is critical thinking essential to effective learning and productive living

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Critical Thinking Is About Asking Better Questions

• John Coleman

Six practices to sharpen your inquiry.

Critical thinking is the ability to analyze and effectively break down an issue in order to make a decision or find a solution. At the heart of critical thinking is the ability to formulate deep, different, and effective questions. For effective questioning, start by holding your hypotheses loosely. Be willing to fundamentally reconsider your initial conclusions — and do so without defensiveness. Second, listen more than you talk through active listening. Third, leave your queries open-ended, and avoid yes-or-no questions. Fourth, consider the counterintuitive to avoid falling into groupthink. Fifth, take the time to stew in a problem, rather than making decisions unnecessarily quickly. Last, ask thoughtful, even difficult, follow-ups.

Are you tackling a new and difficult problem at work? Recently promoted and trying to both understand your new role and bring a fresh perspective? Or are you new to the workforce and seeking ways to meaningfully contribute alongside your more experienced colleagues? If so, critical thinking — the ability to analyze and effectively break down an issue in order to make a decision or find a solution — will be core to your success. And at the heart of critical thinking is the ability to formulate deep, different, and effective questions.

• JC John Coleman is the author of the HBR Guide to Crafting Your Purpose . Subscribe to his free newsletter, On Purpose , follow him on Twitter @johnwcoleman, or contact him at johnwilliamcoleman.com.

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Critical Thinking  

 by Ibrahim B. Syed, Ph. D.  President Islamic Research Foundation International, Inc. 7102 W. Shefford Lane Louisville, KY 40242-6462, U.S.A. E-mail: [email protected] Website:  http://WWW.IRFI.ORG

"5% think, 10% think they think, 85% would rather die than think." — Anonymous

"Arguments, like men, are often pretenders." — Plato

Definition:

Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action (A draft statement by Michael Scriven and Richard Paul for the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking. (1)

Critical thinking is the ability to engage in reasoned discourse with intellectual standards such as clarity, accuracy, precision, and logic, and to use analytic skills with a fundamental value orientation that emphasizes intellectual humility, intellectual integrity, and fair-mindedness. (2)

Critical thinking is defined as reflective skepticism. Critical thinking is a way to approach problems and make decisions

Introduction

By using critical thinking one can enjoy benefits throughout one’s long life. Experience dictates that critical thinking is essential to both effective learning and productive living.

Mankind is going through the information age where ideas are plentiful. However what is lacking is the ability to evaluate ideas in a constructive manner. People with reasoning skills across a variety of situations will find jobs waiting for them. It is paramount to make the students learn how to think critically so that they can become most marketable.  Current jobs and future jobs will be displaced by new technologies. The vital requirement for future jobs will be the ability to think critically.  Fluctuations in the job market means that tomorrow's workers in order to survive should learn new skills. One should decide which skills are worth learning. Such decisions require critical thinking. Critical thinking means "involving or exercising skilled judgment or observation." Thinking is critical when it evaluates the reasoning behind a decision. Evaluation means that critical thinkers examine the outcomes of thought processes for their positive and negative attributes. But for thinking to be critical, evaluation must be carried forth in a constructive manner (3).

Thinking includes problem solving, decision-making, critical thinking, logical reasoning and creative thinking.  Thinking involves the appropriate use of knowledge, and this ability is not developed spontaneously (hastily). In America educators are emphasizing on enhancing critical thinking. Critical Thinking is an academic "buzz" word.

 Learning to think critically

Critical thinking moves beyond self-centered views of the universe to a broader, more abstract realm. This means expanding thinking beyond the egocentric values and limited life experiences.  In general, one's thinking is more likely to become critical when concrete learning experiences precede abstract thought. (4) 

Critical thinking can improve one's academic performance by developing an understanding into the arguments and views of others.  For a worker critical thinking skills can improve his/her performance in the workplace .  In daily life critical thinking helps us to avoid making foolish decisions. Critical thinking citizens make good decisions on important social, political and economic issues.  A critical thinking individual is capable of examining his/her assumptions, dogmas, and prejudices.

