Teachers’ Instructional Competence on Students’ Comprehension Skills and Critical Thinking Ability

Ethel de Leon-Abao

Cebu Normal University, Cebu City, Philippines.

DOI: 10.4236/jss.2014.24037                

Abstract

Reading is a challenge and an opportunity to every person’s daily undertaking. If its ultimate aim is to develop critical thinking, then it has to be inculcated in the basic education. Observably, there is a prevailing issue on the low performance of students in content areas owing to their lack of comprehension. It is therefore the purpose of this study to determine how the teachers’ instructional competence influences the intermediate students’ comprehension skills as well as their critical thinking ability. Utilizing the normative-evaluative method, findings revealed that the intermediate students obtained an above average performance in following Directions. This reveals that the students are generally obedient. They are conscious of applying the skill in carrying out their varied activities/responsibilities because according to them careful compliance to standards and the like, engenders peace and order. On the other hand, both groups performed below average in Predicting Outcomes and Drawing Inferences respectively. This obviously denotes inadequacy in making intelligent guesses which are paramount in decision making. Since reading is significant to success basically in an academic undertaking, the teachers’ instructional competence as reflected in the findings is highly instrumental in the development of students’ comprehension skills and critical thinking as these would eventually lead them to function effectively in society.

Keywords

Intermediate Students; Reading Comprehension; Critical Thinking; Instructional Competence

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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