Cultivating Critical Thinking Through E-learning Environment and Tools: A Review

Abstract

Critical thinking is one of the main goals of higher education to train dependant and reasonable thinker as an efficient citizenship in modern society. Researchers and instructors in the world attempt to assess the level of students’ critical thinking in order to foster it as a vital ability. Also, researchers use different learning approaches and theories along with the technological progress to nurture critical thinking of students. On the other hand, the advent of e-learning in education facilitates the difficulties through the learning and teaching paths. Researchers provided models and strategies for developing critical thinking by e-learning tools with their specific characteristic and applications. This paper presents a review on e-learning approaches and models which are used to cultivate critical thinking with the aim of highlighting the importance of critical thinking and the role of e-learning. We also present a taxonomy of existing e-learning models based on their applications and efficiencies as well as presenting similarities and differences in such approaches and discuss open research issues.