The purpose of critical thinking is, therefore, to achieve understanding, evaluate viewpoints, and solve problems. Critical thinking is the inquiry (the cognitive processes) we engage in when we seek to understand, evaluate, or resolve. The terms critical thinking, reflective thinking, and inquiry were primarily used synonymously.  The concept of reflective thinking has been often interpreted as problem solving.  Reflective thinking includes only aspects of what is now called critical thinking. Critical thinking appears to be a subset of problem solving. (5)

Benefits of Critical Thinking

Continuous change and evolution are facts of life. Worldwide political events occur unpredictably and with amazing speed. Economic indicators reflect increased instability in the marketplace. Technological advances continue unabated and scientific discoveries give us new understanding about our world and ourselves. We are living in an information age and the amount of information doubles every four or five years. How do we adapt in these uncomfortable times? How can we make decisions with so much volatility and how will our decisions affect our careers, our families, and ourselves?

We are temped to find "quick-fix" solutions to life. We may want to make important decisions based on intuition or emotion rather than taking the time to gather the appropriate information or carefully weigh alternatives. The media, advertisers, and others respond with simple, direct messages that tell consumers what to do, what to think, and what to buy. The desire to have easy answers is understandable, but can also be dangerous. Excessive simplification of complex problems often leads to simple "solutions" that can make matters worse. Life's problems cannot be isolated and systematically solved through a series of action steps.

Albert Einstein once said "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." Given the complexities of our world, how do we determine when we are oversimplifying an issue? Which decisions deserve our careful consideration? To what degree do we heed the advice of others and to whom do we listen? How do we go about choosing a career, the best investments, or the right doctor? (6)

It has been said, "learning to think critically is one of the most important activities of adult life."

Our Concept of Critical Thinking

Critical thinking skills are vital to well-educated individuals and acquiring this ability should be one of the most important goals in one's life.   A broad framework of intellectual rigor is called critical thinking. Critical thinking skills enable people to evaluate, compare, analyze, critique, and synthesize information. Those who possess critical thinking skills know that knowledge is not a collection of facts, but rather an ongoing process of examining information, evaluating that information, and adding it to their understanding of the world.  Critical thinkers also know to keep an open mind- and frequently end by changing their views based on new knowledge. (7)

"A broad-based education, inter-disciplinary study, and the ability to think beyond the textbook or class lecture is important for students.  Being able to think and write clearly, critically, and cogently is a skill that will contribute to quality of life. Critical thinking is the art of taking charge of your own mind. If we can take charge of our own minds, we can take charge of our lives; we can improve them, bringing them under our self-command and direction. This requires that we learn self-discipline and the art of self-examination. This involves becoming interested in how our minds work, how we can monitor, fine tune, and modify their operations for the better. It involves getting into the habit of reflectively examining our impulsive and accustomed ways of thinking and acting in every dimension of our lives." (8)

Our actions are based on some motivations or reasons. But we rarely examine our motivations to see if they make sense. We rarely inspect our reasons critically to see if they are rationally justified. As consumers we sometimes buy things hastily and uncritically (undecidedly), without ever thinking whether we really need what we are tending to buy or whether we can find the money for it or whether it's good for our health or whether the price is competitive. As parents we often react to our children impulsively and uncritically. We do not determine whether our actions are consistent with how we want to act as parents or whether we are contributing to their self-esteem. We do not think whether we are discouraging them from thinking or from taking responsibility for their own behavior.

People vote impulsively and uncritically, without taking the time to familiarize with the relevant issues and positions, without thinking about the long-run implications of what is being proposed, without paying attention to how politicians manipulate the public by flattery or vague and empty promises. As friends bring out the worst in us or who stimulate us to act in ways that we have been trying to change. As spouses we think only of our own desires and points of view, uncritically ignoring the needs and perspectives of our life-partners. As patients many times we allow ourselves to become passive and uncritical in our health care, not establishing good habits of eating and exercise, not questioning what our doctor says, not designing or following good plans for our own wellness. Too often as teachers, we permit ourselves to uncritically teach, as we have been taught, giving assignments that students can mindlessly do, unintentionally discouraging their initiative and independence, missing opportunities to cultivate their self-discipline and thoughtfulness.  It is quite possible to live an unexamined life, to live in a more or less automated, uncritical way. It is possible to live, without developing, or acting upon, the skills and insights we are capable of. However, if we allow ourselves to become unreflective persons, or rather, to the extent that we do, we are likely to do injury to ourselves and others, and to miss many opportunities to make our own lives, and the lives of others, fuller, happier, and more productive.

