Résumé:
It has been noticed that students’ performance in critical writing lacks illustrations of critical
thinking skills (CTS) at various levels. Therefore, a study has been considered whose aim is
to inspect the implementation of critical thinking skills in students’ written production. In
other words, it investigates the availability of critical thinking skills in students’ written
performance. The study rests on the hypothesis that if students are taught critical thinking
skills, the latter will be manifest in written performance; supported by two research questions
concerned with the students’ use of critical thinking skills across the curriculum, and how this
might be improved by the adoption of explicit teaching of critical thinking skills. In order to
test our hypothesis, a descriptive study by means of a questionnaire and a content analysis of
students’ exam papers of psychology has been conducted. The questionnaire, consisting of 11
related questions, has been administered to 11 permanent teachers at the department of
English, seeking to collect data about teachers’ perceptions and opinions about students’ use
of critical thinking skills, and their role in improving their critical writing. A content analysis
of 56 third year students’ exam papers of psychology, asking to discuss divergent perspectives
in contemporary psychology, has been carried out through assigning the exam papers to four
levels of critical thinking skills (Unilateral Description, Simplistic Alternatives or Arguments,
Basic Analysis, and Inference). The findings show that the majority of teachers do not teach
explicitly critical thinking skills, and that the overall degree of critical thinking skills is very
restricted at all four levels, giving significance to the pre-established hypothesis namely: if
students are taught critical thinking skills, the latter will be manifest in written performance. It
is concluded that building critical thinking skills remains to be fully integrated within the
currently adopted curriculum.
