پریسا فرخ

This study aimed at uncovering the extent to which the content of reading section of English Proficiency Test (EPT) engages the critical thinking.  The corpus of this research included 16 reading comprehension texts among 24 recent tests, and totally 600 cases were randomly selected and analyzed based on Rummy’s content analysis method in terms of critical thinking.  The content of the reading comprehension texts was examined in four general dimensions. Using William Rummy's content analysis method, the reading comprehension texts, pictures, questions, and activities were scrutinized through a comprehensive quantitative analysis. Frequencies and percentages were calculated for each category and the data were analyzed by using Rummy’s formula. The findings revealed that the reading comprehension content, questions, and activities of the EPT did not enhance critical thinking in respondents. Since Rummy’s model includes picture categories benefited from criteria of critical thinking, the texts were also studied to see if the pictures benefited from the criteria of critical thinking based on Rummy’s content analysis method. It was cleared that there was no picture in the reading sections of the EPT.

This study examined the possible relationship between Iranian female intermediate EFL learners' personality traits and their vocabulary learning strategies. The participants in this study were 90 female intermediate English language learners. To make sure of their homogeneity, all the participants sat for the Oxford Solution Placement Test. Vocabulary Learning Strategies and Eysenck Personality questionnaires were also administered to the participants. Subsequently, the data were subjected to statistical analyses. The results showed that there was not any statistically significant relationship between Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ personality type and their use of vocabulary learning strategy. However, it appeared that introverts tended to have higher use of memory, cognitive, and metacognitive strategies, while extroverts achieved higher mean scores on determination and social strategies. Furthermore, according to the findings of phi and crammers’ v, the highest degree of relationship was reported for the correlation between social strategy and personality types. In contrast, the lowest amount of correlation was found between metacognitive strategy and personality types.