The Role of Reflective Writing Components in the Development of EFL Student-teacher’s Critical Thinking: A Quasi-Experimental Study
Keywords:
Reflective journal writing, Group debriefing, Critical thinking skills, Student-teachersAbstract
The aim of this study was to examine the role of reflective writing in improving the critical thinking skills of EFL student teachers. The participants were first-year second-semester EFL diploma trainees at Asella College of Teacher Education (ACTE), comprising two intact groups: an experimental group (D1) and a control group (D2). The study used the quasi-experimental non-randomized control group approach. The study employed a multiple regression data analysis model to examine the contribution of reflective journal writing and group debriefing in the first and second rounds on the student teachers’ critical thinking skills. The finding from regression analysis reveals that writing in a reflective journal had a significant beneficial impact, with the coefficients of 4.931(p<0.001). Similarly, group debriefing has a positive correlation with critical thinking coefficient (B) of 0.203 (p<0.01). The results also show that reflective writing components support critical discussion. In this context, incorporating reflective writing (RW) into English language education is both timely and significant, aligning with Ethiopia’s transition to a competency-based curriculum and its focus on developing competent professionals. Since critical thinking (CT) is increasingly recognized as a key educational skill, the experiences from Ethiopian classrooms provide useful lessons for other education systems encountering comparable challenges worldwide.
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