| dc.description.abstract | Due to the proliferation of information from all sources, such as social
media and the recent "fake news" epidemic, the ability to think critically plays a
crucial role in the modern era. More than ever before, young people must be able
to distinguish between facts and opinions and evaluate the credibility of evidence.
Critical thinking consists of the cognitive abilities of reasoning, inference,
decision making, and evaluation. To evaluate arguments and overcome problems,
humans use critical thinking. To comprehend and manage one's natural and social
environments, critical thinking is required. To fathom event causes, scientists
must be capable of critical thought. To implement effective policies, politicians
must be able to think with precision. As a result, we cannot delegate reasoning to
scientists and legislators because we all want to verify the veracity of what they
tell us and prescribe for us. We require the capacity for critical thought.
The preponderance of information available today pertains to literacy. To
assimilate and organize the obtained information in this situation, reading
comprehension skills are necessary. In this instance, reading comprehension and
critical thinking are related because comprehending the obtained information
requires critical thinking. Reading comprehension-related subjects incorporate
critical reasoning for this reason.
In recent decades, critical thinking has received a great deal of attention,
despite the fact that the significance of the present study may be contested.
Multiple initiatives to cultivate critical thinking were initiated. It is considered an
essential element of education, without which little can be achieved. However,
when it comes to teaching the four skills in general and reading in particular, it is
typically overlooked by educators and instructors in many nations, including
Indonesia.
This study aims to determine whether or not critical thinking skills and
reading comprehension are correlated. As is common knowledge, critical thinking
consists of four components: induction, deduction, credibility, and assumption
identification. The researcher wants to determine which of these four factors
contributes most to reading comprehension. In addition, the researcher intends to establish a connection between critical thinking abilities and literal and inferential
reading comprehension.
This study involved 125 first-year English Language Education Department
correspondents in descriptive correlation research. Correspondents were provided
with online versions of Cornell's Critical Thinking Test (CCTT) type X and
Reading Comprehension Test (RCT) in order to obtain the essential data. The
collected data were then analyzed using a regression test.
According to the data analysis, critical thinking contributes considerably to
both literal and inferential reading comprehension. The correlation between the
CCTT score and the RCT score demonstrates this. Then, deduction has the
greatest distribution of the four mentioned indicators, both globally and at both
reading comprehension levels.
Critical thinking and reading comprehension are inextricably intertwined
and cannot be separated, as critical thinking benefits humans in multiple domains,
including reading comprehension. Even though it is less stimulated at the literal
level and more involved at the inferential level, the ability to conclude general
things into more specific and logical things, or deduction, contributes the most to
reading comprehension abilities. The findings of this study have implications for
improving the reading comprehension abilities of Indonesian EFL students of
varying proficiency levels. | en_US |
