Effect of Gender and Teaching Experience on EFLTeachers’ Attitudes about Critical Thinking

Despite the potential benefits of critical thinking (CT) for teachers in the field of Englishas-a-foreign-language (EFL) education, it is unclear how different factors, such as genderand teaching experience, affect EFL teachers’ attitudes toward CT in EFL classroomcontexts. So, the present study aims to investigate the effect of gender and teachingexperience on Iranian EFL teachers’ attitudes toward CT. A survey-based design was usedin the present study. In this way, a well-known CT questionnaire, which has already beenwidely used in EFL contexts, was used. The first part of the questionnaire was related tothe demographic information, and the second part included items which aimed atmeasuring teachers’ attitudes toward CT. The total number of participants was ۱۶۹ EFLteachers from different private English language teaching institutes in Mashhad,northeastern Iran. They were randomly assigned to two equal groups with respect to theirgender (۶۰ male and ۶۰ female), and teaching experience (۵۰ inexperienced and ۵۰experienced). The results of independent samples t-test showed that there was a significantdifference between teachers’ attitudes toward CT with respect to their gender and teachingexperience. Considering the findings of the present study, it is suggested to introduce CTprinciples to EFL teachers to encourage them to improve their teaching practice by goingbeyond their limitations. It is also suggested that providing teachers with the principles ofCT helps them to employ the most appropriate teaching materials and methods to promotetheir students’ learning experience.

کلیدواژه ها:

critical thinking ، EFL teachers ، gender ، teaching experience ، independentsamples t-test