On this view, critical thinking is an eminently practical goal and value. It is focused on an ancient Greek ideal of "living an examined life". It is based on the skills, the insights, and the values essential to that end. We must become active, daily, practitioners of critical thought. We must regularly model for our students what it is to reflectively examine, critically assess, and effectively improve the way we live. (9)

The Qur'an repeatedly provokes and challenges the reader to think and contemplate the signs of Allah so that she/he can understand.  Human destiny is not to be passive like the angels but to be creative for which she/he has been given the most sublime gift of all, the mind . And creative mind is a critical mind. The religious justification for understanding the reading of the Qur'an as initially an intellectual challenge is that mere unreflective and unexamined acceptance of that which is handed down to us is frowned upon by Islam. There is a dynamic relationship that exists in Islam between faith and reflective thought.   And has not the Qur'an said, "(Here is), a Book which We have sent down unto thee, full of blessings, that they may meditate on its Signs, and that men of understanding may receive admonition." (Surah, Al-Sad, 38 : 29). In fact, "verily in that are Signs for those who reflect (Surah, Al-Rum, 30 : 21) is a constant theme throughout the Qur'an, which, among other things, underscores the point that meanings of the sign of Allah cannot be read just off the face of the signs but require thinking and reflection.

In Islam there is no such thing as knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Knowledge has no value and virtue in and by itself. Its virtue lies in bringing human kind closer to Allah.  The view that knowledge is the path that leads to Allah highlights two things about Islam.  Firstly that knowledge in Islam is important for a Muslim's spiritual growth and development.  And, secondly, since knowledge is acquired through the active process of going beyond what one already knows, critical thinking is essential for a Muslim to grow intellectually and spiritually.  It further suggests, that intellectual growth without spiritual development is aimless wandering, and spiritual development without the intellectual component is meaningless.

In the Western societies critical thinking is required to lead a successful life based on pragmatic and utilitarian grounds. Critical thinking in its secular mode is entirely a this worldly affair, undertaken purely to bring about changes in the world for the purpose of this life. In Islam, to engage in critical thought is a moral commitment and to be judged on it's moral worth independent of its success or failures in this world.  Allah (SWT) requires us to act morally; the success or failure of such actions is entirely in His hands. (10)

Islamic Critical Thinking

In Islam "enlightened thinkers” are known as Raushanfekran.

" Afalaa utadabbaroon al-Quran ? ( 4 :82)" Do they not do tadabbur in the Quran? So says Allah in the Quran. Tadabbur means highly concentrated goal-oriented critical thinking like the way scientists do when challenged to find something new or when they embark upon solving a difficult problem.

Qur'anic view of creative reflection is called al-Basira. In Islam Ijtihad or independent thinking is used as a principle of creative and critical thinking; rationality and scientific rationality in a secular perspective .

The Quran encourages us over and over again to think, reflect, ponder, understand and analyse. However, very rarely do parents encourage children to question. Our response to difficult inquiries from our children is to say "do it because I said so." This discourages the children from developing critical thinking. They become lazy and complacent and easy prey to cult type following. To take things at face value makes us vulnerable.

Reason is the common bond of all humans, a means of connecting to the world and to others, the same reason through which Plato and Aristotle communicated their views. Reason and intellect represent the only way of understanding this world, even though this understanding is too relative to guide us to ultimate truths. Our great thinkers, while aware of the indispensability of reason, knew that reason alone could not discover all of reality. Our religious tradition claims that it is ultimately faith of the heart, not the intellect, that comprehends the whole of reality.   (11)

If we think of reason and faith as contradictory and opposed to one another, because reason achieves more instrumental impact in this world, faith will be sidelined. It is important to note that the faith I am talking about exists alongside and parallel to reason, not in opposition to it.  

Reason can merely take us to the gates of the afterlife. Even though it is aware that the world is not limited to the material, it cannot go farther than this world. It is here that faith must step in. Humans cannot do without reason in their lives as they encounter practical matters, and if they have to choose between faith and reason, they will choose the latter. Interpretations of the world based on reason are relative, a relativity that also permeates our perceptions of religion. But if our understanding of religious tradition and the Quran gets moribund (declining) and in need of transformation, this does not mean that tradition and the Quran have aged themselves. Our intellect is capable of adapting to the current world while also remaining attuned to tradition and the Quran, such that the solid essence of religion is not harmed. Our religious thinking is bound to evolve. (12)

