Critical Thinking and Intellectual Styles

Critical Thinking , 2021

Critical thinking is all about being a good skeptic. Without sounding too much like a flat-earther, the simple reality is that most information we encounter each day is not what it seems. This is equally true for everything from the words of a book to the messages on our phones, the images we see, the experimental results we gather, what's on the news, and what our leaders tell us. In short, the information we gather from the world around us is always somewhat influenced by the long chain of steps that it takes to get to us. This could be as innocent as an error by the author or as devious as an outright lie intended to steer our choices. But even once the information reaches us, we're not immune from applying our own worldview to it, including whatever prejudices, biases, and limitations that might contain. Critical thinking is the process of understanding this messy chain of information transfer so that when we encounter new information, we can better appreciate its veracity. In other words, to what extent we should trust it and how it should inform our beliefs and actions going forward. By teaching critical thinking, we hope to equip students with the ability to interpret, analyze, evaluate and infer the considerations upon which we draw meaning from information; considerations as evidence, concepts, methodologies, context, and the biases in between. We hope that by doing this, students will ultimately be able to make better decisions.

Journal of Curriculum Studies, 1999

In this paper, the first of two, we analyze three widely-held conceptions of critical thinking: as one or more skills, as mental processes, and as sets of procedures. Each view is, we contend, wrong-headed, misleading or, at best, unhelpful. Some who written about critical thinking seem to muddle all three views in an unenlightening mélange. Apart from the errors or inadequacies of the conceptions themselves, they promote or abet misconceived practices for teaching critical thinking. Together, they have led to the view that critical thinking is best taught by practicing it. We offer alternative proposals for the teaching of critical thinking. Critical thinking is a subject of considerable current interest, both in terms of theory and pedagogy. A great deal is written about critical thinking, conferences on the subject abound, and educational initiatives aimed at fostering critical thinking proliferate. It is our view that much of the theoretical work and many of the pedagogical endeavors in this area are misdirected because they are based on faulty conceptions of critical thinking. Critical thinking is frequently conceptualized in terms of skills, processes, procedures and practice. Much of the educational literature either refers to cognitive or thinking skills or equates critical thinking with certain mental processes or procedural moves that can be improved through practice. In this paper we attempt to explain the misconceptions inherent in such ways of conceptualizing critical thinking. It is important to note that much of the literature contains a pervasive miasma of overlapping uses of such terms as skill, process, procedure, behavior, mental operations, etc. We thus find similar kinds of error and confusion about critical thinking under superficially different ways of talking. We have tried to focus on plausibly distinct uses of skill, process and procedure in our critiques. Our arguments will lay the groundwork for offering a new conception based on different foundational assumptions in the following paper on this theme. Many educators and theorists appear to view the task of teaching critical thinking as primarily a matter of developing thinking skills. Courses and conferences focus on the development of thinking skills and references to skills appear in much of the literature. Even leading theorists in the area of critical thinking conceptualize critical thinking largely in terms of skill. Thus, for example, Siegel (1988: 39, 41) writes of the critical thinker as possessing `a certain character as well as certain skills', and makes reference to `a wide variety of reasoning skills'. Similarly, Paul (1984: 5) refers to critical thinking skills and describes them as `a set of integrated macro-logical skills'. The Delphi Report on critical thinking (Facione 1990), which purports to be based on expert consensus in the field, views critical thinking in terms of cognitive skills in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation and self-regulation. It is important to note that the term `skill' can be used in a variety of senses and that, as a consequence, some of the discussion of skills in critical thinking is relatively unproblematic. In some instances `skill' is used to indicate that an individual is proficient at the task in question. It is used, in this context, in an achievement sense. As killed reasoner is one who is able to reason well and to meet the relevant criteria for good reasoning. The use of skill in this context focuses attention on students being capable of intelligent performance as opposed to merely having propositional knowledge about intelligent performance. Thus, someone who is thinking critically can do more than cite a definition for ad hominem. He or she will notice inappropriate appeals to an arguer's character in particular argumentative contexts. Clearly, being a critical thinker involves, among other things, having a certain amount of `know-how'. Such thinkers are skilled, then, in the sense that they must be able to fulfill relevant standards of good thinking. Conceptualizing critical thinking as involving skill in this achievement sense is relatively benign.

SOCIAL WELFARE: INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH

The article discusses the construction of the critical thinking concept in higher education and its change in scientific publications between 1993 and 2017. Based on a systematic literature review, the following research questions are raised: how does construction of critical thinking concept change in the context of higher education during time? How are personal, interpersonal, and social aspects expressed in the concept of critical thinking in the context of higher education? The systematic literature review revealed significant grow of publications starting from 1998. It is also disclosed slight change in treating critical thinking as purely general or domain-specific competence. The authors of the researched articles do not make clear division between critical thinking as a general and as a domain-specific competence. Researchers in different fields tend to associate critical thinking with the development of a person’s cognitive and intellectual capacities, including skills and...

