Improving Critical Thinking in Discussion: Seven Studies Leonard Shedletsky University of Southern Maine Department of Communication & Media Studies

SETTING THE STAGE: STUDY 1

RESULTS OF STUDY 1 FACE-to-FACE ONLINE AMOUNT OF TALK GREATER LESS (than f2f) LEVEL OF CRITICAL THINKING LOW LEVEL LOWER (than f2f) OTHER (chit chat)

RESULTS STUDY 1 OTHER TYPE OF REPORT (INDIV. Vs. CONSENSUS) TRIGGERING EXPLORATION INTEGRATION RESOLUTION OTHER TYPE OF REPORT (INDIV. Vs. CONSENSUS) > TRIG IN CONSENSUS > EXPLOR. FOR CONSENSUS NO DIFFERENCE --------- > OTHER FOR CONSENSUS TYPE OF ANALYSIS (EX. Vs. ABSTRACT) > TRIG IN ABSTRACT ---------- > OTHER FOR ABSTRACT

RESULTS OF STUDY 1 1. GREATER AMOUNT OF TALK F-2-F BUT MOSTLY CHIT CHAT (LOW LEVEL OF CRITICAL THINKING); 2. ONLINE PRODUCED AN EVEN LOWER LEVEL OF CRITICAL THINKING & LESS TALK THAN F-2-F;

STUDY 2 STUDY 2

RESULTS OF STUDY 2 Summaries from online students received higher grades from 2 professors blind to the study than summaries for F2F students.

STUDY 3 STUDY 3

RESULTS of STUDY 3 The TA’s involvement in discussion had little to no effect on student-to-student interaction and only affected the level of EXPLORATION responses for critical thinking.

Study 4 Study 4

Results of Study 4 Personal Relevance of topics had no effect on student postings or critical thinking. Students’ self reported prediction of how personal relevance would affect their postings was not found in actual behavior observed.

Study 5 STUDY 5

RESULTS OF STUDY 5 WITH RUBRICS AND GRADING POSTS WITHOUT RUBRICS AND GRADING POSTS CRITICAL THINKING INCREASED LOWER INITIAL POSTS MORE LESS EARLIER POSTS EARLIER LATER

STUDY 6: Can we improve the quality & quantity of online discussion with rubrics and peer rating? Since study 5 showed us that rubrics and grading posts increased critical thinking, produced earlier posts and more interaction, we wanted to find out if we could have the students rate one another.

STUDY 6: PROCEDURES & RESULTS SPRING 2008 [NO RUBRICS, NO PEER RATINGS] FALL 2009 [RUBRICS & PEER RATING] CRITICAL THINKING no difference DAY OF INITIAL RESPONSE earlier later FREQUENCY OF RESPONDING

STUDY 7: Can we improve the quality & quantity of online discussion with rubrics and peer rating? Study 7 was undertaken to pursue further the question of whether or not peer rating of posts with a rubric plus emailing the rating and rationale for rating to the teacher would produce an effect on when posts were made in the week and an effect on the quality of posts (critical thinking).

STUDY 7: PROCEDURES We collected data from another section of the same course, (same teacher) with rubrics and peer ratings and rationale emailed to the teacher. In this third section of the course, students were asked to rate 1 to 5 other students’ posts and to email once a week to the teacher a copy of one of these posts, their rating and their rationale for the rating (see Appendix 3 at: http://media.usm.maine.edu/~lenny/appendix_3.docx

PROCEDURE We already had collected data on a section of Introduction to Communication without rubrics or ratings of posts and a section of the same course (taught by the same teacher) with rubrics and graded posts

PROCEDURE We wanted to know if rubrics, peer rating and emailing the rated post-plus-the rating-plus-the rationale to the teacher would produce an effect on: (1) when posts were made and on (2) the quality of posts in the course as a whole; In effect, we wanted to know if the additional requirement of considering the rationale would improve scores in the class as a whole for critical thinking; In addition, in study 7, we did not grade the student for level of critical thinking or for day of the week for initial posts and responses;

RESULTS Three groups: 1. No Rubrics/Ratings 2. With Rubrics/Grading 3. Email/Rationale to Teacher Overall, students used the lower end of the critical thinking scale for posts under all 3 conditions, though negligibly higher when graded or peer rated compared to no rubrics or oversight.

RESULTS: DAY OF INITIAL POST A.Graded Class B.Non-Graded/rated Day of Initial Post Day 5 A signif. earlier than B Day 8 A. Graded C. Peer rating/ rationale/emailed A signif. Earlier than C C.Peer ratings+rubrics+rationale emailed

RESULTS: DAY OF INITIAL POST WHAT STANDS OUT IS THE MUCH LARGER NUMBER OF NON-POSTS IN THE NO RATING CONDITION THAN IN THE GRADED CONDITION (287 TO 136 NON-POSTS, RESPECTIVELY).

RESULTS: INITIAL RESPONSES Graded Class Peer rating + rationale+emailed Day of Initial Response EARLIER RESPONSE sign.diff. LATER AGAIN, far fewer non-posts for the graded condition than for the peer rating condition (136 vs. 205 non-posts, respectively).

RESULTS: INITIAL RESPONSES B. No Ratings C. Peer rating + rationale+emailed Day of Initial Response LATER RESPONSE sign.diff. EARLIER Far fewer non-posts for the peer rating +rationale+emailed to teacher condition than for the no rating condition (205 vs. 287 non-posts, respectively).

Results: Overall For all 3 conditions there is a very low number of responses within the assigned week for discussion: No rating—5.5% Graded—48% Peer rating/rationale/email—19.6%

Results: Email with Rationale 67 emails were received (105 possible total); 4.2 mean emails out of possible 7 14 of 15 students submitted email with rationale in the 7-week course; In short, the number of students who sent emails with rating and rationale was poor; The rationales offered did not clearly display use of the rubrics (roughly 50% made reference to the rubrics);

EMAIL WITH RATIONALE Student 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 # of emails

Discussion & Conclusions So—CAN WE IMPROVE THE QUALITY AND QUANTITY OF ONLINE DISCUSSION WITH RUBBRICS AND PEER RATING? WE CAN INFLUENCE WHEN STUDENTS INITIALLY POST WHEN STUDENTS RESPOND TO OTHER STUDENTS HOW FREQUENTLY STUDENTS POST SOME SMALL INCREASE IN CRITICAL THINKING (Exploration)

Conclusions Some form of oversight is necessary, e.g., grading, having students email ratings to the teacher We could answer the title question with a ‘yes’ though the amount of critical thinking affected is low

SUGGESTIONS CHOOSE SOME FORM OF OVERSIGHT WITH EXPLICIT RUBRICS AND A REWARD PROCEDURE;

PROBLEM WE STILL HAVE NOT FOUND A WAY TO SUBSTANTIALLY INCREASE CRITICAL THINKING;

THE NEXT STUDY MAPPING—in study 8, which is underway, we will explore the effect of having students map with visual software, their argument (SeeTim van Gelder)—preliminary data suggest that this may have a strong effect but we will see;

MAPPING

APPENDICES APPENDIX 1 [STUDY 1, CRITICAL THINKING] APPENDIX 2 [STUDY 5, RUBRICS] APPENDIX 3 [STUDY 7, RATING+EMAILING] APPENDIX 4 [RUBRICS]

REFERENCES Cases on Online Discussion and Interaction