Promoting Critical Thinking for All Ability Levels in an Online English as a Second Language Course

This study explores the development of critical thinking among undergraduate students in the context of an “English as a Second Language course”. A structured, online forum task demanding an increasing level of critical thinking was repeated four times during the year. Students' use of critical thinking skills was evaluated in terms of the variety of critical thinking skills and the number of times each skill was repeated. Two groups were compared: low advantage students versus average to high advantage students. Students of both ability groups improved their critical thinking in the three more concrete tasks and showed a decrease in the fourth more abstract task. While low advantage students started at a significantly lower level than the rest of the students, they reached the same level by the second critical thinking activity. The pedagogical implications of these findings are discussed.