№ 02 Critical Thinking process.Types and structure of essay. Solution essay (Drugs: Should their sale and use be legalized?)
Contents
1.What is Critical Thinking
2.Definition of Critical Thinking
3.Characteristic of people with critical thinking
4.Core critical thinking Skills
5.Components of Critical Thinking
6.The Critical Thinking Process
7.Critical thinking in the Quran
8.Summary
In a Nutshell |
Critical Thinking is clear thinking that aligns our thinking with reality . It means being truly honest and clear headed as well as self aware of wrong assumptions and paradigms. |
1. What is critical thinking?
Critical thinking is not negative thinking or, looking to see faults in a person. It is actually thinking as clearly as we can, avoiding faulty thinking that is based on opinions or biases. Thinking clearly is a characteristic of wisdom and is expected that a good Muslim thinks critically as well as creatively. A lot of the world’s problems in the present times are caused by faulty thinking .
Thinking clearly accurately and with precision is something that is stressed upoumerous times in the Quran. Arriving at the real truth is only possible with sound reasoning that is not clouded by personal biases or the scripting that is inherited .
The following are a few of the numerous definitions of critical thinking as expressed by different authors.
2 Definitions of Critical Thinking on the Web:
·is a term used to refer to those kinds of mental activity that are clear, precise, and purposeful. It is typically associated with solving complex real world problems, generating multiple (or creative) solutions to a problem, drawing inferences, synthesizing and integrating information, distinguishing between fact and opinion, or estimating potential outcomes, but it can also refer to the process of evaluating the quality of one’s own thinking. .1
·A persistent effort to examine evidence that supports any belief, solution, or conclusion prior to its acceptance. The ability to think clearly, to analyse, and to reason logically.2
·Shows or requires careful analysis before judgement.3
3 . Characteristics of People who Excel at Critical Thinking |
Truth seeking: A courageous desire for the best knowledge, even if such knowledge fails to support or undermines one’s preconceptions, beliefs or self interests. |
Open-mindedness: Tolerance to divergent views, self-monitoring for possible bias. |
Analyticity: Demanding the application of reason and evidence, alert to problematic situations, inclined to anticipate consequences. |
Systematicity: Valuing organization, focus and diligence to approach problems of all levels of complexity. |
Critical Thinking Self-Confidence: Trusting of one’s own reasoning skills and seeing oneself as a good thinker. |
Inquisitiveness: Curious and eager to acquire knowledge and learn explanations even when the applications of the knowledge are not immediately apparent. |
Cognitive Maturity: Prudence in making, suspending, or revising judgment. An awareness that multiple solutions can be acceptable. An appreciation of the need to reach closure even in the absence of complete knowledge.4 |
4 .Core Critical Thinking Skills |
· Analysis-The examination and evaluation of the relevant information to select the best course of action from among various alternatives. |
· Explanation -a statement that makes something comprehensible by describing the relevant structure or operation or circumstances etc. |
· Interpretation -a mental representation of the meaning or significance of something |
· Evaluation-The process of determining whether an item or activity meets specified criteria |
· Inference-the reasoning involved in drawing a conclusion or making a logical judgment on the basis of circumstantial evidence and prior conclusions rather than on the basis of direct observation |
· Self regulation is self control. Self control is the exertion of one’s own will on their personal self – their behaviors, actions, thought processes. |
5. The components of Critical Thinking5
I am in agreement with the view that there are five major attributes of critical thinkers.
They are:
1. intellectual humility,
2. an attitude of scepticism and questioning,
3. awareness of bias,
4. intellectual courage
5. metacognition
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5.1 Intellectual Humility
Intellectual humility is the ability to admit to oneself that the knowledge one possesses on almost all topics is incomplete and possibly incorrect, at least in part. Critical thinkers assume that they are ignorant about many things. They understand that their knowledge and wisdom is limited by the time they live in, the people they have met, their own intelligence and many other factors. Excessive pride in one’s knowledge is often the mother of ignorance. And people who think that they know answers usually don’t look for alternative explanations.
Wisdom (or critical thinking) begins with appreciating how little we know. Wise people realise the more they know, the more they know that there is a lot they do not know. The Quran as below , says that Knowledge is so vast that if the all the waters of the sea was made into ink and written on paper, this ink will dry up before all of Knowledge which is what is meant by word of the Lord was fully written ., even if there was double the amount of sea to make into ink.
“Say: Though the sea became ink for the Words of my Lord, verily the sea would be used up before the words of my Lord were exhausted, even though We brought the like thereof to help. “(QS. 18:109)
5 .2 Scepticism/Questioning
Scepticism is an intellectual trait that often comes with age and training, but it is an ability that can be improved at any age. It is the mental state that does not accept information received by most sources as being completely true or accurate. None of us can be correct about all that we believe in all of the time. There will be things that we perceive to be true that turns out to be untrue . A good example will be in the field of medicine where changes are being made at rapid speeds over practices that were thought to be correct but turns out not to be the best.
In the past, doctors used to tell patients to avoid butter since it contained cholesterol but now it is found that the trans fatty acids in margerines are even more harmful than the cholesterol in butter!
When we were young we were told many things by our parents and we believed them to be true , but when we grow older, we find it to be false. Some of you may remember mothers telling you not to eat chicken wings because you will fly far away from home and many such taboos which actually turn out to be untrue,
Religious beliefs may also fall into this category because sometimes, false things get into the picture and we accept it because it was what our parents perceived and when we increase in knowledge we find out that their perceptions were not right. Still being sceptical, we do not accept what is told to us , even if someone tells us we are wrong, we would need to test what they say and not accept it by virtue of their position , even if they had some authority.
Information is newspapers and over the news could also be wrong . Doctors could be misinformed, teachers could make mistakes . So we should not assume that information received is correct all the time .
Questioning is the logical partner of scepticism. Critical thinkers do not accept explanations that are given to them just because it was accepted by others before this
These verses in the Quran that shows that accepting things just because we found our forefathers doing it is not exactly wise and can get us into trouble .
See the verse below:
When he said unto his father and his folk: What worship ye ? (QS. 26:70)
They said: We worship idols, and are ever devoted unto them. (QS. 26:71)
He said: Do they hear you when ye cry ? (QS. 26:72)
Or do they benefit or harm you ? (QS. 26:73)
They said: Nay, but we found our fathers acting on this wise. (QS. 26:74)
He said: See now that which ye worship, (QS. 26:75)
Ye and your forefathers! (QS. 26:76)
Lo! they are (all) an enemy unto me, save the Lord of the Worlds, (QS. 26:77)
Who created me, and He doth guide me, (QS. 26:78)
And Who feedeth me and watereth me. (QS. 26:79)
Abraham in the story above was a critical thinker who refused to do what his father did , that is worship idols because his clear and critical mind told him that idols could not have the power that his Lord has.
Asking the right questions is a powerful tool of critical thinking and helps clear the mind of fuzzy thinking .
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different outcome.”Albert Einstein
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5 .3 Bias
The third quality that a critical thinker must possess is the awareness that everyone is biased and prejudiced in some form. It should be understood here that the words “bias” and “prejudice” are used in the academic sense, meaning preferences, inclinations, or predispositions. Not all biases or prejudices are negative. As an example, if a person has a good and loving family and a beautiful relationship with his mother, he will view all women like he views his mother because his experience with his mother has coloured his perception of women. All of us have perceptions based on our experiences. Every experience changes how we see things.
There are many types of biases. Four important ones are self-interest, cultural bias, national bias, and personal bias. There are actually a lot more than this including political bias, group bias and many more but in these four that are explained below is enough for us to extrapolate into other biases that we have to become aware of. Note that knowing one’s own biases helps one to view things more objectively .
5.3 a Self Interest
it is natural that people favour whatever is in their perceived self-interest. University students will see a rise in text book prices as negative, while book sellers will see it as positive. Businesspersons may see any disaster as a chance to sell goods or to reconstruct buildings. Women usually favour tough laws against sexual harassment, while business owners will view it with less enthusiasm. Old politicians will think sexist jokes are fun while women MPs will fail to see the humour and regard it as harassment . Critical thinkers need to aware of the natural bias that we humans have to favour ideas and beliefs that are in our own self-interest.
This is particularly true in how we explain our behaviour. We have a natural tendency to rationalize, that is, to explain what we do in the best possible light. As a doctor when my patient does not get well I may tend to blame them for not taking their medication. Parents get angry when their children create a mess when they play but for the child it is the only way to play .
Self interest is what influences people to act unfairly or to ignore what is right as what happened when the Prophet SAW asked people to stop worshipping stones and worship God instead. The business people saw this as a loss for their business since a lot of the business centered around idol worship .
5. 3 b Cultural Bias
All of us have been biased by the general culture that we live in. A culture is a group of deep-seated beliefs, values, and customs that have been transmitted by past generations. It is a way of thinking, of valuing. Different cultures teach distinct ways that men, women, children, mothers, fathers, and others should be treated. Cultures teach divergent values relative to sexual relations, drug use, abortion, homosexuality, honesty, and many other subjects. As an example, in Malay culture , women do the housework while men work. Even though the economic situation has now made men and women both work, women are still expected to do housework while men are not .This is a cultural bias that is against the norms of the Prophet’s teachings.
We have been taught to see things in certain ways by our culture. Culture is a subtle form of brainwashing, of indoctrination. It is impossible to completely undo its effects completely. Often we are not aware of the powerful effects that our culture has on us until we are exposed to other cultures or ways of thinking. Those people who have seen other people in other cultures will realise the effect of culture on thinking while those who have never been exposed may think their way of thinking is the only perspective .
Language is part of a culture. It is not only a vehicle for communication; each language has a view of the world inherent in it. For this reason people who think in their native language may think differently than say for example someone who thinks in English or in Arabic. This could cause a misunderstanding via the differing perspectives.
All of us have subcultures, we come from certain ethnic groups as well as subgroups like the village we we born in or grew up in that share common values and ways of doing things.
Being in an organization also indoctrinates members into certain thought patterns and perspectives.
Cultures create bias. They create preferences, prejudices, ways of thinking and believing. Critical thinkers understand that their cultures have taught them beliefs and values that may make a lot of sense, little sense or nonsense.
5 .3 c Personal Bias
We are also products of a personal culture–a way of thinking that was given to us by our parents and those who raised us. Each family has its own special customs and values. Even so each family member is exposed to different experiences and this make each member have a difference as well.
5 .3 d National Bias
All of us are members of a particular country or nation-state. Usually we identify with this country, its government, and the people in it. We want to believe good things about our country and our people. They are usually considered an extension of ourselves. Countries, organizations, or individuals who seem to be opposed to our country are usually easily disliked and certainly mistrusted.
5 .3 e Concluding about Bias
There is no such thing as an “objective” person. We are all subjective. No human has an objective opinion of any social issue. We come into every situation with beliefs, values, and customs that affect our view. Critical thinkers are aware of these biases. In attempting to form opinions on different issues, our biases and the biases of others must be taken into account. Discovering one’s biases and trying to compensate for them is a life-long process.
5 .4 Intellectual Courage
This attribute of a critical thinker is the ability to think and voice thoughts that are unpopular. It is the capability to challenge beliefs that one holds dearly or that one’s group or country accepts—often without question. It is the courage to question commonly accepted convictions or dogma in the face of ridicule or at the cost of great personal anguish. This is the Path of all the Prophets and the Reformers of Nations.
It is often said that it takes courage to act on one’s true beliefs. While there is truth in this, it takes often takes more courage to doubt the beliefs taught by one’s parents, family, friends, and country. It is usually more difficult to choose beliefs and values than it is to act on them. Although we normally think that we chose the values and beliefs we hold dear, in truth they have usually been given to us by our family, friends, or culture. The real courage comes when we do not just accept values we have inherited but seek to find for ourselves the values we should not only have but act on. We have to realise how conditioned we are to simply accept group norms and group values , or family norms and values and the real test is whether we could change these to align with a bigger truth and bear the opposition and tribulation that comes from our challenging accepted norms
Critical thinkers cannot ignore unpopular, uncomfortable questions. They question the actions and beliefs of their parents, their country, their friends, their teachers and themselves. They have the courage to voice their opinions even when they know they may be publicly criticized.
5.5 Metacognition
Metacognition involves all the traits and skills of critical thinking. Perhaps the best short definition of it is “thinking about thinking.” Another definition would be the conscious and deliberate monitoring and regulating of one’s thinking. It is about being conscious of the way we think, how we reach our conclusions , what are the steps we go through and how we interpret information, are there any biases involved, is there faulty reasoning. In short, we wish to inform and improve our thinking by being conscious of the thinking procedures that we employ. This is metacognition.
For example, you have aegative opinion about people who own big cars. You feel they are all show offs. Metacognition involves analysing why you have this opinion . Metacognition is observing ourselves from outside of ourself , examining our biases and our experiences, studying the paradigms we have built up over the years and use to view situations and things with. It is being aware of the filters with with we view Life.
“To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.” –Jules Henri Poincaré |
Paradigms are maps of the Territory.
Through the years of our life, we experience things that happen to us, we are told things, and we feel things because of what happens to us , how we are treated, the mistake we make or think we make and all these become integrated and mixed in our minds, much like the ingredients of the cake are baked into a cake. This develops into a Paradigm, that is a map we have of the territory of Reality. But, the map is not the territory . Metacognition is recognising the Map that we have and being able to compare it with reality . With this ability to self observe, we are then able to change our paradigm to match the reality ., in other words, make a new map that represents the territory better. This involves the process of unlearning , the same way we have to relearn how to go to a place when roads are rebuilt and redirected. Obviously stubbornly keeping to the old map in our minds will get us lost if the roads have changed!
6.The Critical Thinking Process
Here is a five step process that can be used as a tool to thinking critically
1. Identify the major point(s) of the argument or belief.
2. Summarize clearly the logic or reasons presented in support of the major point(s).
3. Identify the major assumptions that underlie the logic or reasons supporting the major point.
4. Analyse the major assumptions and the reasoning behind the major points.
5. Identify the major questions that need to be addressed before one can know with confidence that the arguments or reasoning is sound.
