ELTWeekly Vol. 5 Issue#5 | February 11, 2013 | ISSN 0975-3036
Abstract
This study seeks to investigate the effects of pedagogical blogging on tertiary students’ critical thinking. The authors initially discuss the role of Socratic questions in promoting students’ critical thinking through Web 2.0 tools. They further explain how blogging was incorporated into the curriculum of a course for tertiary level students enrolled in a Malaysian university. Finally, they show how qualitative and quantitative methods were used to evaluate the efficiency of Socratic questions in students’ blogging and its effects on students’ critical thinking. Findings suggest that implementing Socratic questions in students’ blogging would help promote students’ critical thinking.
Introduction
Critical thinking (CT) has been regarded as an essential outcome of education (Reed, 1998; Yang, Newby, & Robert, 2005). It is defined as a purposeful thought process that includes interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference based on the examination of conceptual, methodological, and contextual consideration (American Philosophical Association, 1990). Staib (2003, p. 643) defines CT as “the art of thinking about your thinking while you are thinking in order to make your thinking better.” She argues that CT is an accurate way of thinking in daily life, of pursuing reliable and relevant world knowledge, and of deciding what to do or believe.