Due to the regime of taqlid or blind imitation, imposed in the name of religion from about the 12th century until the end of the 19th century, the Muslims swallowed the teachings of the so-called `Four Great Imams', even the wholesale medieval theology and jurisprudence, in toto . There were many factors that gave rise to this blind imitation regime of that period and we cannot discuss them here. Nevertheless, it is important for us to realize that after nearly a hundred years since the reopening of the door if ijtihad or critical thinking by Muhammad Abduh's reform movement, this taqlid regime is still with us. (13)

One should  develop critical thinking ability in one's  studies first: in science, mathematics, computers, and economics, whatever subject one has chosen. If you cannot develop this ability most probably you would not understand the Quran. Also, understanding of the Quran is a long and hard and a lifelong process. And it requires lot of patience and perseverance plus it demands sacrifice. Therefore, you should first try to take few important verses of the Quran (the ones dealing with human relationships and character building) and try to integrate them in your life and studies. Of course it will be very hard and there will be lot of temptations to skirt. But try to avoid them. But keep in mind that we are human beings. We make mistakes. So, don’t feel too bad or don’t be too hard on yourself if you make mistakes. Just make sure that next time you are careful. (14)

REFERENCES:

(1)    http://lonestar.texas.net/~mseifert/crit2.html

(2)    http://www.csus.edu/indiv/d/dowdenb/4/ct-def/def-of-ct.htm

(3)    Halpern, Diane F. Thought and knowledge in An introduction to critical thinking.   Mahwah, N.J.,  L. Erlbaum Associates , 1996. 

(4)    http://www.ncsu.edu/learn/crit3.html

(5) http://citla.kysu.edu/Resources/Critical%20Thinking/History%20Short.htm 

(6)    Why Critical Thinking?  By Craig A. Hassel, Assistant Professor and Extension Nutritionist Department of Food Science & Nutrition, the University of Minnesota. North Central Regional Extension Publication 433. Revised 1992

      (7) http://www.people.vcu.edu/~cturner/critical.htm

(8)    http://www.people.vcu.edu/~cturner/critical.htm

(9)    http://www.criticalthinking.org/K12/k12class/Oconcept.html

      (10) Yedullah Kazmi, The Role of Critical Thinking in Islam, Hamdard Islamicus, Vol. 23 (1): 27-36, Jan-March 2000.

(11)   A Message to Muslim Youth by Dr. Mansoor Alam,  www.tolueislam.com

(12)       Ibid

(13)       Ibid

(14)        Ibid

• Defining Critical Thinking
• A Brief History of the Idea of Critical Thinking
• Critical Thinking: Basic Questions & Answers
• Our Conception of Critical Thinking
• Sumner’s Definition of Critical Thinking
• Research in Critical Thinking
• Critical Societies: Thoughts from the Past

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Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is a widely accepted educational goal. Its definition is contested, but the competing definitions can be understood as differing conceptions of the same basic concept: careful thinking directed to a goal. Conceptions differ with respect to the scope of such thinking, the type of goal, the criteria and norms for thinking carefully, and the thinking components on which they focus. Its adoption as an educational goal has been recommended on the basis of respect for students’ autonomy and preparing students for success in life and for democratic citizenship. “Critical thinkers” have the dispositions and abilities that lead them to think critically when appropriate. The abilities can be identified directly; the dispositions indirectly, by considering what factors contribute to or impede exercise of the abilities. Standardized tests have been developed to assess the degree to which a person possesses such dispositions and abilities. Educational intervention has been shown experimentally to improve them, particularly when it includes dialogue, anchored instruction, and mentoring. Controversies have arisen over the generalizability of critical thinking across domains, over alleged bias in critical thinking theories and instruction, and over the relationship of critical thinking to other types of thinking.

2.1 Dewey’s Three Main Examples

2.2 dewey’s other examples, 2.3 further examples, 2.4 non-examples, 3. the definition of critical thinking, 4. its value, 5. the process of thinking critically, 6. components of the process, 7. contributory dispositions and abilities, 8.1 initiating dispositions, 8.2 internal dispositions, 9. critical thinking abilities, 10. required knowledge, 11. educational methods, 12.1 the generalizability of critical thinking, 12.2 bias in critical thinking theory and pedagogy, 12.3 relationship of critical thinking to other types of thinking, other internet resources, related entries.

