Analytical Thinking in Students of Department of English at the Faculty of Education, University of Kufa

Abstract

Mental processes in general have their own characteristics. However, analytical thinking is distinctively significant, sophisticated, complex, and capable of scrutinizing phenomena, attitudes, and problems and gain explanation for them. This makes it capable of objectively addressing problems, making decisions, processing information and knowledge, and dealing with new experiences with more accuracy, comprehensiveness and symbolism. Analytical thinking is defined as the ability of the individual to face problems prudently and pay attention to details before making any decision, by deconstructing the problem in a systematically, collecting the largest possible amount of information about it, and clarifying its ambiguous issues to be able to find intellectual conclusions via realistic facts. The current study aims at the following:

1) Measuring students’ analytical thinking at the Department of English, College of Education of the University of Kufa.

2) Statistically identifying significant differences in analytical thinking among these students according to the variables of gender and specialization.

The researcher used Gregory Scale (1988) of analytical thinking. After fulfilling the scale requirements of validity and consistency, its final form was applied to (20) male students and (20) female students selected randomly through the equally stratified method. After processing the data statistically by using one sample t-test and the two independent sample t-test. The results showed that the students of the Department of English are have analytical thinking and there are no differences concerning the gender variable.

The researcher concludes, and recommends the following: -

1. Holding seminars at the university, and providing special educating programs in analytical thinking, and adding simulative material to the curricula.
2. Conducting a similar study on middle school students, and studying the effect of drug consumption on analytical thinking as an experimental study.