EFL students’ critical thinking in asynchronous online discussions: A perspective of peer facilitation

With the widespread application of technology in various learning communities, asynchronous online discussions (AODs) have been repeatedly reported as important for exchanging and constructing knowledge and fostering critical thinking (CT). Nevertheless, the specific conducive processes in AODs are yet to be further identified. This study explored the effects of peer facilitation on enhancing CT by tracking the peer facilitation strategies and the corresponding CT episodes in AODs. Forty-five Chinese college students in an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course participated in a three-phase online discussion task: Stating, Commenting, and Responding. Upon completion of the discussion, all interactive postings were retrieved verbatim and coded for peer facilitation instances and CT episodes in MAXQDA 2022. Seven peer facilitation strategies emerged from 105 peer facilitation instances at the Commenting phase and revealed a frequency-based three-tier peer facilitation pattern, with the bottom-tier, middle-tier and top-tier peer facilitation strategies correspondingly playing the bonding, engaging and monitoring functions in AODs. Such peer facilitation effectively triggered 78 CT episodes, with higher-level CT episodes aggregating on Analyze and Evaluate along an ascending CT level scale from Recognize, Understand, Analyze, Evaluate to Create. This study further identified stem and branch peer facilitation strategies that students employed in AODs, among which the single-strategy and double-strategy structures were more effective in triggering higher-level CT such as Analyze and Evaluate. In light of these findings, pedagogical implications are discussed for employing AODs as a learning community to foster CT in EFL classes.