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IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS)

Volume 21, Issue 6, Ver. 8 (June. 2016) PP 86-94
e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845.
www.iosrjournals.org

Factors Affecting The Development of Critical Thinking of

Indonesian Learners of English Language
Rohmani Nur Indah1, Agung W. Kusuma2
1,2
English Letters & Language Department,UIN Maulana Malik Ibrahim, Indonesia

Abstract :- This paper describes the assessment of the student’s critical thinking and identify the factors
affecting its development. The assessment is done to Indonesian students learning English language at Maulana
Malik Ibrahim State Islamic University. The identification of factors affecting their critical thinking
development would contribute to the further aspects relating to the establishment of critical thinking based
instruction in EFL teaching and learning process in Indonesia. The result of this particular study has shown the
fact that most of the respondents have strong awareness of the importance of reading habit, the time
management and broadening this learning sources from internet. However, this notion might not be well
implemented or their views which are not practiced into reality due to various aspects. The result of this study
also reveals that a notable factor affecting the ease to express critical thinking is the language proficiency. A
critical thinker can express his or her thought well by means of good language use either in spoken or written
form
Keywords: critical thinking, culture background, family background, learning strategies

I. INTRODUCTION
Critical thinking is included in writing process as learners in generating ideas use problem-solving
process employing a range of cognitive and linguistic skills. These will lead learners to identify a purpose, to
produce and shape ideas and to refine expression [1].
Assessing student’s critical thinking becomes an important start to help students improve their literacy
skills. In addition, identifying the factors affecting the development of critical thinking also take a crucial part
for the sake of shaping an organized plan of critical thinking based instruction in EFL context. In a smaller
context, preparing critical thinking based instruction belongs to one of the requirement for a better quality of
education. This issue is also relevant with the need to strengthen the benchmark of tertiary education so that the
university graduates are ready for competitive global world. Furthermore, preparing critical thinkers is also one
of the demands of excellent university especially UIN Maulana Malik Ibrahim to fulfill the quality of World
Class University.
The main goal of this study is to assess the student’s critical thinking and identify the factors affecting
its development. As the point of analysis, there are two objectives formulated to do this research. First, this
study is to assess the critical thinking level of English Department students. It explores the ability of the students
to support their opinion with reasons, recognize alternative view points and make conclusion of their ideas.
Second, the analysis done in this study aims at identifying the factors affecting the development of critical
thinking.
In this study, assessing critical thinking through writing in foreign language becomes the point. In this
case, the teaching of critical thinking through writing in second or foreign language context needs to consider
the limitation of timed-writing assessment. Giving students the opportunity to prepare the content in advance of
the writing may allow them to demonstrate their best writing. The opportunity is limited in timed-writing
assessment method [2]. As second language writers often have difficulties in managing both the content and
linguistic demands of a writing assignment, the timed-writing should not be the only assessment type employed
in critical writing course.
Student’s performance in critical writing also can be assessed using norm-reference test which is
closely related to critical thinking. It consists of two parts, the first of which requires students to respond a series
of questions pertaining to an article they have been given to read. The second part requires students to write an
evaluation of the article using standards to evaluate the quality of author’s thinking. The eight standards are
purpose, question, information, inference, concept, assumption, implication and point of view [3]. Then, each
student’s paper is scored by two trained raters using analytical rubric. Similar to any other assessment model the
rubric is used as a helpful tool to measure the learners’ achievement in both writing and critical thinking.
Basically, the assessment model makes strong connections with emerging conceptions of writing,
literacy and critical thinking suggesting an assessment approach in which writing is viewed as calling upon a

