critical thinking questions

critical thinking questions

Developing Critical Thinking Skills

1. Introduction

Critical thinking is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture (Bacon, 1605). The word ‘critical’ derives etymologically from two Greek roots: “kriticos” (meaning discerning judgment) and “kriterion” (meaning standards). Using the etymology as a guide, a critical thinker is someone who employs standards and imitates the act of the “good thinker” in assessing well the problems they are presently engaged in. (Ennis, 1993) Simply put, critical thinking is being as objective as one can in analyzing and evaluating an issue so that a judgment can be formed about it. More and more students are being asked to demonstrate critical thinking skills in their assessments. This is being driven by employers’ requirements for employees who can work independently and make decisions. Critical thinking involves a number of ways to approach a question, issue, or problem, including logical reasoning, the scientific method, and mathematical reasoning. By using the critical thinking approach, Ellis (2005, p. 60) argued that students can achieve: comprehensive and clear expression of ideas, effective communication, sound decision making, and a lifetime intellectual empowerment. In short, critical thinking requires effort and doesn’t always result in a positive outcome. (Ellis, 2005) This essay is a chapter in Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 2, a peer-reviewed open textbook series for the writing classroom and other disciplines. Written in a are aimed at engaging students in critical thinking. This chapter is an anecdote shared by Ronald F. Rodgers (2010), a practicing trial lawyer and legal theorist for over thirty-five years who created a teaching program that focuses on teaching critical thinking to law students. The aim of the anecdote is to show that a lawyer must be a critical thinker and the decisions they make, through applying critical thinking skills, can have major effects on peoples’ lives. This sets a perfect standard to what higher education students are aiming to achieve. Kabilan (2010, p. 11). Kabilan uses Bloom’s taxonomy to show how critical thinking can be used in writing. He says that one must be knowledgeable in the subject they are writing on. Then they comprehend the issues at hand and analyze the information. The critical aspect is applying this knowledge and these skills to evaluate the task then making a judgment or decision on the best course of action or solution. Bloom’s taxonomy provides a useful way to check that the decisions have been made based on sound judgment. Kabilan states that most teachers in educational institutions expect a very high standard of writing and an excellent evaluation and judgment of a task demonstrates the usage of critical thinking skills. Ellis (2005) agrees with this and believes that critical thinking to be the most important criteria for assessment and the best indicator for future success, more important than job specific knowledge. This is backed by Carroll (2002) who says that critical thinking is one of the nine criteria for assessing whether a scholars thinking is intellectually disciplined. Overall, these anecdotes and ideas show that higher education institutions are building a strong demand for critical thinking assessment and it is a very important skill for a student to develop. Students finding and implementing methods on how to do so would be the best way of demonstrating their critical thinking abilities.

2. Importance of Critical Thinking

So what can we say about the guided reading and the importance of developing critical thinking? It can be rather obvious that the best thinking is not automatic and that some people who are very adept at one set of thinking processes have some significant failures in their ability to think critically about many of the problems that occur in their lives. The “good” reader who is stuck on what the text says on a very low level of understanding, cannot entertain different interpretations of the same event, and cannot make an inference to save his life, is very likely to just be thinking about that information in a very one-dimensional way. He may be visualizing directly what he has read and that picture could be very concrete and quite off from what the author is trying to say. The reader may be confusing that information with some prior knowledge and not even realize that the two are at odds. If he cannot realize the inconsistency he has a very slim chance of reconciling the two different things in a way that will make sense and if he cannot do that he will not be able to effectively utilize the information in the text to accomplish whatever his purpose for reading may be.

3. Strategies for Enhancing Critical Thinking

Encouraging students to make connections between now-related material and past experiences, unexamined assumptions, values, and beliefs, detached logical analysis, and creating organizational frameworks for their thinking are all strategies that will help to increase critical thinking within the classroom. All of these strategies can be used with, or can be adapted for use with, content-specific materials. One approach to encouraging a dispositional view of critical thinking is to make critical thinking the purpose of a class or several class sessions. Through dialogue and the presentation of differing viewpoints, the facilitation of an environment where students are required to verbally express their thought processes, course instructors will be able to guide students to a better understanding of how they can actively use critical thinking.

4. Applying Critical Thinking in Everyday Life

To put critical thinking to practical use in everyday living, here are a few suggestions: 1. Reflect on your personal thinking characteristics – keep a personal journal. Periodically take a look at the work you do and the way you go about solving problems and making decisions. Do you do anything about which you feel quite sure but that you could not defend if asked? Do you conform to any negative stereotypes about how you think as a person having a certain social identity? Knowing what sustains (or undermines) your beliefs will help you to be a wiser reasoner. 2. Internalize intellectual standards. Most of us are aware of the importance of teaching children to have ethical standards. We try to teach them to care about and respect the rights and welfare of others, to be open-minded, to be responsive to feedback, and to be as fair as possible when making judgments. Imagine how good things could be if in addition we taught children (and adults) the elements of reasoning and what it means to be a “good thinker”. Armed with these intellectual standards, they begin to take thinking apart and assess it. And the more they do this with any given thought or action, the more they can teach themselves to do it with agility.

5. Conclusion

Thus, being more aware of our habitually thinking has some clear advantages. It helps us to be more open-minded, to take other points of view into account, and to better understand another person. By understanding the logic of our thinking, we can avoid a number of misjudgments that can greatly hinder the knowledge and the complete understanding of a given situation. It can also improve the development of solutions to problems on a daily basis, family and job-related. It avoids acting on the implementation of a solution only to find it has not worked or made things worse and thinking it through means we can articulate to others in a clear and more coherent way what it is we are doing and why. By using critical thinking, we can take a situation and contrast it to our framework to decide if it’s consistent and needs more research, and it widens the subject making us consider things we would not have. In the end, it’s as simple as being more aware and getting things right.