Toward 'seeing' critically: a Bayesian analysis of the impacts of a critical pedagogy

Critical reflection supports enactment of the social roles of care, like collaboration and advocacy. We require evidence that links critical teaching approaches to future critically reflective practice. We thus asked: does a theory-informed approach to teaching critical reflection influence what learners talk about (i.e. topics of discussion) and how they talk (i.e. whether they talk in critically reflective ways) during subsequent learning experiences? Pre-clinical students (n = 75) were randomized into control and intervention conditions (8 groups each, of up to 5 interprofessional students). Participants completed an online Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) module, followed by either: a SDoH discussion (control) or critically reflective dialogue (intervention). Participants then experienced a common learning session (homecare curriculum and debrief) as outcome assessment, and another similar session one-week later. Blinded coders coded transcripts for what (topics) was said and how (critically reflective or not). We constructed Bayesian regression models for the probability of meaning units (unique utterances) being coded as particular what codes and as critically reflective or not (how). Groups exposed to the intervention were more likely, in a subsequent learning experience, to talk in a critically reflective manner (how) (0.096 [0.04, 0.15]) about similar content (no meaningful differences in what was said). This difference waned at one-week follow up. We showed experimentally that a particular critical pedagogical approach can make learners' subsequent talk, ways of seeing, more critically reflective even when talking about similar topics. This study offers the field important new options for studying historically challenging-to-evaluate impacts and supports theoretical assertions about the potential of critical pedagogies.