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 Factors Affecting The Development of Critical Thinking of Indonesian Learners of English Language

broader construct than is usually tested in assessments that focus on relatively simple, on-demand writing tasks
[4]. Any model employed should be oriented to assessing not only the development of the student’s critical
writing skills but also on the progress made in term of critical thinking cognitive domain.
Studies have traced several factors affecting critical thinking. The largest portion of the factors is given
to the cultural factor. Accordingly current researchers tried to figure out the link between critical thinking and
culture. Some have suggested that Asians, including Japanese, do not display critical thought in their writing in
English. Other researchers claim that Asians display critical thinking abilities differently than Western learners.
In addition, they argue that learners from a particular culture are too diverse to make claims about the whole
group’s thinking abilities [5].
Critical thinking is not an instant knowledge to transfer to students. Critical thinking is a commonsense
behavior that is learned by the children as they grow up [6]. Because of this, he claims the existence of and
ability to teach critical thinking to learners from cultures where it is not a social practice remain questionable.
Atkinson offers two kinds of evidence to support his claim. First he claims that critical thinking is a difficult
term to define though it exists at the level of a social practice. His second piece of evidence comes from
anthropological studies in which that of mainstream U.S. children learning behavior is contrasted with non-
mainstream children. It supports the assumption on the direct link between critical thinking and the family
education and environmental circle as other factors affecting critical thinking.
A notable factor is language proficiency. A critical thinker can express his or her thought well by
means of good language use either in spoken or written form. Empirical evidence shows that writing
competence positively influences critical thinking performance for general education biology students [7].
While in social science, class it is indicated that students’ improvement in writing performance goes together
with the improvement in the skill of expressing deeper levels of thought [8]. However, in English writing course
in Indonesian context expressing critical thinking is not easy. This occurs when students have difficulties to
develop their critical thinking skills because of related problem such as language mastery [9]. These findings
advocate that language skill considerably becomes significant factor affecting critical thinking.
The ease to expose argumentation depends on one’s knowledge of good language and how to apply the
knowledge into a discourse so that the critical thought is accessible to others. It is processing at the same time
with the way a critical thinker formulate the way to develop their thought. Writing and learning and thinking are
the same process so that learning skill is also another factor. Whereas whether the expression of thought can be
understood by the audience or readers depends on the use of either the strength or limitation of the language
[10]. This clarifies the strong link between learning to express one’s thought and critical thinking.
Prior knowledge is also a significant factor affecting how well a critical thinker develops his or her
reasoning. The exposure on rhetorical strategies in English persuasive essays affects the development of the
student’s critical thinking [11]. Therefore, the students need to be equipped with the knowledge on the three
measures which reflect critical thinking skills: the superstructure of argument, the Toulmin model of informal
reasoning and the persuasive appeals.
Critical thinking skills are influenced by another factor namely topic familiarity as supported by some
studies. There are readily identifiable reasoning skills as part of critical thinking which refer to any subject
matter though sometimes specialized knowledge is needed for reason assessment such as in physics and biology.
The lack of critical thinking skills is also displayed in the academic writing of Japanese ESL college students in
using American topics [5]. Furthermore, for a successful critical writing, learners at the primary level in
Australian classroom are encouraged to take responsibility for their own writing based on what they know [12].
These are considered as the coverage of importance of topic familiarity to develop reasoning skill and critical
thinking skills.
Topic familiarity is an important factor for critical thinking skills particularly of tertiary level students.
In writing argumentative essays, Japanese students show that the content familiarity is proven to powerfully
shape both the range and depth of argumentation as part of critical thinking [5]. This is not only the case in
Japan but also in Indonesia. A study to some Indonesian EFL students of one state university in Banten shows
that those who do not have prior knowledge or subject matter mastery gained through critical reading on the
topic, will have problem to develop their critical thinking skills [9].
The knowledge based on the topic familiarity which learners possess regarding texts is usually traced
back to schema theory. In schema theory, the comprehension is composed of two parts— a linguistic
component responsible for decoding text and sending information to the brain, and a conceptual component that
connects this information to pre-existing knowledge structures [13]. However, studies show different findings
on the role of topic familiarity. Based on a test on the reading skills of 20 university-level English language
learners, topic familiarity was not a strong contributor to reading comprehension [13]. Nonetheless, topic
familiarity supports building the context for better performance in writing argumentative essays [14].
In the context of academic writing, there is verified pattern of relationship showing that critical
thinking is initiated by topic familiarity and can be mediated by writing performance [15]. Topic familiarity is

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 Factors Affecting The Development of Critical Thinking of Indonesian Learners of English Language

affected by reading habit and prior knowledge while writing performance is relevant with language mastery as
well as the ability to apply the schema theory of writing. The language factor is also proven to be a good
predictor of student’s critical thinking skills. Therefore, this study explores not only the factors related to
language are observed but also some others which can affect the development of critical thinking skills.

