacognitively aware and critical thinkers than their counterparts. Conversely, it was revealed that there was no gender effect on both MA and CTS. Finally, certain suggestions were set for tertiary institutions to develop metacognition and critical thinking skills in foreign language classroom settings.

Highlights

1.1 Introduce the ProblemThere has been necessarily a growing awareness to think about thinking in the highly demanding and challenging educational realm recently
The main purpose of the present study was to examine the relation between metacognitive awareness and critical thinking abilities of pre-service English teachers
From a practical point of view, this finding has major implications for how to help students to increase their awareness of metacognition and foster their skills of critical thinking

Summary

Introduction

1.1 Introduce the ProblemThere has been necessarily a growing awareness to think about thinking in the highly demanding and challenging educational realm recently. In conjunction with the increasing popularity of cognitive psychology, there has been a quite buzz around the terms metacognition and critical thinking. Most researchers heralded new views on the substantial and probable relationship between metacognition and critical thinking. Over the years a considerable amount of research has been carried out with the aim of identifying two constructs assuming an increasingly central place in cognitive development research. Metacognition has stimulated a flood of recent research and publications in language learning. With this background, the bulk of the research on relation between MA and CT, offers researchers a prescription for encouraging students to enhance their ways of knowing or their thinking skills

Objectives

Results

Discussion

Conclusion