Date of Graduation
2004
Document Type
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
Surveys have found that employers want today's community college graduates to be able to work in teams, make decisions, and critically assess job situations. In short they want the students to think critically. Due to the changing demographics, web-based education has become a larger part of college curriculum in the past several years. This research project explored critical thinking in web-based courses offered at Maryland community colleges to determine what courses were being offered by the different academic disciplines, the methods used to promote critical thinking, and the types of critical thinking assessment used in these web-based courses. The content analysis of selected web pages revealed six of the seven dimensions of critical thinking (interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, presentation of arguments, and reflection) are included and assessed in the web pages but the seventh (dispositions to use these skills) is not. Most of the assignments on the web pages were individual activities, curriculum design was found to be very traditional and The information in the World Wide Web is not being utilized to its fullest. This research also suggests several changes for the Maryland community college system to provide students with a more meaningful web-based learning environment.
Recommended Citation
Perry, George E., "Critical thinking and Web-based education in Maryland community colleges: How the medium promotes development." (2004). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 9574.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/9574