The Effectiveness of PDEODE Strategy on Improving Iraqi EFL University Students' Analytical Thinking in Testing Course

Abstract

Analytical thinking is a cognitive process that deconstructs a situation into its components and reorganizes them, enabling the person to see events from a novel perspective and recognize the interconnections among cognitive structures. University students must possess analytical thinking abilities to effectively engage with diverse activities and resources, fostering independent knowledge acquisition and creativity. Among these materials, testing is one that necessitates the development of techniques for producing such a sort of thinking in order to generate things that are both effective and valuable for testing various parts of language. One of these effective strategies is the PDEODE (Predict-Discuss-Explain-Observe-Discuss-Explain) strategy, which is founded on the concepts and principles of constructivist learning. The current study aims to find out the effectiveness of PDEODE strategy on improving Iraqi EFL university students' analytical thinking in testing course. This research hypothesizes that there will be no statistically significant difference between the findings of the experimental group, instructed using the PDEODE strategy, and the control group, instructed by conventional methods. A sample of (65) students has been selected from the fourth stage of the Department of English during the first semester of the academic year 2023-2024. The sample has been divided into two groups, (33) students for the experimental group and (32) for the control group. The findings of the pre and post-test indicate that the PDEODE strategy significantly enhances students' analytical skills.