6.1 Identifying the Major Point
The first step in using critical thinking to evaluate an argument is clearly articulating the major point of the argument or belief. Sometimes the major point is clear, other times not, but it must be identified before one can start the process. Usually it can be stated in a few words. Here are a few examples:
1. Women are bad drivers ,
2. It is dangerous to go out at night
3. Road cones are a major cause of accidents on the Highway
6.2. Summarize the logic behind the major points
The second step involves summarizing the major arguments or evidence presented in support of the major point. The supporting arguments must be stated as clearly as possible. They are the essence of the argument or the belief.
In the examples given above , the logic may be stated thus
1. I think women are bad drivers because when I am driving behind a bad driver , I notice she is usually a woman
2. Many cases of robbery and rape happen when the victims go out at night
3. There have been more accidents on the highway since there were a lot of road cones used and each accident had been because of trying to avoid hitting cones that were place in the path of the cars.
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6.3. Identifying the Major Assumptions
The third step is perhaps the most important. It is discovering the assumptions that have been made in the argument or position that is being analyzed. This is at the core of critical thinking. What does the speaker or writer assume? Most beliefs or arguments have a few basic assumptions that underlie them. Many of these assumptions are neither clearly stated nor easily understood. Identifying these assumptions is of utmost importance.
1. The assumption is that my experience is common to all drivers
2. The assumption is that the newspaper reports and statistics I have used to come to the conclusion is right
3. The assumption is that it is only the cones that are a problem and not the drivers or the other aspects of the roadworks taking place.
6.4. Analyzing the Assumptions and Reasoning
The final step in the critical thinking process involves analyzing the assumptions and making a judgement on the reasoning of the author. It should be understood at the outset that most stated assumptions are rarely completely correct or incorrect.. Finding ignored factors takes imagination, but imagination is aided by information. As you research, you will see things that you did not think of before which will then lead you to other ideas.
The key here is research. Research just means verifying information by looking for other sources of information to ascertain the assumptions .
6.5. Asking the Major questions .
There are a few common mistakes in assumptions and reasoning and questions need to be asked
1. The people using the same word mean the same thing so the question to ask : What do you mean when you use this word? What do they mean when they say this word?
2. Overgeneralization , like in the example over women drivers. Question : Are all women bad drivers?
3. Oversimplification That the problem is straightforwards and blame can be assigned to one person or one factor. The truth is that most issues are multifactorial . Question: It that the only possible reason , does this mean when we correct this one area the problem is solved?
4. Wrong correlation , like relating bad driving to being a woman rather than to other factors, like bad training, carelessness, recklessness etc. Question , does it mean that being a woman means being a bad driver?
5. Assuming that official sources of the news are always right and that figures and facts are accurate while it is often that these sources may be wrong. Critical thinking involves checking the source of statistics or numbers. Question, How reliable is this source, How can we verify the source
6. Assuming the reasons given by a particular person in explanation of his actions are true and correct. Question , is he telling the truth , Is there any hidden agenda?
7.Critical thinking in the Quran
The following are verses from the Quran exhorting Muslims to think clearly precisely without prejudice or biases that are based on personal gain of any kind, be it monetary or social standing . Coupled with Emotional and Spiritual Intelligence , Critical thinking makes for an excellent human being reaching the heights of Human perfection.
And let not those who hoard up that which Allah hath bestowed upon them of His bounty think that it is better for them. Nay, it is worse for them. That which they hoard will be their collar on the Day of Resurrection. Allah’s is the heritage of the heavens and the earth, and Allah is Informed of what ye do. (QS. 3:180)
A person who hoards wealth does so because of a personal bias , thinking to keep the wealth for his own use. A person who is self aware can see this bias and overcome it by forcing him/herself to give of the wealth and spend what is necessary , keeping only that which is within reason for a rainy day or for some worthwhile project.
Call unto the way of thy Lord with wisdom and fair exhortation, and reason with them in the better way. Lo! thy Lord is Best Aware of him who strayeth from His way, and He is Best Aware of those who go aright. (QS. 16:125)
This verse above is a command to Muslims to think critically and reasonably .
Lo! In the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the difference of night and day, and the ships which run upon the sea with that which is of use to men, and the water which Allah sendeth down from the sky, thereby reviving the earth after its death, and dispersing all kinds of beasts therein, and (in) the ordinance of the winds, and the clouds obedient between heaven and earth: are signs (of Allah’s Sovereignty) for people who have sense. (QS. 2:164)
The above invites people to think and observe and draw conclusions based on their observations in a logical rational manner while using also their emotional and spiritual intelligence.
Lo! the worst of beasts in Allah’s sight are the deaf, the dumb, who have no sense. (QS. 8:22)
The above states that those who have no clear headed thinking ,ie: sense , are deaf and dumb and they are the worst of beasts .
Worksheet on Critical Thinking |
Answer these questions in your journal |
1. What are some biases that you have that you are aware of? |
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2. What would you do to become more aware of your biases and how will you use the knowledge of your biases?How would you compensate for your biases? |
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3. Recollect times in the past when you were wrong in your assumptions . |
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4. Do you ever change your opinion about things that you made in the past? Would you change them now ? |
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5. Do you think you should stick to your old opinions or give everything a fresh look ? |
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6. What will change in the way you see things now that you understand about critical thinking |
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7. How will you apply the skills in your life? |
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8 Summary of Module 9
1. Critical Thinking is accurate thinking that focuses on that which is true
2. There are many factors which make our thinking clouded and among these are Biases ,
3. The 5 components of Critical Thinking are:
· Intellectual Humility , knowing that we do not know many things
· Awareness of Biases, especially our own
· An attitude of scepticism and questioning
· Intellectual courage
· Metacognition Thinking about thinking
4. The Critical Thinking Process consists of
· Identifying the Major Points
· Identifying the assumptions behind these points
· Summarising the logic behind the assumptions
· Analysing the assumptions and the reasoning
· Asking Major questions to test the validity of the assumptions and reasoning
5. The Quran abounds with exhortations and examples that shows its emphasis and insistence on thinking critically
6. Our dedication to Truth should make us also dedicated to thinking critically
What is the Clear Thinking state of mind? Once Clear Thinking skills are improved and mastered it is then important to exercise those skills in the best possible state of mind for optimum Clear Thinking. The optimum state of mind for Clear Thinking is similar to the Ideal Performance State under which athletes are able to achieve at peak performance. The Ideal Performance State is:
- Personally challenged
- Energized with positive emotions
- Ready for fun and enjoyment
- Focused and alert
- On automatic instinct
- Relaxed and calm
- Maintaining confidence
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Introduction to Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is an important and vital topic in modern education. All educators are interested in teaching critical thinking to their students. Many academic departments hope that its professors and instructors will become informed about the strategy of teaching critical thinking skills, identify areas in one’s courses as the proper place to emphasize and teach critical thinking, and develop and use some problems in exams that test students’ critical thinking skills. This critical thinking manual has been prepared to inform and aid you to accomplish these things, and it has been kept brief and straightforward so that all faculty members will have the time and opportunity to read it and follow the suggestions it contains.
Purpose and Rationale of Teaching Critical Thinking
The purpose of specifically teaching critical thinking in the sciences or any other discipline is to improve the thinking skills of students and thus better prepare them to succeed in the world. But, you may ask, don’t we automatically teach critical thinking when we teach our subjects, especially mathematics and science, the two disciplines which supposedly epitomize correct and logical thinking? The answer, sadly, is ofteo. Please consider these two quotations:
“It is strange that we expect students to learn, yet seldom teach them anything about learning.” Donald Norman, 1980, “Cognitive engineering and education,” in Problem Solving and Education: Issues in Teaching and Research, edited by D.T. Tuna and F. Reif, Erlbaum Publishers.
“We should be teaching students how to think. Instead, we are teaching them what to think.” Clement and Lochhead, 1980, Cognitive Process Instruction.
Perhaps you caow see the problem. All education consists of transmitting to students two different things: (1) the subject matter or discipline content of the course (“what to think”), and (2) the correct way to understand and evaluate this subject matter (“how to think”). We do an excellent job of transmitting the content of our respective academic disciplines, but we often fail to teach students how to think effectively about this subject matter, that is, how to properly understand and evaluate it. This second ability is termed critical thinking. All educational disciplines have reported the difficulty of imparting critical thinking skills. In 1983, in its landmark report A Nation at Risk, the National Commission on Excellence in Education warned:
“Many 17-year-olds do not possess the ‘higher-order’ intellectual skills we should expect of them. Nearly 40 percent cannot draw inferences from written material; only one-fifth can write a persuasive essay; and only one-third can solve a mathematics problem requiring several steps.”
While we as professors have the ability ourselves to think critically (we had to learn these skills to earn advanced degrees in our disciplines), many students–including our own–never develop critical thinking skills. Why? There are a number of reasons. The first goal of education, “what to think,” is so traditionally obvious that instructors and students may focus all their energies and efforts on the task of transmitting and acquiring basic knowledge. Indeed, many students find that this goal alone is so overwhelming that they have time for little else. On the other hand, the second goal of education, “how to think” or critical thinking, is often so subtle that instructors fail to recognize it and students fail to realize its absence.
So much has become known about the natural world that the information content of science has become enormous. This is so well known that science educators and science textbook writers came to believe that they must seek to transmit as much factual information as possible in the time available. Textbooks grew larger and curricula became more concentrated; students were expected to memorize and learn increasingly more material. Acquisition of scientific facts and information took precedence over learning scientific methods and concepts. Inevitably, the essential accompanying task of transmitting the methods of correct investigation, understanding, and evaluation of all this scientific data (that is, critical thinking) was lost by the roadside. This situation became especially severe in primary and secondary education, and over the last decades there has been a well-known decline in the math and science ability of students in our country compared to other industrialized countries. Studies have shown that our students abilities in math and science begin on level with students in other countries, but then progressively decrease as they make their way through our educational system. By the end of high school, United States students rank among the lowest in the industrialized world in math and science achievement. We in introductory college science education inherit these students and have to deal with their deficiencies in scientific and critical thinking.
In retrospect, it seems obvious that when the information content of a discipline increases, it becomes even more vital to spend time, not learning more information, but learning methods to acquire, understand, and evaluate this information and the great amount of new information that is not knowow but will surely follow. Frankly, it is counterproductive to simply memorize and learn more new and isolated facts when future facts may eventually displace these. Thus, our science education policy has been completely backward, teaching more science facts and less scientific method rather than the converse. The errors of primary and secondary education in math, science, and other disciplines during the last forty years are now well known and are currently being addressed. The latest science books, for example, emphasize critical thinking and the scientific method. They focus on teaching students the proper ways to obtaiew reliable knowledge for one’s self, not on engendering factual overload. Curriculum reforms in science, such as Project 2061 of the AAAS and Scope, Sequence and Coordination of the NSTA, are also being instituted. It will be another generation before these textbook and curriculum reforms will have achieved results, if ever, and until then we must be aware of students’ lack of critical thinking skills and of our need to enhance them. (It is accepted, one assumes, that students entering college should already have mastered all basic critical thinking skills; that is, they should have learned these skills during their primary and secondary education and thus be able to bring them with them into the college math and science classroom. The fact that this manual has been prepared is an indication that students have not learned these skills. We may be the last opportunity such students have to appreciate and learn critical thinking.)
A final rationale for critical thinking is explained by William T. Daly (1990) in a short article, “Developing Critical Thinking Skills.” He says that
“the critical thinking movement in the U.S. has been bolstered and sustained by the business community’s need to compete in a global economy. The general skill levels needed in the work force are going up while the skill levels of potential employees are going down. As a result, this particular educational reform movement . . . will remain crucial to the education of the work force and the economy’s performance in the global arena. This economic pressure to teach critical thinking skills will fall on educational institutions because these skills, for the most part, are rarely taught or reinforced outside formal educational institutions. Unfortunately, at the moment, they are also rarely taught inside educational institutions.”
Definition of Critical Thinking
Critical thinking means correct thinking in the pursuit of relevant and reliable knowledge about the world. Another way to describe it is reasonable, reflective, responsible, and skillful thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do. A person who thinks critically can ask appropriate questions, gather relevant information, efficiently and creatively sort through this information, reason logically from this information, and come to reliable and trustworthy conclusions about the world that enable one to live and act successfully in it. Critical thinking is not being able to process information well enough to know to stop for red lights or whether you received the correct change at the supermarket. Such low-order thinking, critical and useful though it may be, is sufficient only for personal survival; most individuals master this. True critical thinking is higher-order thinking, enabling a person to, for example, responsibly judge between political candidates, serve on a murder trial jury, evaluate society’s need for nuclear power plants, and assess the consequences of global warming. Critical thinking enables an individual to be a responsible citizen who contributes to society, and not be merely a consumer of society’s distractions.
Children are not born with the power to think critically, nor do they develop this ability naturally beyond survival-level thinking. Critical thinking is a learned ability that must be taught. Most individuals never learn it. Critical thinking cannot be taught reliably to students by peers or by most parents. Trained and knowledgable instructors are necessary to impart the proper information and skills. Math and science instructors have precisely this information and these skills. Why?
Critical thinking can be described as the scientific method applied by ordinary people to the ordinary world. This is true because critical thinking mimics the well-known method of scientific investigation: a question is identified, an hypothesis formulated, relevant data sought and gathered, the hypothesis is logically tested and evaluated, and reliable conclusions are drawn from the result. All of the skills of scientific investigation are matched by critical thinking, which is therefore nothing more than scientific method used in everyday life rather than in specifically scientific disciplines or endeavors. Critical thinking is scientific thinking. Many books and papers describing critical thinking present it’s goals and methods as identical or similar to the goals and methods of science. A scientifically-literate person, such as a math or science instructor, has learned to think critically to achieve that level of scientific awareness. But any individual with an advanced degree in any university discipline has almost certainly learned the techniques of critical thinking.
