The Relationship Between Teachers Candidates’ Critical Thinking Skills and their Use of Reading Strategies

Abstract

Critical thinking which refers to a higher-order of thinking that questions assumptions is one of the main learning objectives in the new elementary curriculum. The core critical thinking skills include observation, interpretation, analysis, inference, evaluation, explanation, and meta-cognition.Listening, reading, speaking, and writing activities that enrich person's conceptual knowledge can foster person's multi-dimensional thinking and his higher order thinking skills. Particularly, during the reading activity, readers can use reading strategies that are based on critical thinking principles. Thus, it is important to understand the relationship between reading strategy use and critical thinking.The aim of this study is to understand the relationship between Turkish teacher candidates’ critical thinking skills and their use of reading strategies. Participants of the study are 420 students from Department of Turkish Language Teaching, Buca Faculty of Education, Dokuz Eylul University. A descriptive study method was used in this study. The data gathering tools used in the study were the California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI) and the Metacognitive Reading Strategies Questionnaire (MRSQ). Data analysis revealed that there is a positive correlation (.B=.40; R2 =,168; F=84.127;p=,000;p<.01) between teacher candidates’ level of reading strategy use and their critical thinking disposition