Reading the Book versus ‘Reading’ the Film: Cinematic Adaptations of Literature as Catalyst for EFL Students’ Critical Thinking Dispositions

This true experimental study investigates the effect of combining the reading of literature with the ‘reading’ of film on nurturing EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students’ critical thinking dispositions in areas of truthseeking, openmindedness, inquisitiveness, analyticity, systematicity, confidence in reasoning, and maturity of judgment. It was conducted with 50 third year students enrolled at the department of English in Chadli Bendjedid University in Algeria. The contrast group (n=26) took two semesters of a regular literature course whereas the treatment group (n=24) took one semester of typical literature instruction and a second of a reading and viewing course. The California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI) was used as both a pretest and posttest to assess participants’ overall critical thinking dispositions and scale results. Data were analyzed quantitatively using inferential statistics that included Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient, means, standard deviations, tstatistics and Cohen’s d effect size. Empirical findings revealed that the difference in the progress both groups manifested proved nonsignificant in all seven dispositions to think critically. Results’ interpretation, pedagogical implications, limitations and future research directions are examined.