Critical thinking is the ability to think for one’s self and reliably and responsibly make those decisions that affect one’s life. Critical thinking is also critical inquiry, so such critical thinkers investigate problems, ask questions, pose new answers that challenge the status quo, discover new information that can be used for good or ill, question authorities and traditional beliefs, challenge received dogmas and doctrines, and often end up possessing power in society greater than their numbers. It may be that a workable society or culture can tolerate only a small number of critical thinkers, that learning, internalizing, and practicing scientific and critical thinking is discouraged. Most people are followers of authority: most do not question, are not curious, and do not challenge authority figures who claim special knowledge or insight. Most people, therefore, do not think for themselves, but rely on others to think for them. Most people indulge in wishful, hopeful, and emotional thinking, believing that what they believe is true because they wish it, hope it, or feel it to be true. Most people, therefore, do not think critically.
Critical thinking has many components. Life can be described as a sequence of problems that each individual must solve for one’s self. Critical thinking skills are nothing more than problem solving skills that result in reliable knowledge. Humans constantly process information. Critical thinking is the practice of processing this information in the most skillful, accurate, and rigorous manner possible, in such a way that it leads to the most reliable, logical, and trustworthy conclusions, upon which one can make responsible decisions about one’s life, behavior, and actions with full knowledge of assumptions and consequences of those decisions.
Raymond S. Nickerson (1987), an authority on critical thinking, characterizes a good critical thinker in terms of knowledge, abilities, attitudes, and habitual ways of behaving. Here are some of the characteristics of such a thinker:
- uses evidence skillfully and impartially
- organizes thoughts and articulates them concisely and coherently
- distinguishers between logically valid and invalid inferences
- suspends judgment in the absence of sufficient evidence to support a decision
- understands the difference between reasoning and rationalizing
- attempts to anticipate the probable consequences of alternative actions
- understands the idea of degrees of belief
- sees similarities and analogies that are not superficially apparent
- can learn independently and has an abiding interest in doing so
- applies problem-solving techniques in domains other than those in which learned
- can structure informally represented problems in such a way that formal techniques, such as mathematics, can be used to solve them
- can strip a verbal argument of irrelevancies and phrase it in its essential terms
- habitually questions one’s own views and attempts to understand both the assumptions that are critical to those views and the implications of the views
- is sensitive to the difference between the validity of a belief and the intensity with which it is held
- is aware of the fact that one’s understanding is always limited, often much more so than would be apparent to one with a noninquiring attitude
- recognizes the fallibility of one’s own opinions, the probability of bias in those opinions, and the danger of weighting evidence according to personal preferences
This list is, of course, incomplete, but it serves to indicate the type of thinking and approach to life that critical thinking is supposed to be. Similar descriptions of critical thinking attributes are available in the very extensive literature of critical thinking. See, for example, Teaching Thinking Skills, 1987, edited by J. B. Baron and R. J. Steinberg; Developing Minds: A Resource Book for Teaching Thinking, 1985, edited by A. L. Costa; The Teaching of Thinking, 1985, edited by R. S. Nickerson and others; Critical Thinking, Fifth Edition, 1998, by B. N. Moore and Richard Parker, and Critical Thinking, Second edition, 1990, by John Chaffe. These books are representative of the genre.
Relationship of Critical Thinking to the Scientific Method
Because of the identification of critical thinking as scientific thinking, it is reasonable to conclude that math and science courses are a good place to learn critical thinking by learning the scientific method; unfortunately, this is not always true. Good scientists who conduct science must practice critical thinking, and good science teachers usually teach it, but few ordinary individuals learn the scientific method, even those who successfully take a number of science classes in high school and college. This is because, as discussed above, science in the United States is often poorly taught as a fact-based discipline rather than as a way of knowing or method of discovery. As incredible as it may seem, studies reveal that 3% of the U.S. population is scientifically literate, down from 5% about twenty years ago. Thus, it does not appear that science alone will teach critical thinking to the masses. In fact, critical thinking programs are almost always designed by social scientists and directed toward improving thinking in the humanities and social studies, but the same can be accomplished with math and science courses. Properly taught university courses should teach a student critical thinking in addition to the disciplinary content of the course.
It is useful to ask why the scientific method–now recognized, in its guise of critical thinking, as so important to modern education that hundreds of critical thinking programs exist in thousands of schools across the nation–is so valuable for an individual to learn and practice. The reason is because the scientific method is the most powerful method ever invented by humans to obtain relevant and reliable knowledge about nature. Indeed, it is the only method humans have of discovering reliable knowledge (knowledge that has a high probability of being true). Another name for this type of knowledge is justified true belief (belief that is probably true because it has been obtained and justified by a reliable method). Nobel Prize-winner Sir Peter Medawar claimed that, “In terms of fulfillment of declared intentions, science is incomparably the most successful enterprise human beings have ever engaged upon.” Other methods of gaining knowledge–such as those using revelation, authority, artistic and moral insight, philosophical speculation, hopeful and wishful thinking, and other subjective and authoritarian means–have historically resulted in irrelevant and unreliable knowledge, and they are no better today. These nonscientific methods of discovering knowledge, however, are more popular than scientific methods despite their repeated failures in obtaining reliable knowledge. There are many reasons for this, but two of the most important are that nonscientific methods are (1) more congenial to emotional and hopeful humaature, and (2) are easier to learn and practice than scientific methods. Despite these reasons, however, the value and power of possessing reliable knowledge–as contrasted with the usual unreliable, misleading, irrelevant, inaccurate, wishful, hopeful, intuitive, and speculative knowledge most humans contend with–have caused modern government, business, and education leaders to place the scientific endeavor in high regard, and caused them to promote teaching the scientific method and its popular manifestation: critical thinking.
Humans are conditioned from birth to follow authority figures and not to question their pronouncements. Such conditioning is done by parents and teachers using a wide variety of postive and negative reinforcement techniques. Most individuals reach adulthood in this conditioned form. The result of such conditioning is the antithesis of both scientific investigation and critical thinking: individuals lack both curiosity and the skills to perform independent inquiry to discover reliable knowledge. Individuals who think critically can think for themselves: they can identify problems, gather relevant information, analyze information in a proper way, and come to reliable conclusions by themselves, without relying on others to do this for them. This is also the goal of science education. Critical thinking allows one to face and comprehend objective reality by gaining reliable knowledge about the world. This, in turn, allows one to better earn a living, achieve success in life, better solve life’s problems, and be reconciled to existence, mortality, and the universe. If a person is happier possessing reliable knowledge and living in objective reality, rather than living in ignorance and possessing false or unreliable beliefs, this is as good a reason as any for teaching and learning critical thinking.
Formal Critical Thinking Programs
There are two ways to teach critical thinking in the classroom. The first method, and the one we will find endorsed in this manual, is also the easiest, least time-consuming, and the least expensive. This method is to simply modify one’s teaching and testing methods slightly to enhance critical thinking among one’s students. This method is explained in the following two sections.
The second method–more difficult, time-consuming, and expensive–is briefly described now. This method makes use of formal critical thinking exercises, programs, and materials that have been prepared by specialists and can be purchased for immediate use by the teacher or instructor. These materials are the dominant means by which critical thinking is now being taught in primary and secondary education. For a single classroom, school, or school district, such formal critical thinking materials cost hundreds to thousands of dollars. The fact that critical thinking programs exist today is a sad commentary on the decline of education in the United States, for students apparently once learned critical thinking in our country without such materials.
Dozens of formal critical thinking programs exist. Here are just three that arrived unsolicited in my faculty mailbox:
First, the “CORT Thinking Program” by Dr. Edward de Bono, is a set of 60 “thinking lessons” that promise to “succeed in motivating students of all ages and abilities to: think–and develop creative solutions to problems–both inside and outside the classroom, improve the quantity and quality of their creative writing, and see themselves as active thinkers, and therefore able to hold a better self image of themselves and have confidence in their own ability to succeed.”
Second, the “Strategies for Teaching Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum” from Education Testing Service consists of a two-phase professional development program for secondary-level educators that will enable them to “integrate the teaching of thinking skills into their instructional program, and train teachers in their schools and/or districts to do the same.” Phase I teaches “introduction to thinking skills, concept formation, finding patterns, making inferences, formulating and testing hypotheses, and understanding and constructing meaning.” Phase II teaches the teachers to train other teachers.
The third program, from Teacher’s Press, asks “Are you concerned when American teenagers lack logical thinking skill, equate influence with tricks and bribery, are unable to evaluate the reliability of data?” They have prepared high school course materials that actively address these concerns. For example, the description of their unit on “A Study of Logical Fallacies” states that, “Teaching critical thinking skills has long been accepted as a major goal of most teachers. Most probably say that they want to develop in their students a trusting, but questioning, world outlook. Most want students to actively investigate the world in a structured, scientific way–as opposed to blind acceptance of tradition, authority or folk wisdom.”
Course Areas In Which to Emphasize Critical Thinking
The prior sections of this manual were written to describe critical thinking, to inform you about the pressing need to promote it among students, and to encourage you to make it part of your course curriculum and teaching method. Now you will learn where and how to do this in your own courses. Critical thinking can be presented or emphasized in all classroom areas: lecture, homework, term papers, and exams. We will examine each in turn. Some slight extra effort on the part of the instructor will be necessary, but the effort will be worthwhile because the results are so valuable for the student. Remember, as you teach critical thinking, teach also why it is worthwhile.
Critical thinking can be taught during:
1. Lectures You may of course directly teach critical thinking principles to your students during lecture, but this is neither required nor advisable. Stay with your subject matter, but present this is such a way that students will be encouraged to think critically about it. This is accomplished during lecture by questioning the students in ways that require that they not only understand the material, but can analyze it and apply it to new situations.
2. Laboratories Students inevitably practice critical thinking during laboratories in science class, because they are learning the scientific method.
3. Homework Both traditional reading homework and special written problem sets or questions can be used to enhance critical thinking. Homework presents many opportunities to encourage critical thinking.
4. Quantitative Exercises Mathematical exercises and quantitative word problems teach problem solving skills that can be used in everyday life. This obviously enhances critical thinking.
5. Term Papers The best way to teach critical thinking is to require that students write. Writing forces students to organize their thoughts, contemplate their topic, evaluate their data in a logical fashion, and present their conclusions in a persuasive manner. Good writing is the epitome of good critical thinking.
6. Exams Exam questions can be devised which promote critical thinking rather than rote memorization. This is true for both essay question exams and multiple-choice exams.
Your mission, if you decide to accept it, is to use one or more of the following classroom strategies or techniques to teach critical thinking in one or more of the above four course areas. You are encouraged to explore the possibilites and use as many as you wish. If you are already using some of these techniques, and many of you are, then you don’t have to change a thing.
Critical Thinking Teaching Strategies and Classroom Techniques
Critical thinking cannot be taught by lecturing. Critical thinking is an active process, while, for most students, listening to lectures is a passive activity. The intellectual skills of critical thinking–analysis, synthesis, reflection, etc.–must be learned by actually performing them. Classroom instruction, homework, term papers, and exams, therefore, should emphasize active intellectual participation by the student.
Lectures: Enhancement of critical thinking can be accomplished during lecture by periodically stopping and asking students searching and thoughtful questions about the material you have just presented, and then wait an appropriate time for them to respond. Do not immediately answer such questions yourself; leave sufficient time for students to think about their answer before they state it. If you constantly answer such questions yourself, students will quickly realize this and not respond. Learn students’ names as quickly as possible and ask the questions of specific students that you call upon by name. If an individual cannot answer a question, help them by simplifying the question and leading them through the thought process: ask what data are needed to answer the question, suggest how the data can be used to answer the question, and then have the student use this data in an appropriate way to come up with an answer.
You may, of course, ask simple questions that merely ask students to regurgitate factual information that you have just given them in lecture. Many students have trouble with these factual questions because they are not paying attention in class, they simply have never learned how to listen to a lecture and take mental and writteotes, or they don’t know how to review their notes and the textbook in preparation for an exam. Perhaps the most basic type of critical thinking is knowing how to listen to a lecture actively rather than passively; many students don’t know how to do this because they were never taught it and they were able to get through the educational system to their present situation–your class–without having to practice it. (A good book to read or suggest to students that they read is How to Speak, How to Listen by Mortimer J. Adler.) It is probably wise to begin asking the factual type of question so that students will realize that they have to pay attention. However, the goal of critical thinking requires that you eventually ask questions that require students to think through a cause and effect or premise and conclusion type of argument. This obliges them to reason from data or information they now possess through the lecture to reach new conclusions or understanding about the topic. For example, in chemistry, after presenting information about chemical reactions, you could ask students to describe chemical reactions that occur to them or near them everyday by the combination of commonplace chemical materials. Ask them to explain what type of reaction it is (oxidation, reduction, etc.) using whatever knowledge they possess of the reactant materials and their new knowledge of chemical reactions.
Dr. Dennis Huston of Rice University, winner of numerous teaching awards, recommends asking such questions in class. He complains that we teach students to be mere receivers of information from the instructor, rather than getting them to talk about and trust their own thoughts about the subject matter. Huston states that thoughtful and searching questions often have uncertain and ambiguous answers; this is more true in his area of study (literature) than in math and science, but the concept is the same. Rather than condition students to value only what the instructor says, get them to think deeply about the topic and value what they think and feel. Teach so that students think their ideas matter. Ask them to make connections and recognize patterns. They will experience a responsibility for their own education and think about what they learn and read. Students will be involved with their own learning, will feel deeply about it, and learn to value and trust their own thoughts and ideas. These recommendations are a perfect application of promoting critical thinking.
