Using Space in Social Media to Promote Undergraduate Students’ Critical Thinking Skills

Abstract

The current study was conducted to see the effectiveness of using social media to enhance students' critical thinking skills. To fulfill the purpose of the study, a 14-week experimental study was performed with two groups of students. Both groups were introduced to how to respond to questions based on Revised Bloom's Taxonomy. During the period of doing the activity, students in the experimental group had to post answers in Facebook and got feedback from peers and teacher as mutual learning while those in the control group wrote their replies in papers and submitted them to the teacher in class. The research instruments used in this study included pre-and post-tests and a questionnaire. The data were analyzed by using dependent t-tests, independent t-tests, means, and standard deviations. After the experiment there was a difference in the mean scores of critical thinking ability between the two groups at the significance level of .05. The data obtained from the questionnaire manifested students' positive attitudes towards English instruction delivered through questioning technique and postings in Facebook.

Facilitating student engagement through educational technology in higher education: A systematic review in the field of arts and humanities

“…Critical thinking was found to increase both in an EFL class offered in a traditional setting, but much more so in a Facebook-enhanced one (dppc2 = 0.545) (Morris, 2008), after students were trained to answer questions developed on a revised Bloom's Taxonomy scale (Pattanapichet & Wichadee, 2015). Installing courseware in the laboratory to enhance teacher-centered instruction, led students in the study by Tsai (2012) to develop more critical thinking skills in the sense that they reported to have improved "abilities of thinking, analysis and problem-solving" (p. 56).…”

Is Facebook still a suitable technology‐enhanced learning environment? An updated critical review of the literature from 2012 to 2015

“…As far as the results of studies are concerned, a number of papers reported a more positive impact on learning processes and participation when Facebook was compared with traditional LMS such as Moodle or Blackboard (Chang & Lee, ; Chen, ; Daclan, ; Gregory et al, ; Hurt et al, ; Kent, ; Kurtz, ; Lateh, ; Lin et al, ; Meishar‐Tal et al, ; Miller, ; Parmaxi & Zaphiris, ; Pattanapichet & Wichadee, ; Sutcliffe & Alrayes, ; Tananuraksakul, ). In a qualitative study carried out in teacher education, Meishar‐Tal et al () found that students perceived the Facebook group as a dynamic and collaborative learning environment that supported mutual help and social consolidation.…”

Turkish EFL lecturers’ perceptions regarding the essentials in a high-quality foreign language education

“…For them, Web 2.0 tools and social media can boost their learning from various aspects as is also suggested by the previous literature (e.g. Al-Rahmi, Othman & Musa, 2014;Pattanapichet & Wichadee, 2015).…”