I. METHODS
The present study employs case study design aiming at answering the research problems which reflect
the real situation at the time of the study. The researchers hold the major role to gain sufficient data to
understand the phenomenon better and to come at the deeper understanding on factors affecting critical thinking.
There is no attempt given to manipulate the environment since the real assessment of critical thinking is done to
get the valid data.
The data needed for revealing the level of critical writing and factors affecting it are in the form of the
score on critical thinking assessed though writing. The source of the data is the essays written by 130 English
department students of UIN Maulana Malik Ibrahim Malang who took writing II course. The factors affecting
the level of critical thinking are measured using questionnaire.
To collect the data the first instrument used is critical thinking assessment through writing using a
rubric. It is adapted from Stapleton [5] with combination with Jacob et al. [16]. The prompt of writing is in the
form of argumentative writing. The rubric is used to minimize the bias resulting from the subjective nature of
the assessment from the two raters involved in this study. The target of the assessment is to categorize the
research subject into five levels covering elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate, post intermediate and
advanced.
TABLE 1. Rubric for Assessing Critical Thinking
Scale
Elements of
Writing Expression Assessment (5 to
Critical Thinking
10)
Writer’s view point on the topic Quality of the arguments with
Argument is presented in the form of the appropriate type of claim
claims supported by a reason concerning the given topic
Writer’s ability to express
Quality of the topic
Content knowledgeable and substantive
exploration
development of the topic
Statements or assertions which Quality of the evidence and
Evidence
serve to strengthen the argument appropriacy of its type
The flow of ideas which
Quality of logical sequence
Organization communicate fluent expression
representing the fluent ideas
of the idea for logical sequence
A statement or series of
Quality of the conclusion
statements in which a writer sets
Conclusion without involving any logical
out what s/he wants the reader
fallacies
to believe
Total score

In the rubric, the scale given refers to the quality of the elements expressed in the student’s writing. The
total score is then interpreted as the level of critical thinking ranging from elementary (scored 25-30) to advance
level (scored 46-50).
The other instrument used is questionnaire. It consists of three sections, the cultural background in the
first part which is followed by the information on family background and education. Other information searched
is on the learning strategy or reading habit. These factors are investigated through the responses of the students
in the questionnaire given.

II. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The data obtained which is based on the student’s writing is presented in Table 2. On critical thinking the
highest score gained is 48 while the lowest score is 25 with the average score is 33. The lowest possible score is
25 and the highest is 50. Therefore it can be inferred that the score obtained is within the pre-intermediate level.

TABLE 2 Student’s level of critical thinking

Score Total Percentage Category
25-30 45 45% Elementary
31-35 20 20% Pre-intermediate
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 Factors Affecting The Development of Critical Thinking of Indonesian Learners of English Language

36-40 20 20% Intermediate

41-45 10 10% Post-intermediate
46- 50 5 5% Advanced

On the element of content, the student’s writing is scored on their ability to express knowledgeable and
substantive development of the topic. In this aspect, the quality of the topic exploration mostly fall within the
scale of elementary. It means that their ability to show their critical thinking though material exploration is
sufficient as they have chosen their own topic to discuss in their paper. Unfortunately, they did not explore more
on the possible aspect of discussion. It has something to do with the lack of the skill to synthesize ideas from
several references needed to complete their writing.
The next element to observe is evidence. In this case the students are mostly fall in the scale of pre-
intermediate. It means that their ability to make statements or assertions which serve to strengthen the argument
is far from the expected target. In other words their quality of the evidence and appropriacy of its type still needs
more improvement. Insufficient exploration of references or careful reading can be appointed as a supporting
reason of this finding.
The fourth elements seen from the student’s writing is organization. Most student fall in the scale of pre-
intermediate. This score represents the flow of ideas which communicate fluent expression of the idea for
logical sequence. In average, their quality of logical sequence representing the fluent ideas is not supported by
their rhetorical skill. They follow the standard writing format consisting introduction, discussion and conclusion.
However, the other writing devices such as transition and coherence are not carefully implemented in their
writing.
As the last aspect to observe, conclusion represents a statement or series of statements in which the student
sets out what s/he wants the reader to believe. The students mostly fall within the scale of elementary. It means
that the quality of the conclusions without involving any logical fallacies is presented in sufficient description.
However, their writing needs improvement on the element of unity. As the thesis statement is not always
presented explicitly, the conclusion made is also not representing the content of their critical thinking shown in
their writing.
The data obtained from the first section of the questionnaire is summarized in Table 3. On cultural
background, the highest response is on agreeing the acceptance to criticize teachers which means that more
students accept the norm of openness to express their judgment by criticizing teachers.