After lecture but before the class ends, ask students to write one-minute papers on the most significant thing they learned in class today and what single thing they still feel confused about. Dr. Huston says this is the single most important exercise you can do. You get immediate feedback about what the students are learning and what they still need to understand (technically, this is an application of what is called “classroom research” or “classroom assessment,” the deliberate discovery of what and how much students are learning and of how you are teaching). He says it also improves their writing. In our present case, of course, this exercise improves critical thinking.
In class, encourage questions from students. Always respond postively to questions; never brush them off or belitte the questioner. Instead, praise the questioner (for example, say “Good question!” or “I bet a lot of you want to know that”). Questions from students mean they are thinking critically about what you are saying; encourage that thinking!
During lecture, bring in historical and philosophical information about math and science that enables students to understand that all scientific and mathematical knowledge was gained by someone practicing critical thinking in the past, sometimes by acts of great courage or tedious painstaking work in the face of seemingly insurmountable difficulties.
Laboratories: Many science courses have laboratories connected with them. Science laboratory exercises are all excellent for teaching critical thinking. The reasons should be obvious. Here, the student learns the scientific method by acually practicing it. This method of teaching critical thinking is so clear and obvious that it seems odd that critical thinking is not promoted more in primary and secondary education by simply beginning science instruction in the first grade and requiring that students take more science courses. You will have to decide for yourself why this isn’t the case. Since laboratories automatically teach critical thinking to some degree, we will spend no more time on this topic.
Homework: Innumerable opportunities exist to promote critical thinking by homework assignments. For reading homework, Dr. William T. Daly recommends that you provide students the general questions you want answered before they begin reading, and insist that they organize their notes around these questions. Require that students transform the information and make it their own by requiring them to paraphrase, summarize, or outline all reading assignments. He suggests that you can grade their written efforts with oral quizes that can be structured to require abstract conceptualization and graded as students speak, for most students will prepare carefully in order to avoid failing repeatedly in public. You may also, of course, collect, grade, and return their written efforts.
As stated above, getting students to write more is the best, and perhaps the easiest, way to enhance critical thinking (this is also the answer to the question, “How did students learn critical thinking before there were formal critical thinking exercises and modules?”). Writing forces students to organize their thoughts and think critically about the material. Ask students to write short papers about pertinent topics, review science articles, even paraphrase news articles and textbook chapters. These exercises can be as elaborate as you wish to make them. For example, Drs. Robin W. Tyser and William J. Cerbin (1991, Bioscience, v. 41, no. 1, p. 41-46, “Critical thinking exercises for introductory biology courses”) propose the assignment of “science news exercises” designed to promote critical thinking. Students are asked to read a short science news article taken from the popular media (newspaper, science magazine, etc.), contemplate a list of take-home questions that include one or two hypothetical claims about the article, and a week later take a short quiz made up of questions selected from the list. The instructor prepares the questions and copies and distributes them and the news article to the students at biweekly intervals about six or seven times a semester. The authors state, “The ultimate goal of these exercises is to improve students ability to compose a concise, logically persuasive line of reasoning about why a claim should be either conditionally accepted or not accepted.” They point out that their’s and others’ critical thinking exercises have been empirically demonstrated to develop science-related thinking skills in a course without sacrificing the disciplinary content. For other examples of this type, please see W. R. Statkiewicz and R. D. Allen, 1983, “Practical exercises to develop critical thinking skills,” Journal of College Science Teaching, vol. 12, p. 262-266, and M. P. Donovan and R. D. Allen, 1989, “Critical thinking questions for examinations and exercises,” p. 13-16, in L. W. Crow, editor, Enhancing Critical Thinking in the Sciences, Society for College Science Teachers.
Quantitative Exercises: Problem solving is critical thinking; thus, courses such as mathematics, chemistry, and physics, that require the solution of various mathematical problems, automatically teach critical thinking to some extent just by following the traditional curriculum. When students are required to solve math problems, they are practicing critical thinking, whether they know it or not. Mathematics, chemistry, and physics problems belong, of course, to only a limited subset of critical thinking, but this subset is an important one. Indeed, all science courses–including those that do not traditionally require mathematical problem-solving skills at the introductory level, such as biology, geology, oceanography, astronomy, and environmental science–should begin to incorporate some mathematical problems in the curriculum. Asking students to solve math problems in a science gets them thinking about nature and reality in empirical and quantitative terms, key components of critical thinking.
One point, however, has been made by mathematics professor Dr. Robert H. DeVore. Do not, he says, make the mistake of believing that teaching mathematical manipulation alone will lead to critical thinking. Many arithmetical and mathematical problems and exercises will give the student the facility to manipulate numbers, but will not teach critical thinking. Dr. DeVore believes that mathematical word problems, that ask the student to approach the empirical world from a numerical or quantitative viewpoint, are essential to enhancing critical thinking. Indeed, he feels that math students who do not intend to take higher-level math courses should be educated in the context of word problems to the greatest extent possible. Obviously, students who are given math problems to solve in the sciences are essentially working on word problems, so the point is automatically made here.
Here are some examples of mathematical word problems prepared by Dr. DeVore (1-5) and Dr. John B. Scott (6-10) that were specifically devised to enhance critical thinking:
1. Show that to convert a Celsius temperature (C°) to a Fahrenheit temperature (F°), you can double C°, deduct 10% from the result, and add 32°.
2. Bob buys an item for X dollars. He raises the price 15% and sells to Tom. Tom lowers the price he paid by 15% and sells back to Bob. Bob’s gain on the two transactions is $2,812.50. What is the value of X?
3. Does a(bc) = (ab)c on a calculator? First, use variables of your own choosing. Then, try using a = 10-60, b = 10-60, and c = 1060. On my calculator (Sharp EL-506A), the left side of the equation is 10-6 and the right side is 0.
4. Does a+(b+c) = (a+b)+c on a calculator? Again, use variables of your own choosing. Now, try using a = 1, b = 1020, c = -1020. On my calculator, the left side of the equation is 1 and the right side is 0.
5. Is any law of algebra correct on a calculator?
6. Using a standard non-digital watch or clock, at what exact time in hours, minutes, and seconds are the hour and minute hands precisely coincident after 3:00 ?
7. A merchant has a square carpet priced at $1.00 per square foot and a rectangular carpet, with length three times its width, priced at $1.50 per square foot. The combined area of the carpets is 112 square feet, and the value of the rectangular carpet is $8.00 more than the value of the square carpet. Find the dimensions of each carpet.
8. Two airports A and B are 400 miles apart, and B is due east of airport A. A plane flew from A to B in 2 hours and then returned to airport A in 2 1/2 hours. If the wind blew from due west with a constant velocity during the entire trip, find the speed of the the plane in still air and the speed of the wind.
9. A boat can travel 36 miles downstream in 1 hour and 48 minutes, but requires 4 hours for the return trip upstream. Assuming the boat and the stream have constanat velocities, find the velocity of the stream and the velocity of the boat in still water.
10. The periods of time required for two painters to paint one square yard of floor differ by one minute. Together, they can paint 27 square yards in one hour. How long does it take each painter to paint one square yard?
Term Papers: Term papers promote critical thinking among students by requiring that they acquire, synthesize, and logically analyze information, and that they then present this information and their conclusions in written form. Term papers are not traditionally required in math and science courses, although they may be and perhaps should be. We math and science instructors really don’t require that students write very much and, when we do, don’t requre that they use correct spelling, punctuation, grammar, and syntax. At the very least, we should allow term papers as extra credit to give students a means to make up poor exam grades. Students who are doing poorly always ask if there is anything they can do to make up their grade; tell them from the first day that an optional term paper–of appropriate style, content, and length–will enable them to improve their grade in the course. Tell them that poor spelling, grammar, punctuation, syntax, and form will result in lesser credit. This technique can be used in any math or science course and is strongly recommended as a way to improve students’ critical thinking skills. Perhaps as they research and write it, they will begin to think critically about the benefits of keeping up with lectures and studying for exams.
Examinations: Examinations should require that students write or, at least, think. For written exams, short- and long-answer essay questions are the obvious solution. For example, Dr. James T. Hunter, a biology professor, typically uses a few short-answer essay questions on each exam that test the ability of students to analyze information and draw conclusions. This commonly-used technique, by itself, helps to teach critical thinking. Some examples of these questions are as follows:
1. Using diagrams and/or descriptions, describe the synthesis of a protein beginning at the DNA level and ending with a finished protein.
2. Contrast the relative advantages and disadvantages of the light and electron microscopes.
3. Explain the importance of plasmids, biologically and in genetic engineering.
4. In your own words, give at least six ground rules for the collection of clinical specimens for microbiological studies.
But other possibilities exist. For example, Dr. Hunter modified some of his essay questions to challenge the student’s critical thinking even more. He changed Question 4 above to the following:
4. Lab technician Jim collects a culture from a patient on which the doctor previously operated. Jim carefully collects pus from a wound on the leg of the patient using a toothpick and then, seeing another wound on the face of the patient, washes the face wound with iodine and, using the same toothpick, collects serum from that wound. Jim drops the toothpick into a tube of nutrient broth, puts the name of the doctor on the broth culture tube, and takes it to the lab on the way home from work. List the mistakes Jim made.
In an experiment designed to further encourage critical thinking among students, Dr. Hunter included a take-home bonus question. These questions were chosen “to go beyond the lecture material and to force use of the book and lecture notes to arrive at and phrase a reasoned answer to a complicated question.” This is an example of an essay question written specifically to enhance critical thinking. But please remember, almost any essay question, including those less elaborate than this, will serve to promote critical thinking. This is because writing, in itself, promotes critical thinking.
Finally, let us consider multiple-choice questions. Although these are constantly characterized as being inimical to the promulgation of critical thinking, the fact remains that they must often be used for exams. Large class sizes and student expectation of impartial grading are the two primary reasons to rely on multiple-choice questions. It is therefore encouraging to learn that multiple-choice questions can serve to enhance critical thinking if they are designed correctly. Let us examine some examples prepared by Dr. Steven D. Schafersman. First, as counter-examples, the following two questions do not promote critical thinking, because they rely solely on simple memorization:
1. The nucleus of an atom is composed of
a. protons and ions
b. neutrons and electrons
c. protons and electrons
d. isotopes and ions
e. neutrons and protons
2. The most abundant rock-forming mineral in the Earth’s crust is
a. quartz
b. clay
c. feldspar
d. calcite
e. olivine
The following questions do promote critical thinking, because they ask the student to perform some reasoning along with the memorization:
3. If you drilled a well 8 kilometers deep and encountered rock of the mantle, your drilling rig would be
a. far offshore in the deep ocean
b. on the coastal plaiear a continent’s shoreline
c. on a mountain range
d. in a deep valley or basiear the center of a continent
e. nearshore in a subduction zone
4. Although 95% of the crust of the Earth is composed of either igneous or metamorphic rock, 75% of the exposed surface of the continental crust is sedimentary rock. This is because
a. erosion of surface soil and rocks has produced a veneer of sediments over most of the Earth, and lithification of these sediments has produced sedimentary rock strata
b. the temperature of the Earth increases downward, leading to the creation of vast amounts of igneous and metamorphic rocks
c. oceanic crust, which covers about 70% of the Earth’s surface, is largely composed of igneous rocks, such as basalt, which forms at oceanic ridges
d. constitute such a small percentage of the surface of the Earth that they contribute much less material to the surface than do physical and chemical precipitation of sediment
5. Of the following areas, the one least likely to be affected by a catastrophic mudflow is
a. the Ozark Mountains of SW Missouri and NW Arkansas
b. the central Argentine Andes
c. the Cordilleras of Colombia
d. the Cascade Range of N California, Oregon, and Washington
e. the Texas Hill Country west of Austin
6. Which of the following is least likely to either trigger or enhance a mass-wasting process?
a. an earthquake
b. a prolonged period of drought
c. marine erosion of a cliff face
d. rapid tectonic uplift
e. abundant precipitation in a brief period
7. Which of the following desert proceses is most essential to the production of loess?
a. deflation
b. saltation
c. rolling
d. oxidation
e. solution
The idea here is not profound. Many of you probably use this type of multiple-choice “think question” already. They simply ask that the student read the information provided in the question, examine the alternative answers, and perform one or more acts of reason in addition to any memorizatioecessary. Choosing among alternatives in multiple-choice exams, as in real life and any other intellectual pursuit, should involve more than memorization. Please design some of your multiple-choice questions in the future with this in mind.
Critical Thinking
Thinking critically and applying logical frameworks involves consciously observing, analyzing, synthesizing, evaluating, and problem solving according to well-tested standards. In this course, the basic knowledge needed for critical thinking is introduced. The results of this process are further evaluated according to standards for clarity, accuracy, relevance, reliability, and fairness. Thinking skills are then exercised through observation, analysis, and problem solving.
Given the technological and informational revolution, there are ever increasing amounts of information available in most areas of industry and business. Through this course, the student develops strategies to evaluate the sources and appropriateness of the information, develops creative alternative solutions, and chooses, implements, and evaluates alternatives. The inclusion of a collaborative report and presentation prepares students for work in teams.
Given the needs of business and industry, and of society as a whole, the skills associated with logic and critical thinking are essential. Logic and critical thinking are subjects that go well together and are generally and easily grouped together in an introductory class. The skills of logical and critical thinking are conducive to a student’s ability to learn, change, and adapt to new and challenging situations.
ATTRIBUTES OF A CRITICAL THINKER
- asks pertinent questions
- assesses statements and arguments
- is able to admit a lack of understanding or information
- has a sense of curiosity
- is interested in finding new solutions
- is able to clearly define a set of criteria for analyzing ideas
- is willing to examine beliefs, assumptions, and opinions and weigh them against facts
- listens carefully to others and is able to give feedback
- sees that critical thinking is a lifelong process of self-assessment
- suspends judgment until all facts have been gathered and considered
- looks for evidence to support assumption and beliefs
- is able to adjust opinions wheew facts are found
- looks for proof
- examines problems closely
- is able to reject information that is incorrect or irrelevant
Ferrett, S. Peak Performance (1997).
