Participation in the Community of Inquiry And its effect on the Critical thinking skills of students in Media literacy (Animation)

To investigate the effects of the community of inquiry method on critical thinking of students in media literacy (animation), an experiment was designed and conducted in Tehran among 8th-grade students in academic year 2014-2015. The research population was all sixth grade elementary school students in Tehran, among which 48 students were selected by cluster random sampling and were randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups. With 99% confidence, the findings showed that the participation of students in the community of inquiry affects their critical thinking skills. This effect was also significant on the skill of inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, observational analysis of media messages, the power of trust, and hypothesis construction ability of student. Based on the findings of this study, it can be concluded that educational methods such as ‘community of inquiry’ that promote critical thinking, improve media literacy of students