Critical Thinking






 * "Critical thinking is essential if we are to get to the root of our problems and develop reasonable solutions. After all, the quality of everything we do is determined by the quality of our thinking." (Critical Thinking Community at http://www.criticalthinking.org/ABOUT/index.cfm.)


 * "An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself." (Albert Camus; French novelist, essayist and playwright, who received the 1957 Nobel Prize for literature; 1913-1960.)

Introduction
Critical thinking is part of every academic discipline. Moving toward a higher level of knowledge, skills, and performance in a discipline includes becoming better at critical thinking within the discipline. Thus, every teacher has a responsibility of helping students to improve their critical thinking skills within the discipline areas of the teacher.

Quoting from the Center for Critical Thinking:.


 * The world in which we now live requires that we continually relearn, that we routinely rethink our decisions, that we regularly reevaluate the way we work and live. In short, there is a new world facing us, one in which the power of the mind to command itself, to regularly engage in self-analysis, will increasingly determine the quality of our work, the quality of our lives, and perhaps even, our very survival.

Definitions of Critical Thinking
Quoting from the Wikipedia:


 * …the process of critical thinking involves acquiring information and evaluating it to reach a well-justified conclusion or answer. Part of critical thinking comprises informal logic. However, a large part of critical thinking goes beyond informal logic and includes assessment of beliefs and identification of prejudice, bias, propaganda, self-deception, distortion, misinformation, etc. Given research in cognitive psychology, some educators believe that schools should focus more on teaching their students critical thinking skills, intellectual standards, and cultivating intellectual traits (such as intellectual humility, intellectual empathy, intellectual integrity, and fair-mindedness) than on memorizing facts by rote learning.

Problem solving and critical thinking are closely connected fields of study. Diane Halpern is a world class expert in critical thinking as a component of cognitive psychology. The following quote is from her article, Why Wisdom? (Halpern, 2002).


 * The term critical thinking is the use of those cognitive skills or strategies that increases the probability of a desirable outcome. It is purposeful, reasoned, and goal directed. It is the kind of thinking involved in solving problems, formulating inferences, calculating likelihood, and making decisions. Critical thinkers use these skills appropriately, without prompting, and usually with conscious intent, in a variety of settings. That is, they are predisposed to think critically. When we think critically, we are evaluating the outcomes of our thought processes—how good a decision is or how well a problem is solved. Critical thinking also involves evaluating the thinking processes—the reasoning that went into the conclusion we have arrived at or the kinds of factors considered in making a decision.

Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis provides a college student-oriented definition of critical thinking. Quoting from their website:


 * [Critical Thinking is the] ability of students to analyze information and ideas carefully and logically from multiple perspectives. This skill is demonstrated by the ability of students to:


 * analyze complex issues and make informed decisions;
 * synthesize information in order to arrive at reasoned conclusions;
 * evaluate the logic, validity, and relevance of data;
 * use knowledge and understanding in order to generate and explore new questions.

A 2007 article by Yorman Harpaz traces the history of writing about critical thinking to John Dewey in the 1930s and David Russell in the early 1940s. Quoting from this article:


 * What is right thinking or critical thinking? Russell based his definition on the habit of thinking. The development of habits of critical thinking, he wrote, is more important than the transfer of knowledge or facts, as the latter tend to be forgotten while the former tend to persist. In another article he based critical thinking on four components: knowledge of the field or fields in which thinking is being done, attitudes and habits of questioning and suspending judgments, the application of logic and scientific method to the problem situation, and taking action in light of this line of thinking (Russell, 1943, p. 746). In a third attempt to define critical thinking Russell cut short the fourth component and offered a concise definition: "This [critical thinking] seems to involve attitude plus knowledge of facts plus some thinking skills" (Russell, 1960, p. 651). (Harpaz,2007.)


 * I would like to construct from this definition the formula for teaching thinking. If we substitute good thinking for critical thinking, disposition for attitude, and understanding for knowledge (substitutions that will be explained below), we arrive at the formula: Good Thinking  = Thinking Skills  +  Thinking Dispositions  +  Understanding of Knowledge. This formula is implied in the writings of various theoreticians of teaching thinking, and it suggests a key to an initial mapping of various theories and programs included in teaching thinking.

In summary, critical thinking is relevant in every academic discipline and is often listed as a major goal of formal education. Critical thinking involves a combination of thinking skills, thinking disposition, and understanding of the content area or discipline one is thinking about.

Researchers in artificial intelligence freely admit that at the current time, critical thinking is an activity in which humans far exceed artificially intelligent computers. Some believe that this will always be the case, while others argue that in some modest period of time (perhaps as little as 50 years), computers will overtake humans.

Cognitive Development, Expertise, and Critical Thinking
Students move up the Piagetian and other cognitive development scales through a combination of increasing brain maturity and appropriate informal and formal education. The increasing level of brain maturity and education facilitates an increasing level of critical thinking.

This can tie in well with increasing levels of expertise in an academic discipline or sub-discipline. A high level of critical thinking in an academic discipline is an important component of a high level of competence in the problem-solving aspects of expertise in the discipline.

As you know, the Web can be thought of as a virtual library, and it is growing very rapidly. Even quite young students learn to access materials from the Web.

But, what happens when one keys in some search terms for a search? The result is usually a quite large number of "hits," presented in some order deemed desirable by the developers of the search engine being used. How does a student decide which of the hits to read and what parts of the information presented can be believed? Much of the answer to this is summarized by the term, critical thinking. Thus, both teacher and students can view the Web as an excellent vehicle with which to teach and practice some important aspects of critical thinking.

