High school students' critical reading levels and the relationship between critical reading level and critical thinking dispositions and reading frequency

The century we live in is mentioned as ?information age?. The reason for this name is the information density changing and improving from day to day. This density of information necessitates people to select the data through thinking critically. Needless to say that, ?critical thinking? has been one of the most repeated and stressed concepts in educational life. Running parallel to ?critical thinking?, the concept of ?critical reading? has been introduced in teaching programs of many countries. In the Turkish educational system, the instructions supporting ?critical reading? are displayed in the many course teaching programs of almost all grades, and the activities encouraging ?critical reading? are provided in the course books. In high schools the English course is one in which ?critical reading? is forwarded by both the teaching program and the course books. Within this context, could our students genuinely acquire critical reading skills?The purpose of this study is firstly to measure the students? level of critical reading skills; and furthermore to identify whether there is a relationship between students? critical reading levels and critical thinking dispositions and reading frequency in both English and Turkish.The participants of this study, which was conducted in the spring term of 2008-2009 academic year, comprised 147 students in Bilecik Osmaneli 75. Yıl Anadolu High School.Data were gathered through two scales, namely, ?Critical Reading Scale?, and ?California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory?.For the statistical analysis of data received from the Critical Reading Scale, mean score and standard deviation were calculated to determine the levels of students? critical reading. The mean score calculated for critical reading skills was separated into three clusters -low, medium, high- through K-means Cluster technique. Additionally, to find out whether there is a difference among the grades (9th, 10th, and 11th), ANOVA and then LSD test were computed. Thirdly, to find out whether there is a relationship between the students? critical reading levels and critical thinking dispositions, data taken from the two scales were compared through correlation analysis (Pearson correlation). Finally, to find out whether there is a relationship between the students? critical reading levels and reading frequency, chi-square value was calculated.The results of the study indicated that 32.4% of the students were at low level, 46.2% of the students were at medium level and 21.4% of the students were at high level. As it is seen majority of the students were at medium level. For the students? level of critical reading, there is a significant difference between the 9th and 11th grades in favor of the 9th grades. For the relationship between the students? critical reading levels and their critical thinking dispositions the findings indicated a positive and direct correlation; however, this relation is not significant. For the relationship between the students? critical reading levels and reading frequency the findings showed that there is no relationship between these two variables.The findings of the study revealed that critical thinking dispositions have a triggering effect for the development of critical reading skills. However, it cannot be said that reading frequency effects critical reading.KEY WORDS: Critical Reading, Critical Thinking Dispositions, Reading Frequency