Providing Critical Thinking Training in Argumentative Writing: Its Effects on Students’ Critical Thinking Quality
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20372/star.v10i3.04Keywords:
Argumentative paragraph, Critical thinking, Infusion approach, University first-year studentsAbstract
This study examined how argumentative paragraph writing classes affect university first-year L2 students' critical thinking quality. The study included two randomly selected first-year social science classrooms as non-treatment and treatment groups. The treatment group learned argumentative paragraph writing with critical thinking training, while the non-treatment group did not. The embedded design was utilized because the study used mostly quantitative data enhanced by qualitative data to investigate treatment group participants' comments on the intervention. The quantitative and qualitative data were examined using one-way ANOVA between-groups and thematics analysis methods. The quantitative data analysis showed that the treatment group had higher critical thinking quality ratings (F (1, 60) = 79.835, p = 0.000, partial eta squared = 0.571). The interview analysis revealed that the treatment group members acquired promising experience from the intervention. Thus, it was recommended that the integration of critical thinking instruction into argumentative paragraph writing sessions be taken into consideration to improve the quality of critical thinking among university first-year EFL students.
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