Students' critical reading of articles: Effects of guidance and group discussion

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to examine whether providing guidance and group discussion to university students who had taken no courses in cognitive psychology or educational psychology might improve their ability to read psychology articles critically. In Experiment 1, guidance was provided to 40 university students. Experiment 2 combined guidance and group discussions ; participants were 44 university students. The results of Experiment 1 suggested that providing guidance improved students' critical reading performance. However, the results of Experiment 2 suggested that although group discussions increased the number of adequate critiques, the number of inadequate critiques also increased. These findings suggest that students' critical reading ability is more likely to improve if guidance is provided when they are engaged in group discussion.