Impact of Critical Thinking Interventions On Secondary School Students’ English Achievement in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Abstract

This study investigated the effectiveness of a critical thinking intervention on secondary school students’ academic achievement in English using an exploratory sequential design. A total of 80 students were divided equally into experimental and control groups (N = 40 each). Student Achievement Test (SAT) scores were collected before and after the intervention to measure changes in English achievement. The pre-intervention analysis revealed no statistically significant difference between the experimental group (M = 38.27, SD = 11.29) and the control group (M = 38.30, SD = 11.20), with t = -0.01, p = 0.993, and effect size = 0.0. This confirmed baseline equivalence between the two groups prior to treatment. Post-intervention results, however, demonstrated a significant improvement in the experimental group (M = 63.40, SD = 17.49) compared to the control group (M = 48.87, SD = 13.11), with t = 4.20, p = 0.001, and a large effect size of 0.94, indicating the intervention’s substantial impact. Within-group comparisons further supported these findings. The experimental group showed a significant increase in achievement scores from pre-intervention (M = 38.27, SD = 11.20) to post-intervention (M = 63.40, SD = 13.40), with paired differences (M = 25.1, SD = 9.45), t = 16.81, p < 0.001, and a strong correlation (r = 0.723). Similarly, the control group exhibited a modest but statistically significant improvement from pre-intervention (M = 38.30, SD = 11.21) to post-intervention (M = 48.87, SD = 13.11), with paired differences (M = 10.57, SD = 7.73), t = 8.65, p < 0.001, and correlation (r = 0.809). Overall, the results confirm that while both groups improved over time, the experimental group receiving the critical thinking intervention achieved significantly greater gains in English performance compared to the control group. These findings highlight the effectiveness of critical thinking strategies in enhancing academic achievement and underscore their potential as a pedagogical tool for improving English learning outcomes among secondary school students.