Exploring the Effects of Critical Thinking and Brainstorming on Iranian EFL Learners’ Writing Skills in Online Classes

Taking a look at the literature reveals the effects of critical thinking and brainstorming in online classes have remained largely unexplored. Thus, the present study aims to explore the effects of critical thinking and brainstorming on Iranian EFL learners’ writing skills in online classes. For this purpose, three intact intermediate EFL learners at Iran Language Institute were selected and assigned randomly as a critical thinking group, a brainstorming group, and a control group. Afterward, they went through a pre-test, an intervention, lasting ۱۵ one-hour sessions held twice a week, a post-test. The collected data were analyzed using a one-way ANOVA. Findings indicated that the experimental groups outperformed the control group on the post-test. Additionally, results indicated that there was not a statistically significant difference between the critical thinking group and the brainstorming group in terms of their gains in writing skills. Based on the findings, some implications are suggested for different stakeholders.