What is critical thinking?

In their book, Richard D. Solomon and Neil A Davidson (2012) , Encouraging Skillful, Critical and Creative Thinking: Participant’s Guide Fourth R Consulting,  LLC, Tucson, AZ, wrote the following narrative about critical thinking:

What is Critical Thinking?*

Several Perspectives

1.     Critical thinking is the active and systematic attempt to understand, evaluate, and find flaws in arguments.

2.     Critical thinking involves deciding what to believe and how to act after a careful evaluation of the evidence and reasoning in a communication.

3.     If students are to exhibit critical thinking skills, they must learn to decide when specific cognitive skills are relevant (a metacognitive skill) and then successfully apply the cognitive skills to solve problems.

4.     Critical thinking is an active, purposeful, organized, cognitive process we use to carefully examine our thinking and the thinking of others, in order to clarify and improve our understanding.

5.     Critical thinking is an investigation whose purpose is to explore a situation, phenomenon, question, or problem to arrive at a hypothesis or conclusion about it that integrates all available information and can therefore be convincingly justified. In critical thinking, all assumptions are open to question, divergent views are aggressively sought, and the inquiry is not biased in favor of a particular outcome.

6.     The hallmark of a critical thinker is an inquiring mind. Simply put, good thinkers are good questioners. Critical thinking is the process of raising questions.

7.     Critical thinking involves the skill and propensity to engage in an activity with reflective skepticism.

8.     A critical thinker is the individual who is appropriately moved by reasons.

9.     Critical thinking is skillful, responsible thinking that facilitates good judgment because it (1) relies upon criteria, (2) is self-correcting, and (3) is sensitive to context.

10.  Critical thinking is the process of purposeful, self-regulatory judgment. This process gives reasoned consideration to evidence, contexts, conceptualizations, methods, and criteria.

11.  Critical thinking is the use of those cognitive skills or strategies that increase the probability of a desirable outcome.

Words or Phrases Associated with Critical Thinking*

Clear thinking, effective thinking, good reasoning, good  thinking, thinking straight, intelligent thinking, smart thinking, practical thinking, practical reasoning, good judgment, reflective judgment, higher order thinking, higher order thinking skills, complex thinking, Bloom's higher levels of educational objectives, reasoning (reasoning abilities), problem solving (creative problem solving), assess the reasons for making decisions, making informed decisions, assessing the validity of arguments, critical evaluation, critical analysis, dealing with controversy, assessing evidence, assess both the evidence and reasons in a communication, raising questions, raising good questions, asking intelligent questions, informal reasoning, informal logic, critical reading, reading critically, reading between the lines; involves only skills (abilities); involves skills plus dispositions (attitudes, tendencies); involves knowledge skills and dispositions; involves the attitude of skepticism, metacognition (metacognitive thinking--thinking about thinking); discovering the weaknesses in the ideas, reasoning, and evidence of others; discovering the weaknesses in our own ideas, reasoning, and evidence, being self-critical, self correcting, self assessing,  and self evaluating.

Examples of Critical Thinking Questions

Here are questions for consideration:

What do I know about the source of the information?

Do I understand what I have read?

Am I clear on the definition of key terms?

What assertions (arguments, claims, conclusions) is the writer or speaker  making?

What evidence is given to support the assertions (arguments, claims, conclusions)?

What assumptions is the writer or speaker making?

Are there other ways of explaining the evidence?

What additional evidence might I need to obtain to decide what to believe?

What do I decide to believe?

How can I use (apply) what I have learned?

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* Reprinted with permission from Dr. James Bell, Professor, Howard County Community College, (1997). Teaching Students to Think Critically by Using Active Learning and Cooperative Learning, Presentation at the First Annual Lilly Conference on College Teaching, Towson, Maryland, March 4, 1997.

*   Reprinted with permission from Dr. James Bell, Professor, Howard County Community College, (1997). Teaching Students to Think Critically by Using Active Learning and Cooperative Learning, Presentation at the First Annual Lilly Conference on College Teaching, Towson, Maryland, March 4, 1997.

   In the next post we will share additional definitions and resources on critical thinking.