Investigating Students’ Critical Thinking Skills and their Academic Achievement The Case of Master One Language Sciences Students of English at Larbi Tebessi University

Abstract

Critical thinking is deemed a major area of interest within the field of education, particularly in the twenty-first century. In response to students’ academic accomplishments, considerable attention has been directed toward whether or not students are successful in their learning due to their criticality. For this reason, the current research aims at investigating critical thinking skills and academic achievement of Master One Language Sciences students at the department of Literature and English Language, at LarbiTebessi University. The target sample encompasses 48 participants (38 students and 10 teachers), which was purposefully selected. For the sake of addressing the research questions and hypotheses, a multi-method research was adopted to firstly underline the level of students in this intellectual ability using critical thinking test, and to explore the relationship between critical thinking and academic achievement, following a correlational research design. Additionally, a survey design and conceptual content analysis method were employed to determine the factors that may affect the tested variables. Taken altogether, the findings demonstrated a negative relationship between critical thinking and academic attainment of Master One Language Sciences students who exhibited a low level in the critical thinking test. On the basis of students’ and teachers’ questionnaires, several factors have notable consequences on their critical thinking skills and educational success. Furthermore, the obtained data from content analysis indicated a lack of higher-order thinking skills in the academic tests under study. Overall, on the basis of what have been covered, future recommendations were proposed.