On the Relationship between Critical Thinking and Argumentative Writing in EFL Programs

Abstract
Critical thinking has been examined across several educational and professional contexts as a prominent skill for advancement and creativity in the 21^st century. Nonetheless, the extent to which it is objectively stated, instructed, and evaluated in Iran is insufficiently recorded. This hinders the progress of studies and assessment tools for critical thinking tendency in the Iranian EFL setting. Thus, the present theoretically-oriented study reviews the existing literature on the relationship between critical thinking and argumentative writing in EFL contexts, with a focus on Iranian settings. It investigates how critical thinking and its subskills have been defined, measured, and taught in relation to argumentative writing and how the existing studies conceptualize their interrelations. In so doing, using keywords such as Writing, Critical Thinking, and Iranian EFL Setting, a systematic search of databases (encompassing Google Scholar, ResearchGate, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, PubMed Scopus) was conducted for the articles published from 2010 to 2024. According to the inclusion criteria, a paper pool was created to map the prevailing findings, trends, contradictions, and gaps. The review revealed consistent reporting of positive associations between certain critical-thinking subskills (e.g., evaluation, inference, reasoning) and argumentative-writing performance, yet it also highlighted persistent gaps between pedagogical rhetoric and classroom practice, limited longitudinal evidence, and variability in measurement approaches. The study ends up with practical implications for designing critical-thinking-integrated pedagogies in EFL instruction and with concrete recommendations for future research to advance methodological rigor and contextual relevance in Iranian EFL programs. It is hoped that the findings of this study can illuminate the disparity between pedagogical rhetoric and classroom practices, which stems from insufficient attention to critical thinking. The implications are for future research on implementing critical thinking-integrated pedagogies in the Iranian EFL environment.