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Critical thinking is the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking, and being able to think clearly and rationally. Critical thinking does not mean being argumentative or being critical of others. Although critical thinking skills can be used in exposing fallacies and bad reasoning, they can also be used to support other viewpoints, and to cooperate with others in solving problems and acquiring knowledge.
What is the point of studying Critical Thinking?
· Fundamentally, Critical Thinking or Informal Logic deals with the use of reason in the pursuit of truth. While there is serious doubt about the power of reason to discover any “new” truth, the “rules” of logic concern the ways truth can be preserved as we make inferences — one or more statements to support or justify another statement. Taken this way, there is no great “mystery” to the concepts of Logic. At the very core of logic is the idea that certain “patterns of inference” – i.e. models for combining statements that support with those which are supposedly supported will, if the supporting statements are true, guarantee the truth of the statement supported by them. In studying logic, we identify, study, and apply these patterns or principles of logical reasoning and express them in some general way – a way which is independent of the subject being reasoned about.
So, if we are interested in knowing the truth, then the answer is obvious: logical reasoning extends our grasp of the truth, from the information we have to what can be inferred from that information.
But why should we be interested in the truth? On the one hand, much of who we are, of the people we have become (and are yet to become) is due to our ideas and beliefs. And what we do and how we react to any situation is also determined by the background of beliefs and ideas we bring to it. Without getting too philosophical here, what sort of life would you consider more worthwhile– one based on truth, or one based on lies and groundless illusions?
If we believed only what popped into our heads, perhaps we could count on its being true. [Could we? And what should we do when then the opposite idea pops into our head– give up the earlier one, or keep ’em both?]. But often the source of our beliefs is other people – parents, pals, preachers, pundits, politicians, and others. Who we are, and how we spend our life’s energies, is based to a large extent on the what we picked up from others. But (in case you never noticed) they don’t all give us the same message– so who are we to believe? Could a liar ever blunder onto the truth? Could a decent person ever make a mistake? Which statement is it more rational to accept– one unsupported by any reasons, one supported by bad reasons, or one supported by good reasons?
If we are to be in control of our own beliefs, and to somehow gain an understanding of the truth, then we must know what good reasoning is, and be aware of the ways in which our reasoning (and that of others) can go astray.
WHY BE CRITICAL? (OR RATIONAL, OR MORAL?)
ON THE JUSTIFICATION OF CRITICAL THINKING
Christine McCarthy
The Ohio State University
I. INTRODUCTION
Since critical thinking is evidently more difficult, more troublesome, than ordinary, garden-variety thinking, the question that naturally arises is, why bother. Why not just say, “Forget it…I’ll think (and do, and be) what I want?” This kind of question is not anything new — Plato, for instance, has Socrates raise a similar question in the Republic, namely, “Why be just?”
In this paper I will consider several issues that I take to be related to the justification of critical thinking. The first issue is whether or not the common conceptualization of critical thinking as a dispositional trait possessed and displayed by the critical thinker is correct. The second issue is whether there is indeed some value to the critical thinker in thinking critically, and if so, what sort of value. The third issue is whether there is a relationship between critical thinking, rationality, and morality, and if so, what that might be.
I will argue, first, that while rationality is best construed as dispositional, critical thinking is not. Rather, critical thinking would be better understood as episodic. I shall argue, moreover, that this difference is an important one pedagogically, for while it is possible and desirable to teach, and to test for, an episodic critical thinking, it is neither possible nor desirable to attempt to do the same for the students’ dispositional rationality.
Second, I will argue that critical thinking does have a value, but that, contra Siegel, that value is an instrumental one. That is, one should think critically simply because that sort of thinking is efficacious.
Third, I will argue that, although critical thinking per se is episodic and justified instrumentally, it is to be hoped that a person ultimately will develop the disposition to regularly and habitually think critically, for that disposition is directly related to rationality. Moreover, the person’s disposition to think critically, that is, his or her rationality, is a necessary condition, and, for problems in the moral realm, a sufficient condition, for that person’s morality. Hence, if it is true a) that (episodic) critical thinking is necessary for rationality (the dispositional tendency to think critically), and b) that rationality is in turecessary for morality, then critical thinking, and the teaching thereof, would be justified not only instrumentally, but would also be justified on moral grounds, provided that morality itself is justified. The question, then, returns to approximately that of Socrates, namely, “Why be moral?”
II. IS CRITICAL THINKING A DISPOSITIONAL TRAIT?
Despite their differences, many of the interpreters of critical thinking, for example, Ennis, Siegel, and McPeck, seem to accept that a full interpretation of critical thinking must recognize in the concept a dispositional element. Siegel, for instance, in Educating Reason, argues that critical thinking is not properly conceived as merely a set of proficiencies (which he terms “the pure skills conception”). Instead, he requires that the term critical thinking be understood to include both a set of proficiencies and the tendency to utilize those proficiencies, the tendency to be “appropriately moved by reasons.”1 Moreover, Siegel maintains that both components of critical thinking are to be considered equally important. Thus, critical thinking, properly interpreted, is on this account a dispositional trait possessed by critical thinkers.
Siegel terms this dispositional aspect the “critical attitude or critical spirit component of CT.”2 It is a “willingness, desire, and disposition to base one’s actions and beliefs on reasons, that is, to do reason assessment and to be guided by the results of such assessment.”3 Here Siegel brings in two different dispositions which for clarity should be distinguished. First, he requires a disposition to do reason assessment, that is, to engage in critical thinking; second, he requires the tendency to be guided by, to actually act upon, the results of that critical thinking. Thus, apparently, critical thinking must actually have issue in action (or belief), before it could be counted as truly critical. But clearly, both these dispositions would seem to be characteristics of the person, the thinker, not features of the thinking itself. Yet this is puzzling, since the question at hand is, what sort of thinking is critical thinking?
In keeping with the assumption that the term critical thinking refers to some sort of dispositional trait of persons, explications of critical thinking often proceed by setting out the required characteristics of critical thinkers. Pedagogically, given this assumption, considerable attention should be given to the problem of teaching persons to be critical thinkers. A course that would merely provide students with a performative knowledge, that would teach how to think critically, would thus be considered incomplete.
The requirement that certain traits of the thinker be included in the conception of critical thinking is sometimes rendered as a requirement for an attitude or disposition toward the activity of thinking. But, it makes a considerable difference conceptually whether it is an attitude that is required (which would be episodic) or a disposition (which of course would not be episodic). A requirement that critical thinking be interpreted as thinking with a particular attitude is compatible with an episodic interpretation of critical thinking. And it may well be true that io case could one come to actually apply the norms of critical thinking, without having both an understanding of those norms and a willingness to apply them, that is, unless one has a certain attitude.
But the dispositional requirement is more problematic. While a disposition to act in certain ways can be considered a necessary condition of a person’s being a critical thinker, there are several reasons why such a disposition ought not to be taken as a necessary condition for critical thinking per se.
Conceptual Problems
There are conceptual problems with the dispositional account of critical thinking that make such an interpretation untenable. First, by interpreting critical thinking as dispositional, one creates an infinite regress. That is to say, if critical thinking is a disposition to engage in critical thinking, then it is the disposition to engage in… [a disposition to engage in…(a disposition…)], and so on, ad infinitum. To escape such a problem we must either specify something other than critical thinking as that which the critical thinker has a tendency to do, or restrict the meaning of the term critical thinking to the episodic sense, and recognize the disposition to think critically as being only associated with the actor, and not the action.
A second conceptual problem exists. When the term critical thinking is taken to include a reference to something dispositional, one cannot then logically conceive of a single, isolated and never to be repeated instance of critical thinking. There would thus be no point at which one could begin, for the first time, to think critically. Nor could one say of one’s students that they occasionally think critically, nor that they are capable of thinking critically but seldom to do so. Again, the episodic account is required to escape this consequence.
A third conceptual problem: Since a disposition is the sort of thing that can only be meaningfully attributed to a “being” of some sort, and since thinking simpliciter must be construed as an activity or process, and hence is not a being, neither thinking nor critical thinking can meaningfully be said to have any particular disposition. To make such an ascription would simply be to make a category mistake. Hence it would seem that clarity is not served by the assertion that critical thinking, whatever else it may be, is at least in part some sort of disposition. It does, however, make sense to understand the thinking being in the dispositional sense, to regard the person who frequently, consistently, or habitually under certain circumstances actually does engage in critical thinking as being a critical thinker.
Siegel notes this, describing the critical thinker as one who has “…a willingness to conform judgment and action to principle, not simply an ability to so conform,”4 who has “a rich emotional make-up of dispositions, habits of mind, values, character traits, and emotions which may be collectively referred to as the critical attitude”.5 But, Siegel then goes on to explicitly dissolve the distinction between, and hence to conflate, the dispositional traits of the thinker and the notion of critical thinking per se. “The conception of critical thinking being offered here is as much a conception of a certain sort of person as it is a conception of a certain set of activities and skills. When we take it upon ourselves to educate students so as to foster critical thinking, we are committing ourselves to nothing less than the development of a certain sort of person.”6 Siegel continues, the “reasons conception — as any fully developed conception of critical thinking must be — is a conceptioot only of a certain sort of activity, but of a certain sort of person.”7
Justificatory Problems
The dispositional interpretation creates some puzzles when we come to the question of the justification of critical thinking, since on this account it is a disposition, not an episodic act, that must be justified. For instance, when Siegel raises the question, “Why should critical thinkers have this tendency to think critically?” there are several ways to answer. First, one might simply say that on this account, far from being a mystery, this is an entirely analytical point. If what we mean by saying a person is “one of a particular kind”, is simply that the person does habitually perform the activity in question, usually with some degree of proficiency, then a critical thinker could be nothing else but a person who has that tendency.
It is likely, however, that the intended question is: why should some person, who is not at present a critical thinker, become one? But, given Siegel’s conception of critical thinking as “the tendency to be appropriately moved by reasons,” there is, again, an analytical answer. If, by the term appropriately moved, one simply means “moved in the way that one ought to be moved,” then again it is analytically and necessarily true that any person should be moved in precisely the way that he or she ought to be moved, that is, in just those ways that would be appropriate. So again, on this interpretation it is analytically true that one should be a critical thinker. But, this conclusion, while undeniable, is not particularly helpful, for one would, I take it, like a justification of an activity to be true by virtue of some reference to the real world, rather than merely be true analytically.
According to Siegel, critical thinking is coextensive with rationality, and hence is justified only if rationality is. But, rationality, it is claimed, is self-justifying. When Siegel asks, “Why be rational?” he sets up a problem to be solved, and he concludes, quite correctly, that should anyone take up this problem, the person will initiate a search for reasons, and in so doing reveal that he or she already accepts the force of reasons, or, in Siegel’s account, values rationality. But, Siegel begs the question here by assuming that some randomly chosen person will necessarily take up the problem. This sort of justification would have no force for the person who in fact does not already value rationality — for instance, the person who looks at the question, “Why be rational?” and says, “beats me,” or “who cares?” Yet it would seem that we would want the justification of rationality, and hence of critical thinking, to do more than just preach to the converted.
These unproductive, analytical, justificatory traps seem to be the result of attempting to justify the disposition to think critically without having previously justified the singular acts of thinking critically, that is, critical thinking understood episodically. It seems, then, that the initial question ought to be: should one, when given some particular problem, think about it in some particular way, namely, critically, rather than in some other way? And if so, why? The third question (and the one that is the most difficult to answer) would then be, which particular way (or ways) of thinking about any particular problem ought one to adopt? That is, what particular acts of thinking are to be counted as critical. It seems clear that we are not in a position to justify any proposed answers to the third question without having first answered the first and second.
In the discussion that follows I will be concerned with only the first two of these questions, which seem relatively simple, but which in fact turn out to be rather controversial. Stipulating that the one particular way of thinking we have in mind will be termed “critical” thinking, these questions can be rephrased, as, first: is there a value to critical thinking in any particular problem, and second, if so, what is that value? I address these questions next.
III. THE VALUE OF EPISODIC CRITICAL THINKING
When critical thinking is taken to be a dispositional trait, co-extensive with rationality, that is, neither more nor less than rationality itself, the justification of one’s commitment to critical thinking seems to rest on the fact that one is committed to rationality? But this claim, even if true, would only change the terms of the question, which then becomes, why be rational. And this seems a more difficult, not a less difficult question. I will take a different route to the justification of critical thinking, interpreting critical thinking as an episodic activity, and rationality as a dispositional trait of persons, specifically, the disposition to think critically. Critical thinking and rationality are thus held to be conceptually distinct, although related.
Consider an analogy. If thinking is indeed an activity, a difficult mental activity, then it might be considered analogous to any difficult physical activity, let us say, to rock-climbing. Suppose it were proposed that we add to the curriculum a required course in Careful Rock-Climbing. The question, “Why should one learn to rock-climb carefully?”, would probably not arise although the question, “Why should one learn to rock-climb at all?” very well might. In this respect the physical activity differs from the activity of thinking, since, in the case of thinking, it seems that it is the very basic question, “Why do it at all?” that would seldom arise. There are several possible reasons for this. First, thinking seems to be something we cannot help but to do (although sometimes, admittedly, to little effect). But second, and more importantly, it would seem that in most situations thinking is regarded as unquestionably useful — it helps one to solve existing problems, to predict and to avoid problems, to achieve one’s desires, and even to evaluate the merit of those desires, so as to predict and perhaps avoid any potentially catastrophic consequences that would follow on the achievement of those existing desires.
Still, the question “Why should one think critically?” evidently does arise, or at least would seem to, given the perceived need for a justification of critical thinking. Now, oddly enough, in the rock-climbing analogy, if one were to accept that one does indeed have a need for the basic activity, very few people would go on to ask, “Why do it carefully?” It would, I believe, be abundantly clear to any person at the base of a cliff, about to ascend, that some ways of proceeding must be superior to others. And one would actively, perhaps avidly, seek out generalizations that have in the past proven to be useful, that is, one would look for principles of rock-climbing, and one would work diligently to make one’s own practice conform to theory. For the person about to embark on a lifetime of rock-climbing, the disposition to climb carefully would not seem at all hard to acquire.
