Development of a Critical Thinking Test for English Education in Japan: Validation Through Factor Analysis

Abstract

Critical thinking (CT) has been regarded as one of the most important aspects to deal with today’s information society in English education in Japan. However, there has been little research on the assessment of CT skills for learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) in Japan. Therefore, this study developed an English test to measure CT skills that are required to be cultivated in English education in Japan, named the Critical Thinking Test for English Education in Japan (CTTEE). The construct of this test was the following three skills: (1) clarification, the skill of identifying the main points; (2) basis of inference, the skill of examining the content; and (3) inference, the skill of inferring facts and conclusions from contents (Ennis, 1987, 2018). The CTTEE comprises 45 test items and was validated with 68 Japanese university students using item analysis and exploratory factor analysis. The results show that the CTTEE was relatively easy for the participants whose English proficiency ranged from A2 to B2 in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). In addition, this test extracted the following three factors: (a) “examination of content,” (b) “identification of main points,” and (c) “inference.”