Tan Angel J Y, Davies Jean L, Nicolson Roderick I, Karaminis Themis
Department of Psychology, Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK.
Department of Psychology, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, UK.
Educ Technol Res Dev. 2023 Apr 14:1-22. doi: 10.1007/s11423-023-10227-y.
Critical thinking is identified as a key educational outcome in higher education curricula; however, it is not trivial to support students in building this multifaceted skill. In this study, we evaluated a brief online learning intervention focusing on informal fallacy identification, a hallmark critical-thinking skill. The intervention used a bite-sized video learning approach, which has been shown to promote student engagement. Video-based learning was implemented within a precision teaching (PT) framework, which modulates the exposure of individual learners to the learning material to enable them to build 'fluency' in the targeted skills. In one of the learning conditions, PT was applied synergistically with domain-general problem-based training to support generalisation. The intervention consisted of two learning episodes and was administered to three groups (learning conditions) of 19 participants each: a PT fluency-based training group; a PT + group, where PT was combined with problem-based training; and a self-directed learning control group. All three groups showed comparable improvements in fallacy identification on taught (post-episode tests) and unseen materials (post-intervention assessment), with lower-scoring participants showing higher gains than high-scoring participants. The results of the knowledge retention tests a week later were also comparable between groups. Importantly, in the domain-general fallacy-identification assessment (post-intervention), the two PT groups showed higher improvements than the control group. These findings suggest that the integration of bite-sized video learning technologies with PT can improve students' critical-thinking skills. Furthermore, PT, on its own or combined with problem-based training, can improve their skill to generalise learning to novel contexts. We discuss the educational implications of our findings.
批判性思维被视为高等教育课程的一项关键教育成果；然而，要支持学生培养这项多方面的技能并非易事。在本研究中，我们评估了一种简短的在线学习干预措施，该措施聚焦于非正式谬误识别，这是批判性思维技能的一个标志。该干预采用了简短的视频学习方法，已证明这种方法能促进学生参与。基于视频的学习是在精确教学（PT）框架内实施的，该框架调节个体学习者对学习材料的接触，以使他们在目标技能方面建立“流畅性”。在其中一种学习条件下，PT与基于领域通用问题的训练协同应用以支持知识的迁移。该干预包括两个学习阶段，并对三组（学习条件）每组19名参与者进行了实施：一个基于PT流畅性的训练组；一个PT +组，即PT与基于问题的训练相结合；以及一个自主学习对照组。所有三组在已教授内容（阶段后测试）和未见过的材料（干预后评估）的谬误识别方面都有类似的进步，得分较低的参与者比得分高的参与者进步更大。一周后的知识保留测试结果在各组之间也具有可比性。重要的是，在领域通用的谬误识别评估（干预后）中，两个PT组比对照组有更大的进步。这些发现表明，将简短的视频学习技术与PT相结合可以提高学生的批判性思维技能。此外，PT单独使用或与基于问题的训练相结合，可以提高他们将学习迁移到新情境的技能。我们讨论了我们研究结果的教育意义。
