The Effect of Instructional Delivery Methods on the Critical Thinking Disposition of Distance Learners and Traditional On-campus Learners

The development of critical thinking skills in agricultural audiences has been identified as an important need. While several studies have examined the effect of teacher delivery methods that foster higher order thinking, levels of cognition, and critical thinking in agricultural education, few studies have addressed delivery methods fostering critical thinking in agricultural distance education courses. The purpose of this casual comparative study was to determine students’ disposition to think critically in a graduate research methods course, offered by the same instructor in both traditional classroom and distance learning settings. The course was specifically designed to implement strategies for improving critical thinking. To conduct the study, a series of null hypotheses were set up to determine the differences between distance learners and traditional learners with respect to: (1) their perception of course effectiveness, (2) their perceptions of opportunities to think critically in the course, (3) their actual critical thinking disposition, and (4) their critical thinking disposition change as a result of the implementation of critical thinking teaching strategies. Results generally supported the contention that distance learners were not significantly different than traditional learners with respect to perceptions of course effectiveness, opportunities to think critically and critical thinking disposition; however, traditional learners were significantly different from distance learners in terms of change in some critical thinking disposition subscale factors, including truth-seeking and inquisitiveness. Based on the above, practitioners need to continue to explore ways to develop technology-based teaching strategies that build critical thinking dispositions and skills in both distance and traditional learners.