Education technology - higher education
GH. Khalifeh; S. Latifi
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Currently, all over the world we are witnessing a change in online learning methods and a change towards coollaborative learning methods in the online environment. Due to its collaborative and interactive nature, the online learning environment creates a unique opportunity ...
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Background and Objectives: Currently, all over the world we are witnessing a change in online learning methods and a change towards coollaborative learning methods in the online environment. Due to its collaborative and interactive nature, the online learning environment creates a unique opportunity for the development of individual and collaborative learning if appropriate design approaches are used. Accordingly, if the development of learning skills in an exploratory and collaborative community is considered, designing an online collaborative learning environment is a basic and important element. In fact, creating an exploratory and supportive community is necessary to achieve critical and argumentative thinking skills and should be viewed as an educational method. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to design an online collaborative environment based on argumentative peer feedback and to investigate its impact on the critical thinking skills and argumentation quality of educational science students.Methods: The design of this research was pretest-posttest control group design. In order to carry out the research, an online collaborative environment based on argumentative peer feedback was designed and developed. In this environment, students coollaboratively wrote their opinions about the the topic at hand, provided feedback on peer's writings, and then revised their writings based on the comments of their peers. The research population was all undergraduate students in the field of educational sciences of Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz in the academic year 2019-2020, and 32 of them were selected as the research sample, and randomly assigned in a pretest-posttest control design, and they were paired as learning pairs (A dyad). The research’s measurement tools were the California Critical Thinking Skills Test and a rubric of assessing of students’ argumentative writing quality. The reliability of the critical thinking test was calculated using Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 reliability coefficient (KR20=0.69). Kappa test (0.82) was also used to measurethe reliability of the argumentative writing quality rubric. The Repeated measures ANOVA was used to analyze the data.Findings: The results showed that providing and recieving argumentative peer feedback in the online collaborative learning environment increased students' critical thinking skills, and also the quality of argumentation. In other words, the the experimental group outperformed the control groupin term of critical thinking andargumentative writing quality.Conclusion: The results of the research indicated the effect of the online collaborative environment based on peer feedback on the students' critical thinking skills and argumentation quality. In fact, the design of such environments strengthens the students' critical thinking and argumentative skills by taking into account the opportunity it provides for students to reason, examine the opinions of their peers, and finally provide feedback to their peers. Therefore, according to the results, it is suggested that online collaborative learning environment based on argumentative peer feedback should be considered as a suitable tool and approach to improve critical thinking skills and increase the quality of students' argumentation.
Sociology of Educational Technology
F. Monavvarifard; A. H. Alibaygi
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Critical thinking skill is one of the important mental assets that a person needs to be able to develop as an independent individual. Critical thinking skill is important because it assists individuals to analyze situations before taking actions, instead of acting impulsively. ...
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Background and Objectives: Critical thinking skill is one of the important mental assets that a person needs to be able to develop as an independent individual. Critical thinking skill is important because it assists individuals to analyze situations before taking actions, instead of acting impulsively. The possession of critical thinking skill is important not only to the individual but to those around him or her as well as the society. This is because people who lack critical thinking skills very likely get engaged in actions that are not based on a deep analysis of the situation at hand, and thus expose themselves and others to danger. Therefore, developing critical thinking skills in agricultural technical and vocational students -due to the nature and purpose of their disciplines- is vital to deal with wicked problems in the agricultural sector. Based on this, many efforts have been done to embed critical thinking skills in agricultural students at the technical and vocational schools. However, these attempts have not achieved the desired goals and agricultural sector still faces many challenges. We believe that this is due to the extensive attention allocated to educational issues and as well as micro-environments within the school by researchers who are interested in this field of study; while according to Bandura’s social cognitive theory and Luhmann’s Autopoietic Systems Theory, critical thinking skills are significantly affected by outside school environment and students’ demographic characteristics. Accordingly, the study identified students’ the most important demographic characteristics which affect theirs critical thinking skills.Methods: For the purpose of this study, a quantitative research