Investigating the Developmental Trajectory of Critical Thinking in Online Discourse Among College Students: An Epistemic Network Analysis

Haoxin Xu, Dan Huang, Jing Leng, Xianlong Xu

Abstract: Critical thinking is regarded as one of the core thinking skills in the 21st century. This study intends to investigate the developmental trajectory of critical thinking in the online discourse. In this study, 27 participants who were enrolled in an undergraduate course on instructional system design generated 724 discussion notes. Each student was given a critical thinking test at the beginning of the course, and the students were divided into high and low achievement groups based on the results. An epistemic network analysis is adopted to analyze their critical thinking behaviors in the online discussion. The results show that the epistemic network graphs of the two groups of students were significantly different, and varied at different stages of the online inquiry. Findings of this study have significant implications on designing activities for engaging college students in critical thinking and productive knowledge building discourse.