Critical Thinking and Critical Reading Comprehension Achievement: A Correlational Study

Abstract

The study's objectives were to determine (1) whether there was a significant relationship between students' critical thinking and their critical reading achievement, and (2) whether students' critical thinking influenced their critical reading achievement. The study used the correlational research method. The study included 171 students from UPT SMA Negeri 3 Banyuasin's eleventh grade. This study's sample size was limited to 45 students due to the use of a simple random sampling technique. The information was gathered through the use of two tests: critical thinking and critical reading achievement tests. Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient was used to answer the first research problem. Based on the data, it was discovered that there was a significant positive correlation between the students' critical thinking and critical reading comprehension achievement, with the r-obtained (0.764) being greater than the r-table (0.294) and the level of probability (p) significance (sig.2-tailed) being 0.001 less than 0.05. It means that the higher the level of critical thinking of the students, the better their critical reading achievement. The coefficient of determination (r-square) from the regression analysis was 0.583, implying that the students' critical thinking influenced 58.3% of their critical reading achievement. As a result, the improvement in students' critical thinking skills is accompanied by an improvement in their critical reading comprehension achievement.