seyedeh azam hoseini panjaki

The aim of this research was to examine the role of e-learning in fostering critical thinking among medical students and to define the characteristics that e-learning environments need to have in order to optimally foster critical thinking among students. In doing so، theoretical foundations and previous researches conducted in this field were analyzed. The findings of the previous studies showed that not only fostering critical thinking through e-learning is possible، but also، in some cases، e-learning ability is more influential in fostering critical thinking than traditional learning environments. Moreover، e learning based educational spaces should have special characteristics to optimally foster critical thinking among students، including extensive interactions، content production by learners، online discussions، Socratic questioning، and continuous assessment of learners.