Social Media Engagement and Students' Critical Thinking Disposition Influenced by Their Information Skills

Abstract

This study explored the relationship between social media engagement and critical thinking disposition among three hundred thirty-nine master’s students at the Professional School of the University of Mindanao, Matina Campus, focusing on the mediating role of information skills. Using a quantitative, non-experimental design and stratified random sampling, data were collected through supervised face-to-face surveys and Google Forms to ensure accuracy. Data analysis included mean scores to assess the levels of social media engagement, critical thinking disposition, and information skills of the respondents; Pearson Product Moment Correlation was also used to examine relationships among these variables, and path analysis was further used to evaluate the mediating effect of information skills. The findings highlighted three primary dimensions of social media engagement: habitual use, obligation, and knowledge sharing. The results indicated that students exhibited a very high level of habitual use, integrating social media into their routines, a sense of obligation to engage in online interactions and a strong commitment to community participation. They also demonstrated very high knowledge-sharing behaviors, actively exchanging information, skills, and expertise. The analysis showed that students possessed a very high critical thinking disposition, marked by active engagement, cognitive maturity, and a robust capacity for problem-solving and synthesizing information. Moreover, the participants demonstrated strong information skills, including effective abilities in information retrieval, evaluation, and the application of prior knowledge to construct new concepts. Mediation analysis indicated that information skills partially mediated the relationship between social media engagement and critical thinking disposition, underscoring the value of fostering information literacy to enhance critical thinking alongside social media engagement. These findings suggest that information skills play a critical role in linking social media engagement to critical thinking, advocating for educational strategies that develop information literacy as a way to support students’ critical thinking development further.

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