The effect of a pedagogy model integrated with weblogs on critical thinking skills of students

This study uses quantitative data to examine whether or not a social constructivist theory-driven pedagogical model integrated with weblogs is associated with improved critical thinking skills. Forty secondary school students completed a series of extra-curricular activities within ten months. These activities included writing assignments on questions requiring higher-order thinking skills, which are then submitted either as traditional, hard copy papers, or as weblog entries (Paper and Weblog Groups). They also completed a pre-test and a post-test of the Critical Thinking Test – Level 1 (CTT-1) prior to and upon completion of the learning activities, respectively. The analysis revealed that both groups demonstrated gains in Critical Thinking scores in the post-test. Moreover, a significant gain was observed in the Weblog group as well as in the class of general ability. No significant gender difference was detected. Copyright © 2009 Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.