Critical thinking is a fundamental cognitive skill that significantly influences our thought processes. Without it, reaching impartial and accurate conclusions becomes challenging. This skill holds profound importance in educational settings. The focus of the present study was to examine how teaching critical thinking skills enhances the critical thinking and reading comprehension abilities of Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. A group of 40 in-service EFL teachers from Farhangian University in Iran underwent pretests on reading comprehension and critical thinking. Critical thinking interventions were systematically integrated into the course curriculum at 4-week intervals. Following the instructional period, posttests were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the critical thinking intervention program. Results indicated a notable improvement in both the knowledge and attitudes towards critical thinking. Moreover, the program positively impacted the students' reading comprehension levels, particularly their ability to critically approach reading comprehension tests. This highlights the significance of creating an environment where students feel comfortable expressing their thoughts without the fear of judgment. Educators play a crucial role in fostering optimal critical thinking behaviors and attitudes through effective modeling. Promoting a culture of open expression and critical thinking is key to nurturing well-rounded learners.

Introduction & objectives: Recently, educational psychologists and other scholars question the validity of defining learning mainly as the transfer of information from teacher to the learner. Instead, they emphasized the role of teachers in developing intellectual skills in the learners. The article is an attempt to review studies about critical thinking and to explain the concept of critical thinking, its components, its instruction and its importance in nursing. There are many definitions about critical thinking. Some prominent critical thinking theorists include faction, Watson and Glaser, MC peck and so on.A critical thinker must have certain abilities and characteristics in order to develop critical thinking, teachers can use case studies, brainstorming in writing, question-raising methods for their students. There are a lot of reasons to use critical thinking in health care systems. One of them is the ever increasing amount of data in this field. Critical thinking is one of the crucial skills that is required for the development of nursing education and practice. However, the application of this concept brought about a kind of confusion which emerges when this term is substituted with one of its components such as problem- solving.This study, nine articles and three books were examined.As it is the time of information explosion and scholars need to have access to a great deal of information in a limited period of time, it is a matter of greet urgency to develop intellectual skills such as how to think scientifically.The great revolutions in science and technology have also affected the health care systems including nursing profession. To cope with such changes, the scholars must equip themselves with the essential knowledge as skills, among which critical thinking skills are of great importance.