Abstract

Critical thinking skills are undoubtedly the 21st-century skills that people use in their daily lives. In this context, this action research had as its main objective to evaluate the contribution of the use of short animated videos to improve higher-order thinking skills (analyze, create and evaluate) of first-year undergraduate students, both in oral production tasks as well as in written tasks in English, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, it explored students’ perceptions in relation to their improvement in their own critical thinking skills. The data obtained were analyzed using descriptive statistics, specifically, measures of central tendency. Additionally, the non-parametric Wilcoxon test was used in the measurements that were made in the writing ability to verify if the change observed in the participants’ development of critical thinking skill was statistically significant. The results obtained revealed that after the intervention, an improvement was observed in the development of the undergraduates’ critical thinking skills (analysis, evaluation, creation) in both language skills (writing and speaking). In a more exhaustive statistical analysis through the non-parametric Wilcoxon test applied to the writing tests’ measurements, an increase among undergraduates’ critical thinking skills was observed. The results of the tasks developed correlated positively with the students’ perceptions, which was collected through a Likert scale. In conclusion, the study showed that the use of short, animated videos effectively helped first-year undergraduate students improve their higher-order critical thinking skills, during the COVID-19 crisis.

Keywords: critical thinking skills; speaking skill; writing skill; English language teaching; short animated videos; undergraduates; COVID-19