2020

International Education Studies, 2015

Learning critical thinking skills are the goal of educational systems so the term "critical thinking" (CT) is frequently found in educational policy documents. Despite this frequency, however, precise understandings among teachers of what CT really means do not exit. The present study is designed to answer the following question. We can classify critical thinking concept in a conceptual framework. A qualitative content analysis with deductive categorization was used to classify critical thinking concept in a conceptual framework .The research field (statistical population) included all available digital and written sources related to critical thinking. The Research sample was a purposeful homogeneous sample. It is used to describe the sample that includes information based on the qualitative research goals. The results showed that critical thinking concept could be investigated in fields of both psychology and philosophy. While philosophers emphasis on the nature and quality of critical thinking, psychologists focus on cognitive process and components used to investigate the practical problems. So philosophers emphasize critical thinking attitudes while psychologists focus on critical thinking skills.

2013

2019

This paper offers a state-of-the-art working definition for the concept of Critical Thinking (CT hereafter) in an attempt to provide a framework for the development of an operational definition for this complex concept. Having studied various definitions and models, proposed for CT by major figures in the field, the key defining features of this rich concept were identified and classified. Based on these key descriptors, a working definition consisting of three main components namely Mind Analysis, Data Evaluation, and Thinking in Education has been proposed and then each dimension of this definition is defined and elaborated further so that the complexity of the concept could be framed in an extended model. The elaborated conception of CT proposed in this paper seeks to include the core elements of CT so that it can be expandable into an operational definition with measurable items. There are two main reasons for conducting this research: Firstly, CT has evolved into a multifaceted...

Journal of Curriculum Studies, 1999

In this paper, the first of two, we analyze three widely-held conceptions of critical thinking: as one or more skills, as mental processes, and as sets of procedures. Each view is, we contend, wrong-headed, misleading or, at best, unhelpful. Some who written about critical thinking seem to muddle all three views in an unenlightening mélange. Apart from the errors or inadequacies of the conceptions themselves, they promote or abet misconceived practices for teaching critical thinking. Together, they have led to the view that critical thinking is best taught by practicing it. We offer alternative proposals for the teaching of critical thinking. Critical thinking is a subject of considerable current interest, both in terms of theory and pedagogy. A great deal is written about critical thinking, conferences on the subject abound, and educational initiatives aimed at fostering critical thinking proliferate. It is our view that much of the theoretical work and many of the pedagogical endeavors in this area are misdirected because they are based on faulty conceptions of critical thinking. Critical thinking is frequently conceptualized in terms of skills, processes, procedures and practice. Much of the educational literature either refers to cognitive or thinking skills or equates critical thinking with certain mental processes or procedural moves that can be improved through practice. In this paper we attempt to explain the misconceptions inherent in such ways of conceptualizing critical thinking. It is important to note that much of the literature contains a pervasive miasma of overlapping uses of such terms as skill, process, procedure, behavior, mental operations, etc. We thus find similar kinds of error and confusion about critical thinking under superficially different ways of talking. We have tried to focus on plausibly distinct uses of skill, process and procedure in our critiques. Our arguments will lay the groundwork for offering a new conception based on different foundational assumptions in the following paper on this theme. Many educators and theorists appear to view the task of teaching critical thinking as primarily a matter of developing thinking skills. Courses and conferences focus on the development of thinking skills and references to skills appear in much of the literature. Even leading theorists in the area of critical thinking conceptualize critical thinking largely in terms of skill. Thus, for example, Siegel (1988: 39, 41) writes of the critical thinker as possessing `a certain character as well as certain skills', and makes reference to `a wide variety of reasoning skills'. Similarly, Paul (1984: 5) refers to critical thinking skills and describes them as `a set of integrated macro-logical skills'. The Delphi Report on critical thinking (Facione 1990), which purports to be based on expert consensus in the field, views critical thinking in terms of cognitive skills in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation and self-regulation. It is important to note that the term `skill' can be used in a variety of senses and that, as a consequence, some of the discussion of skills in critical thinking is relatively unproblematic. In some instances `skill' is used to indicate that an individual is proficient at the task in question. It is used, in this context, in an achievement sense. As killed reasoner is one who is able to reason well and to meet the relevant criteria for good reasoning. The use of skill in this context focuses attention on students being capable of intelligent performance as opposed to merely having propositional knowledge about intelligent performance. Thus, someone who is thinking critically can do more than cite a definition for ad hominem. He or she will notice inappropriate appeals to an arguer's character in particular argumentative contexts. Clearly, being a critical thinker involves, among other things, having a certain amount of `know-how'. Such thinkers are skilled, then, in the sense that they must be able to fulfill relevant standards of good thinking. Conceptualizing critical thinking as involving skill in this achievement sense is relatively benign.