Mentally tough learners are conceptualized as being able to function effectively in stressful situations and recent research has focused on the correlation between mental toughness and critical thinking of EFL learners. A very limited number of studies have thus far examined the possibility that mentally tough learners are lower critical thinkers. This paper tested the relationship between mental toughness and critical thinking ability of EFL learners to determine whether mentally tough learners generally experienced more or less critical thinking issues. The participants (112 consisting of 55 men and 57 women aged between 18 and 35 years) completed the MTQ48 [1] and Critical thinking test [2]. Mental toughness and critical thinking ability are significantly correlated in the way that an increase in one of them causes growth in the other. The results showed that there is a statistically significant difference between mental toughness and critical thinking ability of EFL learners in terms of their gender-based on which females outperformed males. The results of the ANOVA test also showed that there is not any statistically significant difference between mental toughness and critical thinking ability of EFL learners in terms of their field of study.
