the effects of the six thinking hats technique on enhancing iranian efl learners’ writing skill and their attitudes toward it

Fostering thinking skills can lead to better achievements in general and writing ability in particular. accordingly, the present study aimed to find out the effect of the six thinking hats technique as a new model of thinking on the writing ability of iranian english as a foreign language (efl) learners. to this end, 80 learners who were homogenized based on their performance on the oxford placement test (opt) were randomly and equally assigned to experimental and control groups. the experimental group received instruction on writing through the six thinking hats technique, while the control group received instruction through the conventional method, and the treatment lasted for ten sessions. both groups participated in a writing pretest and a writing posttest to compare their performances. the results of repeated-measures two-way ancova showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group in terms of their writing ability. moreover, 23 participants from the experimental group were interviewed about their attitudes toward the six thinking hats technique, and the results indicated that they had positive attitudes toward this technique and found working with peers very useful in improving their writing ability. despite being uncomfortable with some color hats and putting various ideas together which were the main challenges, the majority of the respondents expressed they could write better and easier after using this technique. the most important implication of the study is that efl teachers and learners should use the six thinking hats technique as an effective technique to promote writing skill.