Technology Meets Psychology: Teaching Business Students Critical Thinking Within New Learning Formats

Abstract

With the increasing use of technology in education, one may ask if psychological subjects with a huge amount of personal involvement are suitable for teaching within technology based learning formats. The UAS Burgenland redesigned the course "Critical Thinking" for part-time business students to reflect on leadership and intercultural communication using a blended learning format. This paper (presentation) elaborates on the requirements when teaching psychological topics and combining on-campus training with virtual classrooms. Succeeding in this effort means selecting very specific exercises and tasks in the diverse phases, linking them properly, adjusting the feedback processes and being aware of the diverse roles as a coach and moderator. Results have shown that students value the combination of various teaching methods as long as they feel safe within their self-development. Moreover, they are motivated to participate in virtual classrooms as the physical distance provides them with a sense of security in contrast to on-campus classes. The course "Critical Thinking" aims to provide a model for teaching psychological subjects within technology based education.

Ancient Principles for the Digital Age: Truth and Ethics for Writing on the Web

“…A coherent set of literature was developed and published by the project team of the course with contributions regarding psychological as well as digital topics. It has been discussed how technology might hinder or stimulate psychological issues in teaching (Hauptfeld, 2017b), how technology affects to a huge extent educational careers in future and how teachers will perform in the next decade (Hauptfeld, 2017a). The project team also concentrated on the creation and use of e-learning tools (Lebe and Perko, 2019) and virtual classrooms (Bigne et al, 2018).…”