| With importance placed on upper level cognitive skills in higher education and with an increased use of distance learning, instructional strategies should be used that support the acquisition of skills such as critical thinking by learners. The purpose of this study was to determine, for the purposes of improving instructional design techniques, if a pattern existed between five selected instructional design strategies and the level of cognition, based on Bloom's taxonomy, achieved by learners in an asynchronous learning environment. The computer-mediated communication (CMC) instructional strategies discussed in this study include (a) read and respond, (b) scenario, (c) case study, (d) controversy/debate , and (e) search and critique. Using a mixed methodology, data were collected and, using interpretational analysis, themes were identified between multiple constructs. The first series of constructs included the five instructional strategies listed above. The second series of constructs included the six levels of cognition based on Bloom's taxonomy, which include (a) knowledge, (b) comprehension, (c) application, (d) analysis, (e) synthesis, and (f) evaluation. Using four online courses in a doctorate business program, 491 learner responses were collected and evaluated to determine the level of cognition achieved. Descriptive statistics was used to numerically assess the relationship between the two constructs. The findings of this study show that the learners achieved the application level of cognition (Bloom's level 3) when responding to four of the five CMC instructional strategies controversy/debate, case study, scenario, and search and critique. Learner responses achieved a cognitive level of comprehension (Bloom's level 2) when responding to read and respond instructional strategies. The results also showed that only 4% of the learner responses achieved Bloom's higher order cognitive level of synthesis or evaluation, whereas 83% of all learner responses in this study fell between Bloom's comprehension (level 2) and analysis (level 4). Although the research shows that a pattern exists, the results also show that learners did not achieve the desired higher levels of cognition that would involve critical thinking skills. |