It seems odd, then, for there to be grave concern that our students, knowing that there is a need to think, and having acquired an understanding of the principles of critical thinking, might nevertheless fail to acquire the disposition to actually engage in critical thinking.
It seems unarguable that the ultimate aim that one has in teaching critical thinking is the dispositional aim. As would teachers in any field, we would like our students to appreciate the significance of what is learned, and to choose, regularly and habitually, to think critically. But, it would seem that teaching a disposition can best be achieved, if it is going to be achieved at all, by focusing one’s effort on thoroughly teaching the subject matter, the what and the how, while strong-mindedly ignoring the temptation to somehow directly teach the disposition. What seems to be lacking in persons who learn that which is valuable, but fail to develop the disposition to use what they’ve learned, is either an understanding of full import of the subject matter for their projects, interests, and desires, or a lack of concern for these.
Consider, for instance, the person who possesses a detailed knowledge of the principles of careful rock-climbing, who knows what the common pit-falls are and how to avoid them, who recognizes the potentially serious negative consequences of slipping-up — but who nevertheless habitually, regularly, and deliberately chooses not to actually employ this knowledge when climbing. What can be said to the person who says, “I fully understand all this, and I don’t care.”?
It would seem that there is nothing that the rock-climbing instructor, or the educator, could say to this person, no way — or at least no ethically acceptable way — to cause in him or her the appropriate disposition. It would seem that only “caring more about his or her own life”, or life-projects, would induce the person to actually take the steps that he or she understands to be necessary.
The teacher of critical thinking, despite having the dispositional goal in mind, should thus direct attention primarily to the advantages of critical thinking in particular problems, and to the real life consequences of failing to think critically, in order to achieve that dispositional goal.
Moreover, when one attempts to directly teach dispositions, certain ethical problems arise. Suppose, for instance, that one sets out to create in someone a tendency to act by repeatedly modeling the desired actions. Though demonstration would of course be a significant part of one’s teaching others how to think critically, when used as a means of imbuing the student with a disposition to act in a like fashion, it seems problematic. Is it necessary or desirable, in order to promote the students’ tendency to practice critical thinking, to ensure that the teacher of critical thinking is charismatic enough to inspire his or her students with the desire to be like that? It would seem, first, that this is not necessary, since if the student were to come independently, autonomously, to an awareness of the value in critical thinking, that by itself would be sufficient to establish a tendency to actually do critical thinking, regardless of the students’ positive or negative evaluations of the teacher’s virtues.
Second, though the charismatic teacher could certainly induce students to emulate his or her practice, and hence could create in them the disposition to think critically, it is equally true that the same could be done with virtually any sort of tendency to act, regardless of the value of that tendency. But, if a student acquires a disposition to act in a particular way for any reason other than his or her own recognition of the positive value of that way of acting, then that student has been indoctrinated. And this, it seems, would be unethical practice.
One should then eschew inspirational devices, and rely instead on the students’ appreciation of the significance of the subject matter to accomplish the dispositional goal. But that appreciation may be a long time in coming. That is, it may only be long after one’s course in critical thinking, after a considerable period of real life trial and error in thinking, that any particular student begins to actually recognize the value in thinking critically, as a result of occasionally using the skills that were learned. Thus, a student may not be rational after having completed a course in critical thinking, but, that course nevertheless should be considered successful if the student leaves in possession of the knowledge necessary for the later development of rationality. It would thus be neither necessary nor useful to attempt to design tests to measure the students’ improvement in rationality as a gauge of a course’s success.
In these observations much hinges on the maintenance of the conceptual distinction between rationality, understood as a dispositional trait, or the tendency to think critically, and critical thinking, understood as an episodic activity. In the next section I will discuss more fully the relationship between critical thinking, rationality, and the relationship of both these concepts to the concept of morality.
IV. THE RELATION OF CRITICAL THINKING, RATIONALITY, AND MORALITY
There are several interpretations extant of the relationship of critical thinking to rationality and to morality. For Siegel, critical thinking is coextensive with rationality. To understand critical thinking fully, then, one would need to understand rationality itself. And, since rationality is taken to be coextensive with the relevance of reasons, then to be rational, as well as to be critical, is simply to believe and act on the basis of reasons.
McPeck, on the other hand, maintains that critical thinking is a subset of rational thinking. Rational thinking, he writes, is “the intelligent use of all available evidence for the solution of some problem.”8 In contrast, critical thinking occurs only when one encounters a difficulties in using that available evidence. McPeck gives as examples of such problems, the need to decide what is to count as evidence, or the decision to disregard some portion of the available evidence. Critical thinking is simply the “disposition and skill to find such difficulties in the normal course of reasoning.”9
Neither of these positions recognizes any distinction between the dispositional sense of rationality and the episodic. In the dispositional sense, we speak of a person’s being rational, and we mean, I take it, that he or she habitually, generally acts in a way that is rational. But here, we have introduced an episodic sense of rational. Logically, we must be able to describe a particular instance of acting as being rational before we can attribute a dispositional rationality, that is, a tendency to so act, to a person.
I would suggest that critical thinking is best understood in the episodic sense, and that rational action is simply action taken upon critical thought. Rationality, in contrast, is a dispositional trait; it is the tendency of a person to act rationally, which is to say, the tendency to act upon critical thought. Critical thinking, then, is neither coextensive with rationality, nor is it a special class of rational thought; rather, critical thinking is a necessary condition of rationality.
The relation of rationality and critical thinking to morality is also of interest. Ennis, in 1979, suggested that morality is a necessary condition of rationality, so that an action cannot be rational and at the same time be really immoral. “To assert of an action that it is both unqualifiedly rational and immoral does not make sense, it seems.”10 To put the point a bit more formally,
Rational action — > moral action; or,
The rationality of an action — > the morality of an action.
Note that in this locution rationality must be episodic, a feature of a single action. A generally irrational person could, then, perform at least one rational action in this sense.
The implication in Ennis’s hypothesis is that an action must be morally correct in order to be a rational action. But suppose, for example, that the only rational action ever taken by an otherwise irrational and morally depraved person was to invest wisely in the stock-market. Would that investment be considered morally good, because rational? It would seem not. Rather, it would be considered morally neutral.
I will sketch out a somewhat different interpretation of the relation between morality and rationality. I would suggest that a morally good person is just the person who has the disposition to think critically, that is, who is rational, in problems in the moral realm. These are problems in which one’s actions will significantly affect the lives of others. This would be a dispositional sense of moral according to which a person is moral who is rational in the moral realm. A morally good action, similarly, would be any action taken with respect to a moral realm problem that is based upon critical thought with respect to the problem. This is the episodic sense of moral according to which the action is moral just in case it is taken pursuant to critical thought.
On this interpretation, morally good action would be, contra Ennis, a subset of the broader category of all rational action, since the moral realm is simply a particular set of problems with respect to which one could and should think critically. If this is so, then it would be rationality and critical thought that stand as necessary conditions for morality, in the dispositional and episodic senses respectively, rather than vice-versa. Again, more formally,
Morality of a person — > rationality of that person, and
Moral action — > critical thought.
However, within the set of moral problems, critical thought would be both necessary and sufficient for morally good action. And, hence, morally good action would be both necessary and sufficient for critical thought. In other words, one could not think critically about a moral problem without the resultant action being moral, nor could one act morally without thinking critically.
On this account it would not be correct to say that morality, in the dispositional sense, is a necessary condition of rationality, since not all problems are moral problems. One could be fully rational outside the moral realm, yet be fully irrational within that realm. One could also conceivably be rational only within the moral realm, that is, think critically only about moral problems, and be entirely irrational in other matters. Hence a generally irrational person could, logically, be a moral person, although this seems, empirically, an unlikely combination.
If this is correct, and if morality itself, that is, morally good action, is desirable, then the ability to think critically in moral problems would be justified as a necessary condition of morality. This is so because it is critical thinking that enables one to solve particular moral-realm problems.
Similarly, outside the moral realm, rationality can be justified pragmatically, in the Deweyan sense, as the tendency to employ the means by which one is able to solve problems, rather than merely self-justifying, as Siegel claims. And critical thinking would thus be justified as an instrumental value, the activity necessary to achieve desired ends, including the generally desired ends that such achievement not lead to disastrous consequences.
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ConceptDraw MINDMAP
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is the mental process of clear and rational analysis information, achieved from observation, practice, logic, and/or communication. It includes the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking.
Thinking skills can be divided into critical and creative thinking. Creativity is a way to generate new ideas. To be a good and effective thinker, both kinds of thinking skills are required.
http://www.conceptdraw.com/products/img/ScreenShots/minmdap/PicnicMindmap.gif
The process of critical thinking is based on the intellectual values that go beyond subject-matter divisions and which include: clarity, accuracy, distinctness, clearness, thoroughness and fairness.
Critical thinking steps
ConceptDraw MINDMAP was designed to boost critical thinking of both individuals and groups.
Every single business, job or task, which includes the process of critical thinking, involves:
1. Goals and objectives which we want to achieve.
2. Questions and problems we need to solve.
3. Information and data about our questions and goals.
4. The way of interpreting of information, concepts and ideas, need to be organized.
5. Key postulates that are starting points in our thinking.
Mind maps provide an effective tool for organizing and evaluating this information, by presenting ideas, goals and questions in attractive visual form.
There are some examples of MINDMAP idea tree:
What tools does MINDMAP offer for creative and critical thinking?
1. User-friendly brainstorming
2. Automatic mind-map creation
3. Sort, numerate, link ideas, assign attitude icons to the branches
4. Automatic changing of map layout
5.
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Robust but easy to use graphic tools
Critical Thinking:
An Overview
Citation: Huitt, W. (1998). Critical thinking: An overview. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved [date] from, http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/cogsys/critthnk.html. [Revision of paper presented at the Critical Thinking Conference sponsored by Gordon College, Barnesville, GA, March, 1993.]
Return to: Overview of the Cognitive System Home Page
Critical thinking is an important issue in education today
The movement to the information age has focused attention on good thinking as an important element of life success (Huitt, 1995; Thomas & Smoot, 1994). These changing conditions require new outcomes, such as critical thinking, to be included as a focus of schooling. Old standards of simply being able to score well on a standardized test of basic skills, though still appropriate, cannot be the sole means by which we judge the academic success or failure of our students.
The purpose of this brief overview is to review what we know about critical thinking, how it might be differentiated from creative thinking, and to suggest future research and implementation activities
Definition has changed over the past decade
The definition of critical thinking has changed somewhat over the past decade. Originally the dominion of cognitive psychologists and philosophers, behaviorally-oriented psychologists and content specialists have recently joined the discussion. The following are some examples of attempts to define critical thinking:
- …the ability to analyze facts, generate and organize ideas, defend opinions, make comparisons, draw inferences, evaluate arguments and solve problems (Chance,1986, p. 6);
- …a way of reasoning that demands adequate support for one’s beliefs and an unwillingness to be persuaded unless support is forthcoming (Tama, 1989, p. 64);
- …involving analytical thinking for the purpose of evaluating what is read (Hickey, 1990, p. 175);
- …a conscious and deliberate process which is used to interpret or evaluate information and experiences with a set of reflective attitudes and abilities that guide thoughtful beliefs and actions (Mertes,1991, p.24);
- …active, systematic process of understanding and evaluating arguments. An argument provides an assertion about the properties of some object or the relationship between two or more objects and evidence to support or refute the assertion. Critical thinkers acknowledge that there is no single correct way to understand and evaluate arguments and that all attempts are not necessarily successful (Mayer & Goodchild, 1990, p. 4);
- …the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action (Scriven & Paul, 1992);
- reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do (Ennis, 1992).
Contributions to our thinking about critical thinking
Each of the separate groups has made significant contributions to our understanding of critical thinking. Contributors from the area of cognitive psychology (such as Paul Chance and Richard Mayer) delineate the set of operations and procedures involved in critical thinking. They work to establish the differences between critical thinking and other important aspects of thinking such as creative thinking.
Contributors from the area of philosophy (such as Richard Paul) remind us that critical thinking is a process of thinking to a standard. Simply being involved in the process of critical thinking is not enough; it must be done well and should guide the establishment of our beliefs and impact our behavior or action.
Contributors from the area of behavioral psychology help to establish the operational definitions associated with critical thinking. They work to define the subtasks associated with final outcomes and the methodologies teachers can use to shape initial behaviors towards the final outcomes. They also demonstrate how educators can establish the proper contingencies to change behavior.
Content specialists (such as Hickey and Mertes) demonstrate how critical thinking can be taught in different content areas such as reading, literature, social studies, mathematics, and science. This is an especially important contribution because it appears that critical thinking is best developed as students grapple with specific content rather than taught exclusively as a separate set of skills.
How is critical thinking related to Bloom et al.’s Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain?
Bloom and his colleagues (1956) produced one of the most often cited documents in establishing educational outcomes: The Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain. They proposed that knowing is actually composed of six successive levels arranged in a hierarchy: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, Evaluation. Research over the past 40 years has generally confirmed that the first four levels are indeed a true hierarchy. That is, knowing at the knowledge level is easier than, and subsumed under, the level of comprehension and so forth up to the level of analysis. However, research is mixed on the relationship of synthesis and evaluation; it is possible that these two are reversed or they could be two separate, though equally difficult, activities (Seddon, 1978).
Synthesis and evaluation are two types of thinking that have much in common (the first four levels of Bloom’s taxonomy), but are quite different in purpose. Evaluation (which might be considered equivalent to critical thinking as used in this document) focuses on making an assessment or judgment based on an analysis of a statement or proposition. Synthesis (which might be considered more equivalent to creative thinking) requires an individual to look at parts and relationships (analysis) and then to put these together in a new and original way.
