The Relationship between Iranian EFL Learners’ Critical Thinking and their Inferential Ability in Reading Comprehension

The present study made an attempt to see if there was any statistically significant relationship between Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ critical thinking and their inferential ability in reading comprehension. Moreover, it attempted to see if there was any statistically significant difference between Iranian EFL learners’ critical thinking and their inferential ability in reading comprehension. The participants were 127 English Literature, English Language Teaching and English Translation students at University of Isfahan, Islamic Azad University (Khorasgan Branch), Sheikh Bahaie University, Payame Noor University, and Islamic Azad University (Najafabad Branch). A quick placement test, a critical research questionnaire, and an inferential reading comprehension test were administered to the participants. The results revealed that there was a positive significant correlation between the critical thinking and inferential ability in reading comprehension. Also, the observed Z score showed that there was no statistically significant difference between the two correlation coefficients regarding gender. The findings of this study emphasize the importance of the relationship between critical thinking, and inferential ability in reading comprehension regarding gender and language proficiency in language learning and teaching.