The Effect of Critical Thinking Skills Training on Academic Achievement and Test Anxiety of Pre-University Students

Background/purpose. This study aimed to determine the effect of critical thinking education on academic achievement and test anxiety of pre-university students attending Yasuj City High School, which is located in the Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province of Iran. Critical thinking education was recognized as an independent variable and academic achievement and test anxiety as the study’s dependent variables.

Materials/methods. The study was conducted as a field experiment with a pretest and posttest applied to one experimental group and a control group. The instruments employed in the study were Halpern’s Critical Thinking Questionnaire and Sarason’s Test Anxiety Questionnaire, in addition to checking the students’ academic high school achievement scores. The research sample consisted of 48 pre-university students, split equally between male and female, during the 2016-2017 academic year. The participants were selected according to multistage random sampling and divided into an experimental group and a control group. Before applying critical thinking education, a pretest was conducted to both groups of students to test their prior critical thinking and test anxiety levels, as well as checking their mean high school academic grades. The experimental group were then instructed on critical thinking, whilst no critical thinking training was provided to the control group. After completion of the training, the same tests were reapplied to both groups as a posttest, in order to assess changes to the participants’ critical thinking, test anxiety, and academic achievement.

Conclusion. Multivariable Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) revealed that the applied critical thinking education significantly increased the participant students’ academic achievement and decreased their test anxiety. Additionally, comparison of the two groups mean scores showed a significant difference.

Keywords: critical thinking, academic achievement, test anxiety

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