There is some evidence to suggest that this equivalent-but-different relationship between critical/evaluative and creative/synthesis thinking is appropriate. Huitt (1992) classified techniques used in problem-solving and decision-making into two groups roughly corresponding to the critical/creative dichotomy. One set of techniques tended to be more linear and serial, more structured, more rational and analytical, and more goal-oriented; these techniques are often taught as part of critical thinking exercises. The second set of techniques tended to be more holistic and parallel, more emotional and intuitive, more creative, more visual, and more tactual/kinesthetic; these techniques are more often taught as part of creative thinking exercises. This distinction also corresponds to what is sometimes referred to as left brain thinking (analytic, serial, logical, objective) as compared to right brain thinking (global, parallel, emotional, subjective) (Springer & Deutsch, 1993).
One problem with the definitions provided above (which is common to most definitions from philosophers such as Paul and Scriven), is that of labeling “good” thinking as critical thinking. This implies that creative thinking is a component of critical thinking rather than a separate, though related, thinking process with its own standards of excellence. To classify all “good” thinking as critical thinking is to expand the definition beyond its usefulness and obfuscates the intended concept. It also has the danger of overselling the concept and having both educators and the general public reject the benefits of focusing on critical thinking. We need to recognize that “good” thinking requires both critical and creative thinking. For example, Duemler and Mayer (1988) found that when students used techniques associated with reason and logic as well as creativity and divergence, they were more successful in problem solving.
A second problem common to several definitions is that of confusing attitudes and dispositions towards thinking with the actual thinking process (i.e., emotion versus cognition; feeling versus reasoning.) For example, Tama (1989) includes an “an unwillingness to be persuaded unless [adequate] support is forthcoming” (p. 64) while Mertes (1991) includes using “reflective attitudes” in his. This makes it very difficult to separate out the cognitive processing skills from the attitudes or dispositions to use those skills. It is likely that two separate educational methods are necessary to impact these very different desired outcomes.
Proposed definition
I believe Ennis’ (1992) definition comes closest to the mark of a useful generic definition for critical thinking. I offer yet another definition only to more closely align the concept to the evaluation level as defined by Bloom et al. (1956) and to include some of the vocabulary of other investigators. The following is my proposed definition of critical thinking:
- Critical thinking is the disciplined mental activity of evaluating arguments or propositions and making judgments that can guide the development of beliefs and taking action.
It is important to have a definition of critical thinking so that it can be compared and contrasted with other forms of thinking (i.e., non-critical thinking). For example, non-critical thinking can take the form of habitual thinking (thinking based on past practices without considering current data); brainstorming (saying whatever comes to mind without evaluation); creative thinking (putting facts, concepts and principles together iew and original ways); prejudicial thinking (gathering evidence to support a particular position without questioning the position itself); or emotive thinking (responding to the emotion of a message rather than the content.) Each of these types of thinking may have advantages and disadvantages relative to a particular context. There are situations when each might be more appropriate while the other types would be less appropriate.
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Model of critical thinking and its modification
The following is a proposed model of critical thinking:
This model proposes that there are affective, conative, and behavioral aspects of critical thinking that must be considered in addition to the cognitive processes involved. This supports the definitions of Mertes (1991), Scriven and Paul (1992), and Ennis (1992) that include some component of beliefs and behavior. First, a stimulus presents an argument or proposition that must be evaluated. There is an affective disposition to use critical thinking that must activate the critical thinking processes if it is to take place. As a result of critical thinking a previously held belief is confirmed or a new belief is established. This will be established as a component of declarative memory in its semantic form although there may be episodic information associated with it. There may also be images or visualizations formed or remembered as part of the critical thinking process.
There is then an affective disposition to plan and take action in order for the critical thinking to act as a guide to behavior. The conative components of goal-setting and self-regulation must be activated in order to develop and implement a plan of action. As action is taken it results in feedback from the environment and a corresponding increase in procedural knowledge. This new learning is then available as either necessary corrective action is taken to guide action toward the desired goal based on beliefs or a new situation presents itself that requires additional critical thinking.
A complete critical thinking program will successfully deal with each of the components in the model. As stated previously, the most appropriate teaching methods are possibly different for each component. For example, if one is most interested in impacting declarative knowledge (facts, concepts, principles, etc. that are stored in semantic and episodic memory), the most appropriate teaching method is probably some form of didactic, explicit, or direct instruction. On the other hand, if the focus is on procedural knowledge it is likely that modeling and/or personal experience would be more appropriate teaching methods. Likewise, if one were trying to impact the memory of images or visualizations, then modeling, active visualizations, or working with pictures might be more appropriate. Attitudes are probably impacted most directly by socialization and the teaching method of cooperative learning. Learning the process of critical thinking might be best facilitated by a combination of didactic instruction and experience in specific content areas. Impacting conation might best be done through goal-setting exercises and action learning. Finally, overt behavior and learning to use feedback might best be accomplished using positive and negative reinforcement.
Summary and conclusions
The following are some of the most important factors to be considered in the discussion of critical thinking:
- Critical thinking is important attribute for success in the 21st century.
- We need to carefully define the concept of “critical” thinking and delineate it from similar concepts such as “creative” thinking or “good” thinking.
- We need to identify expected behaviors and subtasks associated with critical thinking and develop operational definitions.
- We need to complete task analyses, define intermediate goals, and develop evaluation methods.
- We need to identify “best” methods of instruction for each aspect of the critical thinking process.
Critical thinking is a complex activity and we should not expect that one method of instruction will prove sufficient for developing each of its component parts. We have learned that while it is possible to teach critical thinking and its components as separate skills, they are developed and used best when learned in connection with a specific domain of knowledge (e.g., teaching, auto mechanics, etc) (Carr, 1990). We should not expect that a “critical thinking course” will develop our students’ competencies in this area. If students are not expected to use these skills in traditional courses, the skills will simply atrophy and disappear. Teachers and instructors at all levels must require students to use these skills in every class and evaluate their skills accordingly. As Hummel and Huitt (1995) have stated “What You Measure Is What You Get.” That is, students are not likely to develop these complex skills without specific, explicit expectations and their measurement in the form of important assessments.
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However, even this is not enough for a complete “thinking program.” The simple model described above must be combined with a model of creative thinking and these two models must then be combined into a model of problem solving and decision making if we are to more thoroughly understand the components of critical thinking and their value to the processes of evaluating arguments and propositions as a guide to developing beliefs and taking action. Therefore, it is necessary to include development of creative thinking (e.g., lateral thinking)and practice in using both sets of competencies to solve problems and make decisions in a wide variety of situations. In today’s rapidly changing context, it is solving real problems and making correct decisions that is valued, not simply demonstrating a narrow set of skills in a highly structured academic setting.
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Critical Thinking
WHAT is it? – Critical Thinking is reasonable, reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do. This definition does not exclude creative thinking.
WHO is it for? – Any person in any profession or any circumstance of life can practice critical thinking. From science to arts, from business to teaching, critical thinking skills create a more efficient thinker and problem solver. Good thinkers explore, inquire, probe, into new areas, seek clarity, think critically and carefully, are organized thinkers. Use thinking powers in productive and probing ways.
WHY use this method? – We want to be clear about what is going on, to have reasonable basis for a judgment and make reasonable inferences. We want interaction with other people to be sensible and we want the dispositions to be operative.
Critical thinking involves both dispositions and abilities:
(See Graphic 1)
Critical Thinking Dispositions
1. Seek a clear statement of the thesis or question
2. Seek reasons
3. Try to be well informed
4. Use and mention credible sources
5. Take into account the total situation
6. Try to remain relevant to the main point
7. Keep in mind the original and/or basic concern
8. Look for alternatives
9. Be open minded: a. Consider seriously other points of view (dialogical thinking); b. Reason from premises with which one disagrees, without letting the disagreement interfere with one’s reasoning (suppositional thinking); c. Withhold judgment when the evidence and reason are insufficient.
10. Take a position/change a position when the evidence and reasons are sufficient to do so
11. Seek as much precision as the subject permits
12. Deal in an orderly manner with the parts of a complex whole
13. Use one’s critical thinking abilities
14. Be sensitive to the feelings, level of knowledge, and degree of sophistication
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Critical Thinking Abilities
(See graphic 3)
1. Focusing on a question
2. Analyzing arguments
3. Asking and answering questions of clarification and/or challenge
4. Judging the credibility of a source
5. Observing and judging observation reports
6. Deducing and judging deductions
7. Inducing and judging inductions
8. Making value judgments
9. Defining terms and judging definitions in 3 dimensions (a. form, b. definitional strategy, c. content)
10. Identifying assumptions
11. Deciding on an action
12.
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Interacting with others
Introduction
As we go about our days, we tend to perceive, decipher and understand the problems, events and circumstances of our lives somewhat differently than others. In fact we believe that our understanding of reality is built upon the foundations of our perceptions – what we take in through our sensory organs including the eyes, ears, nose, skin, and tongue. This is however only one half of the picture. Our perception of reality is actually built upon the foundations of our filtering mechanisms, which break down how we perceive the problems, events and circumstances of our lives as they relate to our thoughts, beliefs, habitual behaviors, emotions and actions. These filters determine the decisions we make on a daily basis and the perceptions of reality we bring forth into the world.
Becoming an Outstanding Critical Thinker has more to do with a state of mind rather than the specific set of tools, techniques or strategies you utilize on a daily basis. It is this state of mind that will help you to overcome the obstacles and challenges you face on a daily basis. Moreover, it is exactly this state of mind that will assist you in effectively piercing through the veil of filters coloring your understanding of the world around you. As a result you will be better prepared to deal with the problems, challenges and obstacles that are impeding your progress towards your goals and objectives.
This IQ Matrix delves into the mind of an Outstanding Critical Thinker. The first branch of the IQ Matrix breaks down the essential traits of critical thinking including it’s advantages, the characteristics, vocabulary and mindset that is required for outstanding objective thinking. The second branch of the IQ Matrix delves into the critical thinking process and analyzes the different types of perspectives that critical thinkers adopt into their everyday thinking patterns. The final branch of the IQ Matrix expands on a number of effective questions that are essential to a critical thinker’s habitual thought process as they work their way through the problems confronting their everyday reality.
This article post is part of an Effective Thinking Series of IQ Matrix Mind Maps that are designed to help you successfully deal with the problems and challenges confronting your daily life reality. Topics within this series include:
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• Part 1: Strategic Life Questioning Tactics
• Part 2: Unlocking Your Creative Genius Potential
• Part 3: Awaken Your Problem Solver from Within
• Part 4: Becoming an Outstanding Critical Thinker
• Part 5: 6 Thinking Hats: Solving Life’s Complex Problems
A Critical Thinker’s Indispensable Traits
Becoming an Outstanding Critical Thinker requires the adoption of a number of key characteristics, mindset shifts and traits that will help instill certain habitual thoughts and patterns of behavior, which are essential to helping you overcome the obstacles and challenges in your life. This branch of the IQ Matrix delves into these psychological components that are required for critical thought.
Definition of Critical Thinking
It is the process of critically judging the validity of information through the utilization of an effective set of criteria that help you to better understand your outcomes, thusly enabling you to make better and more educated decisions about the problems confronting your reality. The more effective you become at thinking critically about each and every circumstance in your life, the more effective your decisions will become, and the more likely you are to achieve your goals and objectives successfully.
Advantages of Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is an essential habitual thought process that we must regularly learn to cultivate and grow within the recesses of our minds. Without it we will struggle to make sense of reality. However, with it we will opeew doors of understanding about the events and circumstances of our lives. Here is a break down of the advantages of critical thought:
Expands Perspective & Possibilities
Critical thinking allows us to see things from unique perspectives that – under normal circumstances – would not have been evident. By learning to ask the right kinds of questions and effectively breaking down each angle and avenue for new answers, we expand the possibilities of the reality we find ourselves in. With this unique outlook we are therefore better able to reach new solutions and find the answers that will help us to overcome our problems in the most proficient manner.
Identifies Hidden Facts & Assumptions
Many events and circumstances of our lives are riddled with hidden facts that lead us to make rushed assumptions about our predicament. By learning to ask the right kinds of critical questions, you will effectively unveil that which is hidden from view. You will therefore have a greater array of information to work with in order to reach effective conclusions about the obstacles that are confronting your present reality.
Builds Confidence, Knowledge & Understanding
Asking the right kinds of critical questions helps us to gaiew knowledge, perspective and understanding about the state of our current life circumstances. As a result of acquiring this knowledge, we effectively gain the confidence we need in order to overcome the problems and obstacles in our life successfully.
Helps with Problem Solving & Creativity
Effective critical thinking goes hand-in-hand with problem solving and creativity. When you think critically about a problem in your life, you essentially open the floodgates to new insights, encouraging deeper and more creative thought about your circumstances and predicament. Each of these three methods will help you to gain perspective about your life, and will thusly lead you to the answers you have been searching for all along.
Mindset of a Critical Thinker
An Outstanding Critical Thinker’s mindset may seem complex at first, and somewhat difficult to understand. Yet, their habitual thought process essentially works on simple patterns of thinking that piece information together from a detached and unemotional perspective. They perceive everything as only being part of a greater and wider canvas that needs to be completely understood in its entirety before all the answers can be revealed. It is these insights that allow them to reach effective decisions that further help them overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles and challenges confronting their reality.
Ability to Distinguish Between Pieces of Information
An Outstanding Critical Thinker has the ability to distinguish between different chunks or pieces of information that appear to be very similar on the surface. They fully realize and understand that if they make quick judgments or assumptions about this information, that they will effectively misinterpret their circumstances including the foundations of their reality. As a result they always attempt to separate distinguishing fragments of conflicting pieces of information in order to gain the widest and most thorough perspective of the events and circumstances they find themselves in. They consciously and consistently distinguish facts from opinions, causes from effects, and ideas from assumptions. These distinguishing characteristics allow them to better understand the world from a completely unbiased and reflective perspective.
