Relationship between critical thinking and discourse complexity among university students

Abstract

This study is intended to reveal aspects of the relationship between critical thinking skills —or critical thinking level— and the complexity in university students' discourse. Traditionally, this relationship has not been studied in depth. Previous studies have only considered minimal variables, and have focused mainly on syntactic structure. Data for our study was obtained from two sources: a) results from the Critical Thinking Test (CTC) and b) a writing assignment, namely a narrative/argumentative essay. Our findings have enabled us to identify a direct association between "critical thinking" and "discourse complexity". Based on these  findings, we have formed a preliminary theory on the nature of this relationship.