The Degree of Faculty’s Use and Stimulation of Students’ Critical Thinking from the Perspective of English Majors at Al-Quds University

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine the degree of faculty’s use and stimulation of critical thinking skills in the English Department at Al-Quds University. To achieve the objective of the study, a questionnaire consisting of 21 items was designed and applied to the study sample, consisting of 95 students in the English Department at Al-Quds University in Palestine. In addition to that, 11 students from the same department were interviewed. The results of the study showed that the degree of faculty’s use and stimulation of critical thinking skills in the English Department were medium, and that there were no statistically significant differences in the degree of the faculty’s use and stimulation of critical thinking due to gender and performance, and the presence of significant differences was due to level and in favor of third year English majors. The results of the students’ interview also showed that there were skills that teachers used largely as the skill of interpretation and analysis, and that there were skills which were fairly used such as the skill of inference, and the assessment skill was low. In light of the results of the study, the researchers recommended the need for further similar studies on different samples and departments, the need of including a single course in critical thinking in the Faculty of Arts, and the need to hold workshops for teachers on critical thinking skills, especially the skill of assessment.

Keywords: Use and stimulation, critical thinking, English majors, Al-Quds University