چکیده:
The present study explored the effect of a pedagogical blog on Iranian EFL learners’ creative
and critical thinking skills using a mixed-methods approach. In the pedagogical blog, the
researchers asked learners divergent and evaluative questions based on Lindley’s model (1993).
The quantitative data were collected by administering Creativity Test Questionnaire (ATC) and
the Persian version of the California Critical Thinking Skills Test and were analyzed using
SPSS Version 16.0 software. The qualitative data consisted of the posts written by the
participants of the study in the class blog and were analyzed using thematic analysis. The
findings revealed that the pedagogical blog significantly improved the participants’ creative and
critical thinking skills, which were represented in their posts by the main themes of fluency,
elaboration, and flexibility as components of divergent thinking and inference, evaluation,
induction, and reconstruction as features of open and active critical thinking skills. Further
findings and implications are discussed in the paper.
خلاصه ماشینی:
"Seyyed Mohammad Reza Adel*, Hakim Sabzevari University, Sabzevar, Iran Akram Ramezanzadeh, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran Abstract The present study explored the effect of a pedagogical blog on Iranian EFL learners’ creative and critical thinking skills using a mixed-methods approach.
But as Wang and Vasquez’s comprehensive review of the use of technologies such as blogs in language learning and teaching indicated, no study has been conducted to explore the effect of blogging on language learners’ higher- order thinking skills, including creative and critical thinking skills.
The features of five critical thinking skills explained by Facione (1990) can be summarized as follows: Analysis: Identifying assumptions and claims, their role in the construction of argument, considering details and situations, and taking into account their interactions Inference: Coming to a conclusion through reasoning, collecting evidence, and recognizing conditions and facts Evaluation: Assessing the credibility of sources from which claims are made and information comes out and judging the quality of interpretations, opinions, beliefs, and inferences to decide how strong or weak the arguments are Deduction: Making a decision in a context which is exactly defined and the existing rules, conditions, policies, values, and procedures will determine the ultimate outcomes Induction: drawing inferences based on prior experience, known conditions, case studies, simulations, and analogies 3.
Although Ducate and Lomicka (2008) mainly referred to the university students’ creativity in posting pictures, writing unique comment, and changing the background of the blogs, the findings of this study showed the importance of three themes of fluency, elaboration, and validation, which could be considered as features of both convergent and divergent thinking (Cropley, 2006)."