Critical Thinking by Alec Fisher

2002

2011

Critical thinking includes the component skills of analyzing arguments, making inferences using inductive or deductive reasoning, judging or evaluating, and making decisions or solving problems. Background knowledge is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for enabling critical thought within a given subject. Critical thinking involves both cognitive skills and dispositions. These dispositions, which can be seen as attitudes or habits of mind, include openand fair-mindedness, inquisitiveness, flexibility, a propensity to seek reason, a desire to be wellinformed, and a respect for and willingness to entertain diverse viewpoints. There are both generaland domain-specific aspects of critical thinking. Empirical research suggests that people begin developing critical thinking competencies at a very young age. Although adults often exhibit deficient reasoning, in theory all people can be taught to think critically. Instructors are urged to provide explicit instruction in critical th...

2020

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.

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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...

1989

Teachers College Record, 2017