Critical Reading Competencies in Short Stories Among Iraqi EFL Female Students in Colleges of Education for Women

Critical reading is important for students to comprehend, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate texts effectively, but EFL students often face challenges due to a lack of linguistic knowledge and cognitive understanding, particularly with literacy texts like short stories. This study aims at identifying the level of Iraqi EFL female students' critical reading competencies (comprehension, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation) in short stories. Finding out the differences in critical reading competencies across four categories. A sample of (200) female students is selected randomly from the Iraqi EFL second-year university students in English departments in the Colleges of Education for Women: University of Baghdad and Al Iraqia University, during the academic year 2025–2024. Two instruments are used to achieve the aims of this study: Three tests designed for assessing critical reading competencies in three short stories, and critical reading rubric is used for scoring students' performance. The findings revealed that Iraqi EFL female students perform well in comprehension and analysis competencies, indicating their capacity to assimilate and break down textual information. Their synthesis and evaluation competencies are below the expected level, indicating that they have faced difficulties to integrate information and make independent judgments about text.