Investigating the extent of critical thinking in fielddependent and field-ındependent students’ blog posts

Identifying critical thinking and learners’ characteristics is very important in an online learning environment. This study investigated the extent of critical thinking between field-dependent and field-independent students’ critical thinking and blogging. It is a quasi-experimental in which a quantitative method was employed on an intact class of the students to develop their CT skills in their argumentative blog posts. Different aspects of CT skills, such as observation, inference, reasoning, assumption, and credibility were explained to the students. The GEFT developed by Witkin et al. (1971) was applied to evaluate the students' field dependency. Moreover, Newman et al. model (1996) was applied to analyze students’ CT in their blog posts. No significant difference was found in the number of positive and negative CT indicators used by FD and FI students. Therefore, educators who wish to improve the students’ learning may train the students in CT skills by using a pre-planned and systematic procedure without worrying about learners’ cognitive styles, particularly their field dependency

Validity of the Persian Blog Attitude Questionnaire: An Evidence-Based Approach

Validity evidence is provided for a Persian blog attitude questionnaire (P-BAQ). P-BAQ was administered to 565 Iranians and factor analysis and rating scale model identified affective, behavioral, and perseverance, and confidence dimensions underlying the data. P-BAQ’s validity argument was supported by the theoretical and psychometric evidence, although adding a few items to the instrument would improve its construct representativeness

Pedagogical blogging : promoting tertiary level students` critical thinking by using socratic questions.

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

Investigating the factor structure of the blog attitude scale

Due to the wide application of advanced technology in education, many attitude scales have been developed to evaluate learners’ attitudes toward educational tools. However, with the rapid development of emerging technologies, using blogs as one of the Web 2.0 tools is still in its infancy and few blog attitude scales have been developed yet. In view of this need, a lot of researchers like to design a new scale based on their conceptual and theoretical framework of their own study rather than using available scales. The present study reports the design and development of a blog attitude scale (BAS). The researchers developed a pool of items to capture the complexity of the blog attitude trait, selected 29 items in the content analysis, and assigned the scale comprising 29 items to 216 undergraduate students to explore the underlying structure of the BAS. In exploratory factor analysis, three factors were discovered: blog anxiety, blog desirability, and blog self-efficacy; 14 items were excluded. The extracted items were subjected to a confirmatory factor analysis which lent further support to the BAS underpinning structure

Promoting tertiary level students' critical thinking through the use of Socratic questioning on the blog

Over the past decade, much has been done to improve students' critical thinking in education. This study investigates if applying Socratic questioning on the blog can promote students' critical thinking. It applies a generic model, which associates with three fundamental components. Participants were an intact class of tertiary level students enrolled in an obligatory course. Students practiced Socratic questioning during face-to-face and online sessions. To serve this goal, they were asked to be attentive and share their ideas or questions with other students on the blog. Students' critical thinking ability was assessed using the Cornell Critical Thinking Test before and after they were trained in Socratic questioning. The results showed that the Socratic questioning training had a significant positive change on students' critical thinking ability. If students master the art of Socratic questioning, they can bring it into various courses they take. They can also use it in different discussions they engage in, and apply it not only in raising and asking questions about what is taught, but also in making questions concerning the issues in their daily life in a meaningful way

Does cognitive style affect bloggers’ attitude in an online learning environment?

The prevalence of using blogs among college students has great impact in online communication. It is therefore important to identify how learners with different characteristics use this technology. This study examines if bloggers’ cognitive styles particularly field-dependency affects students’ attitudes toward blogs. The subjects were a class of undergraduate students enrolled in an obligatory course. The Group Embedded Figures Test was administered which classified them as either field dependent or field independent. Then, they were requested to respond to a questionnaire designed to assess their attitudes toward blogs on three factors: blog anxiety, blog desirability, and blog selfefficacy. Although field-dependents had lower blog anxiety, blog desirability, and blog self-efficacy than field-independents in using blogs, the difference was not statistically significant. Moreover, conclusions drawn from the interview questions support the notion that both field dependents and field independents appeared to have positive attitudes towards using blogs in a learning environment

Developing critical thinking skills in the argumentative writing of tertiary level students in a blended learning environment