TABLE 3. Cultural background

Aspects Dominant response Percentage
Criticizing teachers Agree 63%
To be critical Agree 58%
Not believing superstition Indecision 56%
Teachers are not absolute authority Agree 54%
Not believing stereotypes Agree 53%
Correcting teachers Agree 52%
Getting the correct answer Agree 47%
To reason with parents Indecision 46%
Not labeling critical people Indecision 39%
Not showing disagreement directly Agree 38%

The view of becoming critical person is on the second rank. It means that the students realize the
benefit to develop their critical thinking. Concerning not believing superstition, it is interesting to see that it
belongs to a difficult decision for the students. It has something to do with their culture where they are supposed
to get used to believing superstition although they want to disbelieve it. That teachers are not absolute authority
of knowledge has been an agreed statement which means that almost a half of them still think that teachers hold
to somewhat range of authority. The students think that teachers are not individuals with absolute authority in
knowledge. On the view of stereotyping other culture, half of them agreed not to believe it. On correcting
teachers, it is clear that more students can accept it as a positive way. Getting the correct answer as the priority
has been agreed by the students. On the next aspect, the students view that children are encouraged to reason
with parents. In this case most students find it difficult to reason with parents although to some extent they are
given opportunity to do so. Labeling people who are critical as fussy is also a difficult view to consider.
Therefore some of them show indecision about it. As the last aspect, showing disagreement directly is impolite
becomes an agreed viewpoint.
On the factors related with family background and culture, the data is presented in Table 4. The highest
response is on agreeing for having the same right to give opinion as the elder sister/brother which means that
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 Factors Affecting The Development of Critical Thinking of Indonesian Learners of English Language

expressing critical thinking is viewed fairly in the opportunity not seeing whether one is older or not.
Challenging elder’s opinion is agreed half of the students. Similarly, asking questions at school has been another
issue of critical thinking which is mostly agreed as a good habit. Not all family has the habit to have discussion.
However, half of the students agree that they often have discussions with family members on any issues.
Disagreeing is unavoidable but it is important to provide reasons as agreed the students. Another aspect
representing family background is criticizing parents agreed by some students. On parents answering all
questions, some said that they have that experience.

TABLE 4. Family background and culture

Aspects Dominant response Percentage
Having the same right to give opinion Agree 55%
Challenge elder’s opinion Agree 54%
Ask questions at school Agree 51%
Have discussions with family Agree 50%
Providing reasons when disagree Agree 49%
Criticizing parents Agree 46%
Parents answer all questions Agree 44%
A lot of books and resources Agree 43%
Encouraged to have different opinion Indecision 42%
Encouraged to read a lot Indecision 40%

A lot of book and resources available at home also becomes indicator of critical thinking exposure which
is agreed by the students. The exposure of critical thinking at school is given by the teacher of high schools. Yet,
more students are indecision about it. It means that their high school teachers did not always encourage them to
have different opinion. As the last aspect, the students are also doubtful about having sufficient encouragement
from their parents to read a lot.
The last section of the questionnaire is on learning strategies and reading habit. The data is as shown in
Table 5. The highest response is on agreeing for reading different kinds of books which means that it becomes a
significant factor to develop critical thinking.