method was used. The statistical population of the study consisted of Iranian technical and vocational students (N= 5720). Altogether, 282 students were included in the statistical sample using multi-stage stratified sampling method. A researcher-made questionnaire was used for data collection and its reliability and validity were confirmed by content validity ratio (CVR ≥ 0.75) and Coronbach's alpha coefficient (α ≥ 0.71), respectively. The included a help section on how to answer the items, demographic characteristics of the respondents, and latent variables of research (critical thinking skills). Respondents were asked to express their degree of agreement with each item by giving a score from 1 to 10 (minimum agreement = 1 & maximum agreement = 10). Finally, the data were analyzed using SPSS software.Findings: Findings showed that there were significant differences between students’ critical thinking skills in relation to critical evaluation of issues and application of theories and ideas to real world context. However, no significant differences were observed in terms of the educational inequality condition of students. Among the demographic characteristics, gender (male of female) and lodging (rural area or city) were not significant ones for students critical thinking skills. In contrast, farming filed experiences significantly led to differences among the students’ critical thinking skills.Conclusion: The findings showed that one of the weaknesses of previous research on students' critical thinking skills was the use of the same tools and indicators to assess critical thinking skills for all disciplines, despite differences in the content and nature of their disciplines. Therefore, based on Calma and Cotronei-Baird’s (2021) research, four skills were identified as critical thinking skills for agricultural students: 1) critical evaluation of issues; 2) development and presentation of arguments; 3) application of theories and ideas to real world context; and 4) synthesis of idea, theories and/or data. Finally, the results of the study indicated that students’ critical thinking skills were not only subject to educational issues or limited to the school environments, but also various demographic characteristics that significantly affected them. Therefore, it is important for the educational planners to consider these characteristics in their planning for developing and enhancing students’ critical thinking skills.
Curriculum Planning
M. Abadi; N. Noushadi; E. Momtahan
Abstract
Background and Objective:The art of arithmetic is as old as man, and critical thinking skills are always one of the tools that human beings use to face life's challenges. We face daily decisions that require reasoning, comprehension, interpretation, analysis, and evaluation of information. Critical thinking ...
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Background and Objective:The art of arithmetic is as old as man, and critical thinking skills are always one of the tools that human beings use to face life's challenges. We face daily decisions that require reasoning, comprehension, interpretation, analysis, and evaluation of information. Critical thinking skills enable a person to make credible and valuable decisions, to behave ethically, and to be able to adapt to environmental conditions. However, some math teachers seem to have difficulty in instilling the concept of critical thinking in their teaching methods, so students also perform below average performance in math tests due to difficulty in understanding this concept. Therefore, students lack the necessary ability to formulate hypotheses and evaluate them using abstract ideas. Despite the emphasis on the development of critical thinking, numerous studies indicate that schools do not yet have critical thinking on their agenda. On the other hand, the international study of mathematics and science education trends (TIMSS), which is one of the most important and largest comparative studies in the field of academic achievement evaluation, reveals the fact of the weakness of Iranian students in mathematics. However, despite the high investment in the mathematics sector, the gap between Iranian students' mathematical knowledge and other countries is worrying. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the status of critical thinking skills in mathematics curriculum in ordinary and gifted schools. Methods: The sample consisted of 71 math teachers, 360 students, three math textbooks and three supplementary math books of junior high school in the city of Shiraz, along with TIMSS mathematics questions. California critical thinking skills test (CCTST) was used to evaluate the critical thinking skills of students and teachers of mathematics. Math textbooks, math supplementary books, and TIMSS mathematical questions were analyzed using quantitative content analysis. The gathered data were analyzed through t-test for independent variable, one sample t-test, and chi square test. Findings: The following were found: Critical thinking skills are significant contributors in TIMSS. Also, the results of content analysis showed that in textbooks and supplementary math books, analysis component was the highest portion and inductive reasoning and evaluation had a minimal contribution. On the other hand, there was no significant difference between ordinary and gifted students in math exam. There was significant difference between ordinary and gifted students only in analysis skills. There was no significant difference between ordinary and gifted teachers in critical thinking. Conclusion:The weakness of Iranian students in the Thames test is a significant consequence of the weakness of math teachers in critical thinking skills and also the small share of math textbooks in the components of critical thinking skills. Therefore, it is suggested that the module of the five critical thinking skills course be designed while serving educators and implemented for math teachers