Argumentative writing has been recognized as an essential skill expected of tertiary level students. However, many students do not display critical thinking in their language skills such as argumentative writing, and most instructors have yet to fully consider the major role of critical thinking in students’ writing. This study aimed to develop critical thinking skills in the argumentative writing of tertiary level students in a blended learning environment. The study employs a mixed-method research design to integrate quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysi . Participants were an intact class of tertiary level students enrolled in an obligatory course. In the quantitative data collection and analysis, a quasi-experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of critical thinking skill training and field-dependency on the students’ extent of critical thinking shown in argumentative writing on the blog and their perception of the course blog before and after the training. The Group Embedded Figure Test was used to identify and categorize the students into field-dependent or field-independent. The Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level X and the Course Blog Perception Questionnaire were used to assess students’ critical thinking ability and perception of the course blog respectively. Results showed that field dependency did not have a significant effect on students’ criticalness on their blogging; however, field independent students seemed to take more thought in asking critical questions. Moreover, the critical thinking skill training had a significant positive effect on students’ perception of the course blog. Besides, both field dependent and field independent students perceived that using the course blog was effective in improving their writing skill. In the qualitative data collection and analysis, a text analysis approach was employed. Students’ blog posts and comments were collected and analyzed by applying two critical thinking assessment models: Newman, Webb, and Cochrane’s (1996) critical thinking model, and Paul and Elder’s (2007) Universal Intellectual Standard model. The results revealed that the critical thinking skill training did cause the significant increase in students’ critical thinking ability in their blogging that might have led to their improved argumentative writing skill. The triangulation of the quantitative and qualitative analyses further supported the conclusion that critical thinking skills can be trained and the training can make a significant improvement on students’ critical thinking ability. The study suggests a new method of training critical thinking skills in a blended learning environment to improve students’ argumentative writing. Critical thinking training applied in this study can be considered effective and educators may adopt it to promote critical thinking among students. If students learn the skill and language of critical thinking, they can apply it not only in their argumentative writing, but also into every subject they take and every discussion they engage in

Diagnosing English learners’ writing skills: A cognitive diagnostic modeling study

This study aims to clearly diagnose EFL students’ writing strengths and weaknesses. I adapted a diagnostic framework which comprises multiple writing components associated with three main dimensions of second language writing. The essays of 304 English learners who enrolled in an English language program were double-rated by 13 experienced English teachers. The data were submitted to cognitive diagnostic assessment (CDA). The provided evidence supports the validity of 21 writing descriptors tapping into three academic writing skills: content, organization, and language. The skill mastery pattern across writing shows that language was the easiest skill to master while content was the most difficult. In mastering language, the highest mastery levels were found in using capitalization, spelling, articles, pronouns, verb tense, subject-verb agreement, singular and plural nouns, and prepositions while some sub-skills such as sophisticated or advanced vocabulary, collocation, redundant ideas or linguistic expressions generated a hierarchy of difficulty. Researchers, teachers, and language learners may benefit from using the 21-item checklist in the EFL context to assess students’ writing. This method can have additional benefits for educators to know how to adapt other instruments for various purposes

Quality Assessment of Persian Translation of English Pharmaceutical Leaflets Based on House’s Model

This research attempted to evaluate the quality of Persian translation of drug leaflets. The researchers randomly selected a set of 30 pharmaceutical leaflets collected between March-August, 2015. The leaflets were analyzed based on House’s functional-pragmatic model of translation quality assessment. At first, the profiles of both source texts and target texts were collected. Then, their overtly and covertly erroneous errors and the kinds of strategies used by the translators in translating the pharmaceutical leaflets into Persian were identified. The results indicate that out of 90 selected sentences of English leaflets, 47 were overtly erroneous and 43 were error-free. These overtly erroneous translations had 27 instances of “mistranslation”, 15 instances of “grammatical mistakes”, six instances of “addition”, six instances of “omission” and four instances of “substitution”. The only covert error was “tenor mismatch” in all sample sentences. The study findings can help teachers in translation studies to improve the quality of students’ translation. Moreover, awareness of the errors in the current leaflet translations can assist students in performing their future jobs as translators. The findings may directly and indirectly affect the health of patients in an efficient and effective way

Investigating the Extent of Critical Thinking in Field-Dependent and Field-Independent Students’ Critical Thinking and Blogging

Identifying critical thinking and learners’ characteristics is very important in an online learning environment. This study investigated the extent of critical thinking between field-dependent and field-independent students’ critical thinking and blogging. It is a quasi-experimental in which a quantitative method was employed on an intact class of the students to develop their CT skills in their argumentative blog posts. Different aspects of CT skills, such as observation, inference, reasoning, assumption, and credibility were explained to the students. The GEFT developed by Witkin et al. (1971) was applied to evaluate the students' field dependency. Moreover, Newman et al. model (1996) was applied to analyze students’ CT in their blog posts.  No significant difference was found in the number of positive and negative CT indicators used by FD and FI students. Therefore, educators who wish to improve the students’ learning may train the students in CT skills by using a pre-planned and systematic procedure without worrying about learners’ cognitive styles, particularly their field dependency