Domain Independent vs. Domain Specific
People tend to use the term discipline when talking about a large and inclusive discipline of study, a sub-discipline, an interdisciplinary discipline, and so on. Each academic discipline or area of study can be defined by a combination of general things such as:


 * The types of problems, tasks, and activities it addresses.
 * Its accumulated accomplishments such as results, achievements, products, performances, scope, power, uses, impact on the societies of the world, and so on.
 * Its history, culture, and language, including notation and special vocabulary.
 * Its methods of teaching, learning, assessment, and thinking. What it does to preserve and sustain its work and pass it on to future generations.
 * Its tools, methodologies, and types of evidence and arguments used in solving problems, accomplishing tasks, and recording and sharing accumulated results.
 * The knowledge and skills that separate and distinguish among: a) a novice; b) a person who has a personally useful level of competence; c) a reasonably competent person, employable in the discipline; d) an expert; and e) a world-class expert.

There has been a lot of research on domain-dependent and domain-independent aspects of problem solving. It seems to me that the same line of thinking would lead to research on domain-independent and domain-specific aspects of critical thinking. Quoting Richard Feynman: "I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy."

My conclusion is that in our formal educational system, each teacher has a responsibility of helping students increase their levels of critical thinking within the disciplines the teacher teaches. In addition, each teacher has a responsibility of helping students gain in interdisciplinary, general-purpose critical thinking knowledge and skills.

Assessment of Critical Thinking
Teachers need feedback on how well they are teaching critical thinking. Students need feedback on how well they are progressing in increasing their critical thinking skills. College and universities want to assess their applicants for their level of critical thinking. [CriticalThinking.Net http://www.criticalthinking.net/CTTestList1199.html] contains a 1999 Annotated List of Critical thinking Tests prepared by Robert Ennis.

Ennis has written extensively about assessment of critical thinking. Quoting from Critical Thinking Assessment:


 * Critical thinking assessment (or testing) is a topic often unfortunately postponed until after crucial decisions have been made. Some reasons people have for testing students' critical thinking abilities and dispositions are:


 * diagnosing the levels of students' critical thinking abilities and dispositions, so that teachers can decide what to teach;


 * giving students feedback about their prowess in critical thinking, so that they can decide what to do about it;


 * motivating students to be better critical thinkers;


 * informing teachers about the success of their efforts to teach critical thinking to their students;


 * doing research about critical thinking instructional techniques and materials;


 * providing admissions information and guidance about prospective students; and


 * providing information for holding schools and others accountable for the critical thinking or their students.

In a 2008 article, Robert Ennis discusses the idea of nationwide testing of critical thinking in higher education (Ennis, 2008). Here is the abstract of that article:


 * The Spellings Commission recommends widespread critical-thinking testing to help determine the "value added" by higher education institutions—with the data banked and made available ("transparent") in order to enable parents, students, and policy makers to compare institutions and hold them accountable. Because of the likely and desirable promotion of critical thinking that would result from the Commission's program, Ennis recommends cooperation by critical-thinking faculty and administrators, but only if there is much less comparability and considerably deeper transparency of the tests and their justification than the Commission recommends, and only only if vigilance in handling the many problems and dangers elaborated herein is successful.

Structures for Student Self-assessment contains a number of self-assessment activities for use with students. Examples are given for use in assessing writing, listening, speaking, and reading. The following quote is from the section on assessing reading:


 * You put the students into groups of threes, each with a letter assigned (A, B, or C). You then read a paragraph or two out of the text aloud slowly, commenting on what you are reading as you are reading, explaining what is making immediate sense to you and what you need to figure out by further reading.


 * After modeling in this manner for a couple of paragraphs, you ask A to take over and read aloud to B and C, explaining to them, sentence by sentence, what he/she is able to figure out and what he/she is not. After A is finished with two paragraphs, then B and C comment on what they do and do not understand (in the paragraphs that A read).


 * Then you read aloud to the whole class the two paragraphs that A read, commenting as you go. Then B takes over and reads the next two paragraphs to A and C. Then A and C add their thoughts. Then you read aloud what B read. Then you go on to C who reads the next two paragraphs to A and B. And so on. And so forth. As the students are reading in their groups of three, you are circulating around the room listening in and getting an idea of the level of proficiency of their critical reading. The more you use this process, the better students get.

Computer vs. Human
The issue of whether a computer system can think is a widely debated aspect of artificial intelligence. Some argue that we are making progress toward having AI systems that can think, while others feel the first group is deluding itself.

There is no doubt that computer systems are becoming better at solving certain types of problems and accomplishing certain types of tasks using the data, information, and knowledge available to them. Some of the methods used by computers to solve problems and accomplish tasks are based on how humans and human brains do the same thing. Others use approaches that are quite different from the way that humans approach the problems and tasks.

Educational Implications
We can ask and discuss the question: "Can a computer system do critical thinking—now, or ever?" Regardless of current insights into answers to this question,  humans now routinely work with and make use of the type of "thinking" that computer systems do. Thus, I believe that a modern education should help prepare students to work with computer systems that do "computer thinking" and with humans who do "human critical thinking." See Two Brains are Better than One.

Here is another way of looking at this situation. Humans can do a certain type of thinking. Computer systems can do a certain type of "artificial intelligence thinking." The "artificial intelligence thinking" will get better through building better computers and through research. A good education prepares people to deal with this changing situation.

Thus, I recommend that we regard "critical thinking" as a combination of (1) learning how to do human thinking that appropriately takes into consideration the AI capabilities of computers, and (2) learning how to do human thinking at a better/different/higher level than computers can achieve.

Author or Authors
The initial version of this article was written by Dave Moursund.