Exploring Effects of Media Type and Delivery Technology on Facilitating Critical Thinking Among College Students

Abstract

The current study examines the impact of new media, specifically the introduction of tablets, on student learning. Student groups were asked to build learning materials on either personal computers (PCs) or tablets. The study further investigated building this material in video and text forms. The results were analyzed using a repeated-measures analysis of variance. Tablet use lead to superior outcomes, but this result was conditional on critical thinking stage. For instance, tablet use resulted in better outcomes in the fourth (evaluation) stage of critical thinking. In the first three and fifth stages of critical thinking, tablets provided no significant advantage over PCs. From a learning strategies perspective, tablets lead to more employment of all three strategies investigated: elaboration, rehearsal, and organization. In terms of media type, video presentation was more effective in the first stage of critical thinking (problem identification), while text worked better in the fourth stage of the process (evaluation).