efl learners' proficiency level and critical thinking: the case of iraqi university students

Critical thinking is a mental habit that enables people to develop their abilities to criticize, analyze, reach conclusions and make inferences, and it has been proved to be an indicator and predictor of academic performance. this study is aimed to inspect the current status of iraqi efl university students regarding critical thinking ability. it also investigates the relationship between critical thinking ability and english language proficiency of iraqi efl university students. moreover, it is aimed to explore the difference between males and females' critical thinking skills. to attain these aims, 150 iraqi efl university students were chosen to participate in this study. in order to collect the necessary data, two instruments were used: watson-glaser critical thinking appraisal (wgcta) and michigan test of english language proficiency (mtelp). the findings of the study revealed that the participants' critical thinking ability is estimated within the average and below average levels. it also revealed that there is a statistically significant relationship between the iraqi efl learners' critical thinking ability and their proficiency in english as a foreign language. regarding the gender difference, it was found that there is no significant difference between male and female participants' critical thinking ability.