محدثه صادقی فرد

The present investigated the role of self-assessment and critical thinking to Iranian EFL students’ engagement in school and self-esteem, taking gender into account. For this purpose, 100 male and female Iranian EFL students were selected through convenience sampling. The data were collected by the Core of Self-assessment Questionnaire, Watson-Glasser critical thinking evaluation form, the Student Engagement Scale, and the Foreign Language Learning Self-Esteem Scale. The obtained data were analyzed by standard multiple regression. The findings revealed that self-assessment predicted student engagement and self-esteem, with no significant effect of gender. Besides, student engagement in school was predicted by inference and interpretation components of critical thinking. For male participants, inference and evaluation components predicted student engagement, while for female participants, the interpretation component predicted student engagement. Finally, self-esteem was predicted by making deductions and interpretations. Regarding gender, deductions and interpretation components predicted the self-esteem of male participants, while the interpretation component predicted the self-esteem of female participants. These findings suggest that fostering self-assessment and critical thinking skills of male and female EFL students can enhance their engagement and self-esteem; therefore, educators can adopt gender-sensitive approaches to support all students, addressing the unique influences on students’ engagement and self-esteem.