Ability to Identify Patterns & Connections
When we take information in through our senses, we naturally tend to categorize and segregate it within our minds accordingly in a way that will promote a greater sense of understanding and awareness. We effectively try and make sense of this information based on our understanding of the patterns evident within it. An Outstanding Critical Thinker will naturally tend to relate with, and identify a greater array of patterns within a piece of information when compared to the rest of the population. As a result they are better able to make the necessary connections and associations with existing memories, thusly leading them to reach insights and conclusions – about the events and circumstances presented within their reality – that are simply not available to the rest of us. This is in fact a primary trait that separates the genius thinkers from everybody else.
Ability to Analyze Information
An Outstanding Critical Thinker always thinks about information from an analytic perspective. Constantly questioning, ordering, and comparing different aspects of information, they effectively trigger new insights and understandings that help them to find suitable answers to the most difficult life challenges.
Characteristics of a Critical Thinker
An Outstanding Critical Thinker has a set of characteristic traits that are essential to effective and efficient thought. These traits help them to think more proficiently about the problems within their life. As a result they are able to gather unexpected insights and understandings that help improve their decision making abilities.
Open Minded
An Outstanding Critical Thinker is always open minded to all possibilities, interpretations and perspectives. They understand that unless they keep an open mind at all times, that they may essentially miss important cues and pieces of information that will provide them with new insights and understandings to successfully overcome the problems confronting their reality.
Has Flexibility of Thought
An Outstanding Critical Thinker completely understands that a flexible and fluid thought process is required at all times in order to successfully gain new insights and perspectives about the events and circumstances confronting their reality. They are fully aware that there are always a variety of ways of looking at a situation, and that there are an endless amount of possibilities and perspectives available to them at any one moment in time. They therefore maintain their flexible nature and change course in their thinking, decision making and actions whenever an opportunity presents itself to move them forward in a more proficient manner.
Vocabulary of a Critical Thinker
An Outstanding Critical Thinker’s vocabulary focuses on breaking down the problems and circumstances present within their life from a multitude of angles and perspectives. Their words help bring clarity and understanding to situations that at first may seem foggy and misdirected. The following is a list of words that Outstanding Critical Thinkers utilize to formulate questions to the problems confronting their reality: “Meaning, Reasons, Example, Prejudice, Evidence, Reliability, Viewpoint, Credibility, Explanation, Consequences, Assumptions, and Relevance”. Each of these words can effectively be formulated into insightful and thought provoking questions that will help you to break down any problem or situation from a critical perspective.
Critical Thinking Process for Problem Solving
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The critical thinking process for problem solving will help you to gain a wider perspective into the events and circumstances of your life. These insights will stimulate new ideas and understandings that will help you to reach solutions and answers that would not have been possible through standard patterns of thinking. As you progress through this branch of the IQ Matrix you will discover a simple step-by-step process of critical thought that will improve your chances of overcoming the obstacles and challenges confronting your reality in the most efficient and effective manner. You will also be presented with some key insights and perspectives of critical thought that will become indispensable to your growth as a critical thinker.
Steps for Effective Critical Thinking
The following is one of several methods of critical thought that will help you to break down your problems in the most proficient manner. As you follow these steps one at a time, it is important to reflect back on the first branch of the IQ Matrix and cultivate the “Critical Thinking traits”. This is relevant, because without these traits you will struggle to establish the pattern of thinking that is required to work through this process effectively.
Knowledge
Your first step to effective critical thought is to tune into your past memories, knowledge and understanding of this problem or a similar challenge you experienced in the past. Recall how you dealt with this circumstance identifying the effectiveness and efficiency of your approach. You are essentially trying to bring forth useful insights and experiences from your past into the present. Here are some questions to get you started:
What past experiences could be useful in assisting me here?
What could I utilize from my past that would effectively help me here?
How is this relevant to my current circumstances and problem?
Why did these tactics work for me in the past?
Who helped me in the past, and how can they assist me in the present?
Why is all this important? And how can I best utilize it?
Comprehension
Your goal here is to demonstrate your understanding of your current problem or predicament. You must essentially gather thorough objective insights about the events and circumstances that are manifesting within your reality. This is best achieved through a process of organizing, comparing, translating and possibly interpreting your predicament from a variety of angles and perspectives. This is where the Outstanding Critical Thinker distinguishes between facts and opinions, between causes and effects, and between ideas and assumptions. Here are some questions to get you started:
What is really going on here?
How could I look at this problem from a variety of different angles and perspectives?
How does this problem compare with my past experience and understanding?
Application
Your goal here is to take a look at hypothetical solutions to your problem. This is best achieved through the process of applying your acquired knowledge, facts, and the insights you gained from the previous two steps in a unique way. We discussed many of these strategies throughout the Creative Thinking and Problem Solving IQ Matrixes. If you haven’t done so already, than have a read through them to further your understanding about this step. However, before proceeding to the questions, it is important to clarify that the key here is to only flex your understanding about the potential solutions that may be possible. It’s all about possibilities here, and not so much about probabilities. Hence, keep a flexible approach and gain as clear of a perspective about your circumstances as is possible. Here are some questions to get you started:
What if…?
How would I best utilize…?
What examples, techniques, objects and tools can I find that could further assist me here?
What approach could I use that would expand the possibilities here?
What would result if I did…?
Analysis
Now that you have loosened your mind through the process of formulating hypothetical solutions, you are now free to enter the Examination Stage, where you break the information and knowledge you have gathered into chunks, that will help you to reach effective explanations for the motives or causes of this problem. By fully understanding the causes, you will be better prepared to critically examine the concrete solutions within the Synthesis Stage. This is also the moment where the Outstanding Critical Thinker analyses all the information they have collected through comparing, ordering and intensive questioning tactics. Here are some questions to get you started:
How is this related to…?
What is the relationship between…?
What distinctions can I make between…?
What are the possible causes that triggered this problem in the first place?
What possible conclusions can be drawn from this?
What evidence can I find to backup these conclusions?
What other ideas can justify this?
What new possibilities of understanding does this bring to mind?
Synthesis
Now that you have a rough idea of the potential solutions and have pinpointed the causes that led to the formation of this problem, you are finally ready to synthesize and compile all this information in a way that will help you gain unique insights into the potential solutions to your problem. This is where the Outstanding Critical Thinker begins their search for patterns and connections between pieces of information, helping them to reach new insights and answers that may not have been evident before. Here are some questions to get you started:
What possible changes could I make to solve this effectively?
How would I potentially improve…?
What would happen if…?
How could I potentially change…?
What could be done to minimize this problem most effectively?
Suppose I could… What would I do?
What could I construct that would change…?
What is the best potential solution for this problem?
How would I test the potential consequences of these outcomes?
Evaluation
Within the final stage of this critical thinking process you must be prepared to defend and test the validity of the solutions you brought forward throughout the Synthesis Stage. You must effectively develop a set of criteria that you will utilize to evaluate the potential solutions to your problem. Without this “set of criteria” you will struggle to find the answers you are after. Here are some questions to get you started:
How could I prove or disprove the advantages of choosing this method to overcome my problem?
How could I evaluate this more thoroughly? What new insights could I gain?
How could I be certain of the potential outcomes?
How can I justify that this is the ideal and correct solution? How could I argue against this justification?
What solution would I choose if…?
Critical Thinking Perspectives
An Outstanding Critical Thinker perceives the world from a vastly different perspective than the average person. They naturally see things that others don’t because they are not afraid to ask the difficult questions that will help to open their mind and expand their habitual processes of thinking. As a result, they reach better insights, understandings, and therefore are able to reach more effective decisions to help them overcome the challenges and obstacles in their life. The following is a list of methods that Critical Thinkers use to analyze the problems within their life. Each step of this analysis process allows them to dig deeper into the underlying factors of a problem, and thusly enables them to gain a wider perspective of the events and circumstances.
Facts vs. Opinion Analysis
An Outstanding Critical Thinker understands and immediately picks up on the differences between facts and opinions. They realize that opinions are based on feelings, suggestions and future predictions. On the other hand, facts are built upon evidence, past events and upon variables that can easily be proven and measured. They fully realize that the best way to work through their problems is to base their understanding upon concrete facts that will help them reach effective solutions to their circumstances.
Fact Based Words – “Has… Was… Is…”
Opinion Based Words – “Could… Should… Might… Possibly… Potentially…”
Definitive vs. Indefinitive Analysis
An Outstanding Critical Thinker takes time to analyze each and every circumstance from a definitive and indefinite perspective. They understand that they must be very careful not to jump to any rushed conclusions or make unnecessary assumptions about the events and circumstances they are experiencing. Yet at the same time, they fully realize the importance of bringing forth all the possible assumptions that could be made when dealing with this particular problem. This “Conscious Assumption Awareness” will essentially lead them to the answers they are searching for. Here are some questions that will help you to break through the assumptions that may be hindering your understanding about your problems:
What can I directly observe?
What could potentially be misinterpreted here?
What is another explanation for this?
Reliable vs. Unreliable Analysis
An Outstanding Critical Thinker takes time to judge whether or not a certain perspective or piece of information is reliable or unreliable. They fully understand that if they are unable to identify the reliability of something, that this could essentially throw them off the beaten track, which will make it ever more so difficult to overcome the problems confronting their reality. Here are some questions that will help you break down the reliability of the perspectives you have taken:
Can this perspective be justified?
Where is the evidence for this?
What is it about this that doesn’t quite compute?
Relevant vs. Irrelevant Analysis
An Outstanding Critical Thinker does not waste their time on irrelevant perspectives and pieces of information. They fully know that focusing on irrelevant information and perspectives will lead them to a dead-end that could essentially exacerbate their problems even further. As a result they Zero-In on the most relevant information, perspectives and solutions that will help them to successfully overcome the obstacles and challenges standing in their way. Here are some questions that will help you to identify the relevance and irrelevance of the perspectives you have taken:
Is this really relevant to the outcome I seek to attain?
Is this really relevant to the solutions I hope to realize?
What is most relevant to my outcome, and what should I be focusing my attention on?
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What is not relevant to my outcome at all?
Critical Thinker’s Questioning Tactics
Outstanding critical thinking effectively rests upon the quality of questions we regularly ask ourselves to help us overcome the challenges in life. Our problems have an amazing and all encompassing power when we fail to control and understand their fickle ways. However, through the process of asking effective critical questions we gaiew insights that open the doors to a greater sense of control, helping us reach better solutions to our problematic circumstances. This branch of the IQ Matrix focuses on a simple questioning process that will force you to think more critically about the problems and circumstances in your life.
Seek Clarification
Whenever first confronted by a problem it is paramount that you immediately seek to clarify what exactly is going on from a variety of different angles and perspectives. Your goal is to immediately question yourself and others about the problem, identifying the potential causes, reasons, meanings and possible solutions that need to be pieced together. Here are some questions you should ask yourself or others about the problem:
What do you mean when you say…?
Why do you say that?
Could you give me an example of why this is the case?
Can you provide reasons for your perspective and the stance you have taken?
Could you explain that further?
What other possible factors could have triggered this problem?
What else could this mean?
Why is this important?
Can you restate that another way?
Break Down Assumptions
Once you have thoroughly clarified the problem, your next step is to break down all the possible assumptions that may be coloring your perception of reality. This is achieved through questioning possible misunderstandings or misleading conclusions that have been made. Here are some questions you should ask yourself or others about the problem:
Could this potentially be a simple overlooked assumption?
How can you justify this statement?
Why do you think your assumptions hold here?
Why can’t you conclude that?
How can you break this down another way?
Probe Different Points of View
Once you have identified and broken down the possible assumptions that you or others might be making, you are now ready to probe for different points of view or perspectives that will help you to understand the problem from a variety of unique angles. Here are some questions you should ask yourself or others about the problem:
What would someone who disagrees with you say?
Does anyone see this another way? How exactly?
Why have you approached the issue from this perspective?
Have you considered the opposite point of view?
What are some other points of view?
How are other points of view justified?
Probe for Evidence
Having obtained a variety of perspectives and points of view, your next step is to begin questioning the validity of these perspectives. A few Words of Warning: If you do not validate these perspectives accurately, they may essentially lead you down the wrong path, and you will therefore fail to find an effective solution to your problem. Here are some questions you should ask yourself or others about the problem:
What are your reasons for saying that?
Could you explain your reasons further?
How do you know that’s true?
How does that apply here in this particular situation?
Why did you say that?
Are these reasons adequate?
Probe for Potential Consequences
The final step of this critical questioning process is to question the possible solutions, effects and implications of the outcomes and perspectives you have reached. Here are some questions you should ask yourself or others about this problem:
When you say… are you implying that…?
What effect will that have in the short and long-term?
If this is the case, than what else must follow?
What are the possible consequences of this decision?
Is this the only solution that is available, or is there another alternative?
Final Thoughts
Critical thinking is more than just a way of processing, organizing and validating chunks of information, it is in fact a lifestyle that we must cultivate and adopt into our habitual patterns of thought and behavior in order to breakthrough the obstacles confronting our everyday reality. However, many of us may very well ignore this process and continue to go about our daily lives accepting reality as it appears to be from our limited external perspective. We accept that problems exist, we accept that circumstances will not go our way, and we accept that disappointment awaits us around the corner. This act of acceptance breeds lazy habitual patterns of thinking, acting and decision making, that lock us away into a never changing inflexible world. We struggle to find answers because we lack the necessary habits of thought that will allow us to expand our understanding and perspective about our circumstances. As a result we fail to find the solutions that will awaken our critical thinker from within.
The solution is to begin transforming our perspective through the meticulous process of asking effective sets of questions that will help us to expand our understanding and awareness about our reality. Cultivate these critical thinking questions, practice them, work through them, and bring them forth into your daily patterns of thinking and acting, and you will progressively Become an Outstanding Critical Thinker.
I hope you enjoyed this post. If you have utilized any of these critical thinking tactics, or would like to share some of your own, than please feel free to comment below.
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