The Process of Developing Critical Thinking Capabilities in Media

The extent to which students engaged in accessing different kinds of news media in the PBL process played an essential part in nurturing critical thinking in media literacy. Being exposed to different news media provided students with the opportunity to compare, scrutinise, and reflect on distinct positions on reporting. I thus presented a range of media messages, encouraged their access, and raised questions for them to think and reflect. Students’ responses to closed questions 1 to 10 about their news-reading habits and engagement in accessing different forms and sources of media in pre-class and post-class questionnaires did not change substantially, and they tended to affirm the contribution of PBL to learning media literacy (Appendix M). In answering the post-class open-ended questions 1 and 2, students could state more firmly why they referred to various media, including comparing views of different news media because of being aware of news media bias, learning to analyse, and updating information. 3 out of 31 students mentioned that the need for undertaking their presentations, assignments and journals was the driving force of continuous access to different news resources.

Without colliding with other ideas, students’ subjectivity might dominate and lead to bias against opposing opinions. Frequent access to alternative news media, then, was not for the purpose of comparing views at a surface level but for probing the

stories by considering and evaluating the context in depth. Reporting her confusion during the PBL process discussed in the previous section, Eva who was stuck at the absolute-subliminal stage at the end of the course commented on her and her peers’ use of critical thinking:

It was easier to collect information but hard to relate it to critical thinking because we had no idea about how to analyse. (Final focus group interview: Uncertainty: Unit of coding 1.5)

Students’ organisation of what they needed to learn in PBL was a critical thinking process per se. Given my view of critical thinking as a threshold concept in media literacy, students tended to rely on ‘the teacher’s answers’, making it difficult to independently take over their work. I tried to elicit their own thoughts to construct their own meanings by continuously asking questions, but students appeared not to be responsive in the first cycle.

The teacher’s journal (week 4): In the fourth class, I introduced the headlines and leads in news, aiming to provide basic knowledge for students to deconstruct news articles. I talked about news stories about the controversy over our government’s plan for allowing importing American beef with meat additive to Taiwan for discussion. The complex issue caused the government’s policy dilemma. Although I asked for what they thought, most students relied on receiving knowledge from my lecture instead of voicing their opinions probably for lake of contextual knowledge.

The teacher’s journal (week 5): After the first presentation, the common problem was that they focused on describing the events, and some just criticised emotionally. There was a lack of deep analysis which should be tied up with critical thinking in media literacy. I suggested that they go back to read the information in ‘All about the course’ in their online e-course folder and refer to the criteria for presentation and individual writing.

I took the predominant role of instilling the concept of critical thinking in students at the beginning of the course but recognised the gradual sophistication of their

thinking and the necessity of facilitating them to move to a higher thinking level afterwards. In response to the knowing, reflecting, and stretching spirals activating students to pass transitional crossroads to a higher stage, the PBL pedagogical approach purported to enable students to move from awareness of different perspectives to idea-clarification and evaluation. As the findings in Chapter 6 suggested, nonetheless, some students found it troublesome to deepen their knowledge. I also discovered that identifying students’ development between stages was difficult particularly when students were at the crossroads closer to the next phase. Students were thus invited to engage in reflection on their past learning and ponder what to do next at a metacognitive level. Through referring to the critical thinking capabilities rubric, students tended not to place emphasis on reflection on self and the wider context in their academic performance but expressed their critical thinking pertaining to media literacy in the journals, especially in the second cycle.

Lisa (group four): What is cultural imperialism of Apple Company? It has a powerful symbol easily identified…Through the media reports, Apple products have become popular. Some people are crazy about this brand, just like what they think of Lady Gaga. We must reconsider the information from mass media. Is it worthy to be crazy about? We should choose which information is better for us. (Questioning the consumption of the media)

Kenny (group seven): I was confused why they reported the same news all day long and ignored other important news. The reason might be viewing rate, but we have the right to know what happened in the world. That is really not fair to all the audiences. (Questioning the profits overriding the representation of diversity)

Gary (group three): In the movie ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’, the TV host Edward and the TV producer Fred used the media in the best way. They said that TV would become a light box if it lost the positive function. This means that media are very important to the public. If they cannot bring the positive power to the public, they are nothing…We should not stay in silence in our society and

should not be afraid of injustice. We have the right to speak the truth and know the truth. (Awareness of taking action triggered by injustice)

Jenny (group seven): News media may criticise some issues in a subjective way. Therefore, readers are unaware that the information they receive could be information bias. The bias against some issues can affect the readers’ views of the world. (Awareness of the influence of media bias)

These four students whose epistemological development were at transitional- preliminal or independent-liminal stages demonstrated different dimensions of critical thinking capabilities in relation to media literacy. Although their subjectivity still existed, they became aware of the importance of justification by looking at a range of sources. Their improvement was also recorded in my journal.

The teacher’s journal (Week 18): I was impressed by the progress my students made. They changed significantly from the beginning to the end of the course, from innocent thinking to more complex ideas. At first, they ‘knew’ the operation of news might not be straightforward as they expected but did not ‘understand’ how the media messages were constructed, for whom, for what. As the PBL curriculum went on, their thinking of analysing experienced transformation. Students at the transitional stage recognised different perspectives but were unable to stretch to achieve deeper understanding, while students at the independent epistemological stage demonstrated the great potential for integrating different disciplinary ideas although personal subjectivity was inevitable and required further justification.

The journey from mere ‘knowing’ to ‘understanding’ was proven to be transformative, troublesome, and integrative or bounded, echoing the characteristics of threshold concepts. It was also troublesome for me to facilitate students who were approaching the gateway to the next stage or between stages. Keeping journals as reflective writing in the portfolio based on critical thinking capabilities rubric therefore formed a systematic approach to monitoring students’ learning journey and my facilitation (Lähteenmäki & Uhlin, 2012).