EFL Reading Comprehension Textbooks at University Level: A Critical Thinking Perspective

Abstract

Abstract—In line with the studies in EFL/ESL contexts confirming the positive relationship between critical thinking ability and reading comprehension, this study intended to investigate how frequently critical thinking is used in EFL Reading Comprehension textbooks at university level in Iran. The study investigated the course books used in order to understand to what extent critical thinking is advocated in such books. To this end, all question types in general and Critical Reading Questions (CRQs), Vocabulary In Context (VIC), Literal Comprehension (LC), and Extended Reasoning (ER), in particular were identified. The focus of the study was on ER questions, leading to critical thinking. The reason was that the crucial problem of the students lies in textually implicit information of the texts, that is, ER questions. To classify the questions for CRQs, Peterson`s (2008) model was employed, and to specify critical thinking question types, a framework proposed by Academic Skills Unit (2008) was used as reference. To collect the data entirely, the researcher identified the total number of percentages of frequencies of questions related to the passages in the course books of Reading Comprehension I, II and III. The findings seem to indicate high attention to critical thinking within the objectives of the questions of their course books and the authors of the passages

What's Behind the Label? A Qualitative Study of Critical Thinking Exercises in Two Popular English for Academic Purposes (EAP) Textbooks

“…This research differs from previous studies of critical thinking in English as a Second Language (ESL) or EAP textbooks (e.g. Aziz & Talebinejad, 2012;Birjandi & Alizadeh, 2013;Gordani, 2010, Mizbani & Chalack, 2017Sobkowiak, 2016;Talebinezhad & Matou, 2012;Ulum, 2016), because the primary objective was not to assess whether, or to what extent, one particular normative understanding of critical thinking was present, but the objective was to describe the critical thinking approaches that appear in textbooks through a broad lens informed by the theoretical literature. This objective allowed for a clearer understanding of how critical thinking is operationalized in textbooks, and how this operationalization measures against the competing critical thinking approaches found in the theoretical literature.…”

“…On the other hand, the conflating of language and study skills and critical thinking has not been addressed in previous studies of critical thinking in ESL or EAP textbooks (e.g. Azizi & Talebinejad, 2012;Birjandi & Alizadeh, 2013;Ramanathan & Kaplan, 1996;Sobkowiak, 2016;Talebinezhad & Matou, 2012). This gap is likely due to a conceptual limitation in these studies' top-down coding analysis wherein critical thinking exercises were identified based on a fixed framework rather than what the textbooks themselves identified as critical thinking.…”

Questioning Strategy That Works to Foster Critical Thinking Skills: A Study In Islamic University

“…Other researchers intended to correlate HOTS to other aspects of individual differences (Saputri, el al., 2022). Still other researchers investigated how frequently critical thinking is used in EFL Reading Comprehension textbooks at university level in Iran (Reza & Matou, 2012). Others investigates the need and willingness of teachers to develop HOTS in the teaching of science in primary schools .…”

Exploring Esp Textbooks for Commerce and Medicine: An Analysis of Skills and Types of Instruction

“…As far as critical thinking is concerned, Talebinezhad and Matou (2012) examine how frequently and to what extent critical thinking is promoted in EFL reading comprehension textbooks at university level. Following the philosophy-based language teaching approach, Baleghizadeh and Javidanmehr (2017) analyse ELT textbooks to examine how philosophical dialogue and group achievement and cooperation is fostered.…”