Podcasts is one of the well-known online video media used by people
around the world, especially young people. Lots of podcasts that are very easy to
access by anyone, anytime and anywhere. In the world of education, podcasts
have become one of the media that is used to help the course of lessons. One of
them in lectures is used as one of the projects in the final grade. In podcasts, much
of the research focuses on the development of listening and speaking skills.
However, in-depth research on the development of other capabilities still needs to
be explored.
Based on this phenomenon, the researcher is interested in explaining and
analyzing again the ability that can be honed from the podcast, namely critical
thinking. The research design is a case study and applies data analysis theory from
Mile, Huberman, and Saldana (2014), which consists of three main stages: data
reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions or verification. Researchers
obtained data by analyzing the results of ten student broadcasts from English
education, who had attended public speaking classes. Furthermore, online
interviews were conducted to find out their responses regarding the development
of their critical thinking through podcasts.
The data reveal six levels of critical thinking from Anderson and
Krathwols' taxonomy: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing,
evaluating and creating. The results of the analysis and interviews related to these
six levels show that from the ten podcasts there is a development of their critical
thinking on the results of the podcasts they make and also agree with that.
However, there is still much that needs to be researched from this podcast media
to find out what kind of podcasts can deepen students' critical thinking skills.