TABLE 5. Learning strategies and reading habit responses

Aspects Dominant response Percentage
Reading different kinds of books Agree 56 %
Set study time Agree 55%
Have study club Agree 54%
Searching for different information Agree 53%
Use internet to find reference Agree 48%
Working collaboratively Agree 47%
Ask a lot during the lesson Indecision 46%
Watch debate/talk show on TV Agree 45%
Write regularly to enhance skill Agree 44%
As an independent learner Agree 41%

Setting study time is not easy. However, a lot of the students agree that they set their study time and try to
stick to it. They also have a study club as agreed to discuss assignment. The need to search for different
information of the topic to be discussed in class is also varied. More students agreed to do so. Internet is also
used to find reference as agreed half of the students. Another learning strategy namely working collaboratively
is also agreed so that they can share and discuss more. The habit of asking a lot during the lesson is not an easy
thing for the students. Therefore more students show indecision about it. On the exposure to argumentation,
students stated that they often watch debate or talk show on TV. Writing regularly becomes another concern on
critical thinking development. In this case, some students stated that they agree on the statement to write
regularly, including daily journal. As the last aspect, the students can see themselves as independent learner. The
data on the three components obseved namely critical thinking, culture background, family background and
learning strategies are shown in Table 6.

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 Factors Affecting The Development of Critical Thinking of Indonesian Learners of English Language

TABLE 6. Statistics of the components oberved

Components Minimum Maximum Mean Standard Deviation
Critical thinking 25 48 33 6.9
Culture background 25 42 36 4
Family background 25 46 37 4.5
Learning strategies 26 47 37 4.4

Critical thinking, culture background and family background include the minimum possible score 25.
Learning strategies apparently is more applicable for the students. In this case, none of the components reach the
maximum possible score. Among them, the lowest average occurs in critical thinking and the highest score lies
in learning strategies. It happens as the students implemented learning strategies more intensively compared to
applying the principles of critical thinking in their everyday learning process. While the most disperse data
concerns with culture background. It is understandable as this study involves students from various cultural
background.

II. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CRITICAL THINKING

AND OTHER FACTORS
On the first link between critical thinking and cultural background, the finding shows weak correlation
(0.2). It reflects the fact that the critical thinking is not influenced by the student’s culture practiced either at
schools, at home or at society. The culture represented in how to interact with teachers especially on the
acceptance of the habit to criticize teachers, not placing teachers as the absolute authority, and to correct
teachers as reflected in the questionnaire does not influence the reflection of critical thinking as it is assessed
through writing ability. In addition, the ability in showing reasoning with parents or showing disagreement
directly or in straightforward manner also cannot be a judgment to see their critical thinking. This is because the
medium of communication assessed in English not in Indonesian as practiced in their daily critical discourses.
The empirical findings from several studies have shown the link between critical thinking and several
possible factors. As traced in this study, the largest portion of the factors are given to the cultural factor. It is in
line with the finding in a university in Japan that learners from a particular culture are too diverse to make
claims about the whole group’s thinking abilities [5].
In this study, the students show various performance of critical thinking. This is relevant to the theoretical
bases that critical thinking is not an instant knowledge to transfer to students [6]. Learning how to express
critical thinking in foreign language also becomes a big matter to the students observed in this study. It has
something to do with some other factors such as learning strategies and reading habit.
In this study, that Asian students especially Indonesia show lacking in critical thinking skills is
understandable as proven in many empirical findings and as observed by teachers. This is due to the fact that the
concerns of the education is still on knowledge exposure and elaboration. Meanwhile in developed countries the
emphasis is on the shaping of critical thinking. The difference is obvious in the comparison between students of
higher education in Hong Kong and New Zealand [17]. This fact shows that culture influences the educational
practices of critical thinking. However, the influence of culture does not necessarily impede the application of
critical thinking instruction in international classrooms. It brings implication that with appropriate adaptation,
critical thinking instruction can be beneficial to the intellectual development of students regardless of their
cultural backgrounds.
A notable factor affecting the ease to express critical thinking is the language proficiency. A critical
thinker can express his or her thought well by means of good language use either in spoken or written form.
That writing competence positively influences critical thinking performance as found in other course [7]. In
addition, students’ improvement in writing performance goes together with the improvement in the skill of
expressing deeper levels of thought [8]. As the context of this study is similar to the study conducted in another
university in Indonesia, similar difficulties take place [9]. The students obviously have difficulties to develop
their critical thinking skills because of language mastery. There is only small number of students can reflect
their argument though well organized English writing (20%). These findings advocate that language skill
considerably becomes significant factor affecting critical thinking.
In this study, some students show limitation of the language that makes the argument unclear. While, the
ease to expose argumentation depends on one’s knowledge of good language and how to apply the knowledge
into a discourse so that the critical thought is accessible to others. It is processing at the same time with the way
a critical thinker formulate the way to develop their thought. Therefore, the finding of this study goes with the
claim that the expression of thought can be understood by the audience or readers which depends on the use of
either the strength or limitation of the language [10]. The result of this study has clarified the strong link
between learning to express one’s thought and critical thinking.

