Patterns of Critical Thinking Processing in Online Reciprocal Peer Tutoring Through Facebook Discussion

Abstract

Reciprocal Peer tutoring (RPT) can support students in enhancing their critical thinking during learning process. The evolution of internet technology has shifted face-to-face peer tutoring to an online environment such as use of a social networking site, Facebook. In addition, Facebook Group provides a space for students and instructor to discuss academic related matters. However, depending solely on the Facebook medium without proper design learning activities do not guarantee active learning among students. In addition, educators might face multiple challenges by using social networking site such as Facebook for teaching and learning purpose. Thus, this study integrated online reciprocal peer tutoring arrangements in Facebook to stimulate students' critical thinking. A total of 29 students involved in the online discussions through Facebook with 14 Facebook Group pages were created. During discussion, tutor will used guided peer questioning strategy initiate tutee to think to the higher levels. This study employed lag sequential analysis to empirically explore patterns of critical thinking processing in Facebook discussions among High and Low critical thinking groups. The results showed that, apparently, High critical thinking group emerged thinking pattern which progressing from lower to higher order thinking processes which are very crucial in shaping their thinking to the higher levels. Additionally, by asking students' prior knowledge and understanding frequently can help students to gain greater understanding of the topic and further initiate their higher level of critical thinking. INDEX TERMS Facebook, critical thinking, online reciprocal peer tutoring, sequential analysis, type of question.

Efficacy of Social Networking Sites for Sustainable Education in the Era of COVID-19: A Systematic Review

“…Although SNSs do not have a standardized framework for pedagogical approach, instructors and practitioners have reported careful intuitive approaches that provide beneficial instructional decisions on using these technologies. Apart from the common self-directed learning capabilities of SNSs, some of the novel educational approaches that studies have explored for effective academic communication, collaboration, and resource sharing using SNSs includes Argumentative Knowledge Construction [27,32], Reciprocal Peer Tutoring [49], and Automated Social Learning [43].…”

“…As shown in Table 3, most of the research participants considered are undergraduate university students [2,6,27,38,39,[41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50]. Although few studies collected and analyzed user/system generated data [3,51,52], others considered higher education researchers [5,53], faculty members [7,54,55], and college students [40,56,57] as the research participants.…”

“…Although few studies collected and analyzed user/system generated data [3,51,52], others considered higher education researchers [5,53], faculty members [7,54,55], and college students [40,56,57] as the research participants. Studies on SNS in education have reached a global level, with most studies coming from Asia [1,2,[4][5][6][7]39,41,45,47,49,52,[56][57][58][59], Europe [8,27,43,46,48,50,54,55], and the USA [3,38,40,42,44,53].…”

“…As shown in Table 3, the most studied SNSs for educational practices are Facebook [1,2,6,8,27,40,44,46,48,49,[53][54][55]57], Twitter [3,42,45,52], and YouTube [41,51,58,59]. Some of the studies considered SNSs in general [5,38,47,56] while others proposed customized social learning platforms such as ILEARN [43] and an integration of SNS with e-Case Live [7].…”

“…Consequently, apart from the studies that utilized the basic features of the SNSs considered [2,8,39,40,53,57], Facebook groups and similar virtual discussion forums are the most utilized SNS functionalities [6,27,44,46]. Furthermore, in the absence of standardized frameworks for the educational use of SNSs, most of the studies reported the benefits of some intuitive approaches, including Argumentative Knowledge Construction [27,32], Reciprocal Peer Tutoring [49], and Automated Social Learning [43].…”