Iranian Domestically Designed ESAP Textbooks and Students: A Critical Thinking Perspective

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the reflection of critical thinking in ESAP textbooks developed by SAMT in Iran. To this end, three textbooks including English for Students of Veterinary Medicine (Medical Sciences), English for Students of Psychology (Soft Sciences) and English for Students of Сivil Engineering (Hard Sciences) were analyzed based on Peterson’s model to identify the frequency of different types of critical reading questions. Moreover, 153 students of these majors filled out a critical thinking questionnaire. The results showed that approximately half of the exercises reflect general reading questions not critical reading questions in ESAP textbooks. The results of Chi-Square tests showed that while there is not any significant difference between the applications of critical reading questions in the ESAP textbooks, there is a significant difference between different types of critical reading questions in ESAP textbooks. In addition, the results of the one-way ANOVA showed that there is not any significant difference between critical thinking of students of the three majors.

Keywords

• critical thinking
• textbooks
• critical reading questions
• esap