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 Factors Affecting The Development of Critical Thinking of Indonesian Learners of English Language

The limitation of language as observed in this study is related more to an aspect of the cross-cultural
difference in critical thinking skill. This fact not only occurs in Indonesian students but also those in the higher
education in Hong Kong [17]. As the implication, this study needs further empirical evidence of student’s
critical thinking by reducing the language factor. For instance by using student’s first language in measuring
their critical writing ability.
Not only the limitation in terms of language proficiency, the rhetorical performance also influence the
ability to express critical thought. As found in this study only 10% of the students effectively use their rhetorical
skill to augment the quality of critical thinking. This fact has something to do with their prior knowledge on
rhetoric. Prior knowledge is also a significant factor affecting how well a critical thinker develop his or her
reasoning [11]. Therefore, the students need to be equipped with the knowledge on the three measures which
reflect critical thinking skills: the superstructure of argument, the Toulmin model of informal reasoning and the
persuasive appeals.
In this study, the critical thinking project writing is done based on the student’s topic of interest. Therefore,
it can be inferred that each student wrote on the topic familar to them. That critical thinking is directly
influenced by the topic familiarity is also supported by some other researchers who commented on the lack of
critical thinking skills displayed in the academic writing of Japanese ESL college students in using American
topics [5]. Furthermore, that writing critically on what the students know is also a major issue [12]. Through the
finding of this study, it can be concluded that topic familiary plays an important role for developing reasoning
skill and critical thinking skills.
In this study, the critical thinking project is done on literary review to the novel chosen by the student.
The choice was made based on the student’s interest and topic familiarity. In the student’s writing, the better the
students engaged with the topic, the better range and depth of argumentation will be. This is similar to the
finding on the Japanese student’s argumentative essays showing the power of content familiarity to shape both
the range and depth of argumentation [5]. In similar EFL context with this study, another study in Indonesian
context also found that the students who do not have prior knowledge or subject matter mastery gained through
critical reading on the topic, will have problem to develop their critical thinking skills [9].
Concerning the relationship between critical thinking and other factors influencing its development, the
finding of this study shows weak correlation. However, the relationship occurs in positive direction. It means
that to some extent cultural background can be related to the issue of critical thinking, compared to the other
aspects such as family background and learning strategies. It implies to the fact that in the context of English as
foreign language, culture influences the development of critical thinking skills [5,9].
There are some underlying reasons clarifying this issue. The possible reason deals with the instrument
used in this study. This study used the writing prompt for critical writing using English as foreign language. It
needs further analysis on how the students perform their critical thinking in their mother tongue or in second
language such as Bahasa Indonesia. A different result can be predicted as the language also plays an important
role for the ease of expressing critical thinking. Therefore it can be inferred that the language factor is also
proven to be a good predictor of student’s critical thinking skills.
However, the disparity occuring in the level of critical thinking to some extent is affected by the
mastery of the topic discussed in the student’s paper. The better knowledge the student have, the expression of
critical thinking is more observable. The result of this study also supports relationship showing that critical
thinking is initiated by topic familiarity and can be mediated by writing performance [15]. Topic familiarity is
affected by reading habit and prior knowledge while writing performance is relevant with language mastery as
well as the ability to apply the schema theory of writing.
The weak relationship is also shown in the relationship between the critical thinking and family
background and education. The correlation coefficient shows weak relationship between the two variables,
critical thinking and family background (0.12). It is due to several reasons or aspects. The possible aspect
concerns with disparity of the student’s ability. Family background as identified in the questionnaire consists of
the habit in the family such as the acceptance to criticize parents and have discussion on any issues or to give
opinion as the elder. These happen in oral context, not referring to written context as assessed in this study. On
the way to provide reasons when having disagreement to some extent has a role with the argumentation in the
student’s paper. However, the low habit of reading explains the elementary level of critical thinking shown by
the content of their writing. That their ability to be involved in the discourse of critical writing is also influenced
by their habit for having discussion, question and answer and having different opinion undergone during their
studying at university level.
On the relationship between critical thinking and learning strategies as well as reading habit, the
finding shows weak correlation (0.11). The observed learning strategies cover how the student’s view himself as
independent learner, asking a lot during lesson, and setting study time. These three aspects do not have direct
relationship with their critical writing skill. In addition, the students also show lacking in writing regularly to
enhance skill and having study club as well as working collaboratively to share more. These facts to some extent

