Effects of Critical Thinking Strategies on Knowledge Acquisition, Learning Outcome and Student Satisfaction in Web-based Argumentation

The purpose of this study is to analyze the effects of Critical Thinking Strategy supporting argumentation activities between learners. The research question is whether the form of Critical Thinking Strategy offered to support meaningful interaction of collaborative argumentation between learners influences the knowledge acquisition, learning outcome, and student satisfaction. For this, the collaboration outcome of the group, the level of individual knowledge acquisition, the level of students satisfaction were measured as outcome of argumentation activity and their differences analyzed. This study concludes the following: A comparison of the group that was provided with Critical Thinking Strategy (test group) and the group provided with general argumentation scaffolds (compared group) showed there wasn't statistically significant differences in the quality of the learning outcome of collaboration between the groups and in students satisfaction. But there was significant difference in the degree of individual acquisition depending on the offering of scaffolding for Critical Thinking. Therefore, as premised in this study, supporting meaningful mutual interaction between learners during collaborative argumentation using Critical Thinking Strategy has a positive influence on the individual acquisition of domain knowledge. The group provided with scaffolding for Critical Thinking gained higher effect in the degree of knowledge sharing and individual acquisition of domain knowledge compared to the group provided with general argumentation scaffolding.