Evaluating University Students’ Inference Making Ability: A Study at Bachelor Level in Pakistan

Abstract

Inference means the process of deriving a conclusion from a set of premises, including a conclusion that is probably in relation to the premises. This study has aimed to evaluate university students’ inference making ability. To explore this aim, the present study has set five research objectives which include to understand university students’ attitude towards critical thinking subset of making inferences, find out the relationship between university students’ attitude towards making inferences and their ability in making inferences, know whether critical thinking is a positive predictor for the overall score of critical thinking test (CTT), evaluate university students’ performance in exhibiting their attitude towards critical thinking and in critical thinking test (CTT) taken by them and understand the variance based on university students’ gender, location and medium of instruction in their attitude towards critical thinking inference and their ability of making inferences. To achieve these objectives, the researcher has used quantitative research methodology. The participants of this study consist of 550 male and female university students of different state-run colleges of Punjab (Pakistan). Critical thinking inventory (CTI) and Watson-Glaser’s Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA) (2002) have been used to collect data from the subjects of the study. The researcher used SPSS (XX) to analyze the collected data. The findings of this study reveal that the university EFL leaners have highly positive attitude towards making inferences but their inference making ability does not correspond with their attitude toward inference making skill.