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 Factors Affecting The Development of Critical Thinking of Indonesian Learners of English Language

explain the poor ability for critical thinking. However, the students were good in compiling ideas from various
references as they have sufficient facilities to search for different information of the topic, using internet a lot to
find references, and reading different kinds of books although not intensively done.
On the relationship between critical thinking and family background as well as education, the weak and
insignificant correlation is found. It is in line with the study conducted by Gibson. He claims that the finding is
in contrary to other published research that critical thinking has no significant relationship with intrinsic
motivation such as parent education, family income and curricular activity. His study concerns with students of
public school whereas the subject of this study is students of higher education [18]. Nevertheless, the similar
finding is resulted despite the different context of education level.
Furthermore, on the relationship between critical thinking and learning strategies, it results in different
finding. This study found insignificant weak relationship of both variables. The correlation found in several
studies brings implication that developing learning strategies will contribute to critical thinking as it affect the
success of language learning. In this case, it can be infer that the relationship between critical thinking and
learning strategies occur in indirect link. As suggested by several findings mentioned previously that the
language barrier becomes a major factor despite the cross cultural issue, while learning strategies will support
the development of language which in turn help the students to reflect their critical thinking better.

III. CONCLUSION
On the level of critical thinking assessed through critical writing prompt, the students show poor
reflection of critical thinking. Their level is still in elementary since the student’s argumentation quality
concerning the given topic mostly fall in the scale of elementary not supported by sufficient reasoning. The
student’s writing also belongs to elementary level in the aspect of the quality of topic exploration as they are
weak in the skill to synthesize ideas from several references needed to complete their writing. The ability to
support their ideas using evidence mostly fall in the scale of pre-intermediate. Insufficient exploration of
references or careful reading can be appointed as a supporting reason of this finding. Concerning idea
organization, most students fall in the scale of pre-intermediate. Their writing is not supported by sufficient
rhetorical skill. While, on the last aspect to observe namely conclusion, the students mostly fall within the scale
of elementary. However, their writing needs improvement on the element of unity. As the thesis statement is not
always presented explicitly, the conclusion made is also not representing the content of their critical thinking
shown in their writing.
The result of this study also reveals that a notable factor affecting the ease to express critical thinking is
the language proficiency. A critical thinker can express his or her thought well by means of good language use
either in spoken or written form. The students obviously have difficulties to develop their critical thinking skills
because of language mastery. There is only small number of students can reflect their argument though well
organized English writing. These findings advocate that language skill considerably becomes significant factor
affecting critical thinking. The limitation of the language makes the argument in the student’s writing unclear .
While, the ease to expose argumentation depends on one’s knowledge of good language and how to apply the
knowledge into a discourse so that the critical thought is accessible to others.
As this study examined critical thinking and the factors influencing it, the next researchers can develop
other variations of critical thinking assessment, for instance by relating critical writing of a subject with other
variables such as critical reading or critical listening. The relationship between other possible factors such as
learning style, self efficacy and learning motivation also needs further research.

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