Use of the term ‘critical thinking’ to describe an educational goal goes back to the American philosopher John Dewey (1910), who more commonly called it ‘reflective thinking’. He defined it as

active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends. (Dewey 1910: 6; 1933: 9)

and identified a habit of such consideration with a scientific attitude of mind. His lengthy quotations of Francis Bacon, John Locke, and John Stuart Mill indicate that he was not the first person to propose development of a scientific attitude of mind as an educational goal.

In the 1930s, many of the schools that participated in the Eight-Year Study of the Progressive Education Association (Aikin 1942) adopted critical thinking as an educational goal, for whose achievement the study’s Evaluation Staff developed tests (Smith, Tyler, & Evaluation Staff 1942). Glaser (1941) showed experimentally that it was possible to improve the critical thinking of high school students. Bloom’s influential taxonomy of cognitive educational objectives (Bloom et al. 1956) incorporated critical thinking abilities. Ennis (1962) proposed 12 aspects of critical thinking as a basis for research on the teaching and evaluation of critical thinking ability.

Since 1980, an annual international conference in California on critical thinking and educational reform has attracted tens of thousands of educators from all levels of education and from many parts of the world. Also since 1980, the state university system in California has required all undergraduate students to take a critical thinking course. Since 1983, the Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking has sponsored sessions in conjunction with the divisional meetings of the American Philosophical Association (APA). In 1987, the APA’s Committee on Pre-College Philosophy commissioned a consensus statement on critical thinking for purposes of educational assessment and instruction (Facione 1990a). Researchers have developed standardized tests of critical thinking abilities and dispositions; for details, see the Supplement on Assessment . Educational jurisdictions around the world now include critical thinking in guidelines for curriculum and assessment.

For details on this history, see the Supplement on History .

2. Examples and Non-Examples

Before considering the definition of critical thinking, it will be helpful to have in mind some examples of critical thinking, as well as some examples of kinds of thinking that would apparently not count as critical thinking.

Dewey (1910: 68–71; 1933: 91–94) takes as paradigms of reflective thinking three class papers of students in which they describe their thinking. The examples range from the everyday to the scientific.

Transit : “The other day, when I was down town on 16th Street, a clock caught my eye. I saw that the hands pointed to 12:20. This suggested that I had an engagement at 124th Street, at one o’clock. I reasoned that as it had taken me an hour to come down on a surface car, I should probably be twenty minutes late if I returned the same way. I might save twenty minutes by a subway express. But was there a station near? If not, I might lose more than twenty minutes in looking for one. Then I thought of the elevated, and I saw there was such a line within two blocks. But where was the station? If it were several blocks above or below the street I was on, I should lose time instead of gaining it. My mind went back to the subway express as quicker than the elevated; furthermore, I remembered that it went nearer than the elevated to the part of 124th Street I wished to reach, so that time would be saved at the end of the journey. I concluded in favor of the subway, and reached my destination by one o’clock.” (Dewey 1910: 68–69; 1933: 91–92)

Ferryboat : “Projecting nearly horizontally from the upper deck of the ferryboat on which I daily cross the river is a long white pole, having a gilded ball at its tip. It suggested a flagpole when I first saw it; its color, shape, and gilded ball agreed with this idea, and these reasons seemed to justify me in this belief. But soon difficulties presented themselves. The pole was nearly horizontal, an unusual position for a flagpole; in the next place, there was no pulley, ring, or cord by which to attach a flag; finally, there were elsewhere on the boat two vertical staffs from which flags were occasionally flown. It seemed probable that the pole was not there for flag-flying.

“I then tried to imagine all possible purposes of the pole, and to consider for which of these it was best suited: (a) Possibly it was an ornament. But as all the ferryboats and even the tugboats carried poles, this hypothesis was rejected. (b) Possibly it was the terminal of a wireless telegraph. But the same considerations made this improbable. Besides, the more natural place for such a terminal would be the highest part of the boat, on top of the pilot house. (c) Its purpose might be to point out the direction in which the boat is moving.

“In support of this conclusion, I discovered that the pole was lower than the pilot house, so that the steersman could easily see it. Moreover, the tip was enough higher than the base, so that, from the pilot’s position, it must appear to project far out in front of the boat. Moreover, the pilot being near the front of the boat, he would need some such guide as to its direction. Tugboats would also need poles for such a purpose. This hypothesis was so much more probable than the others that I accepted it. I formed the conclusion that the pole was set up for the purpose of showing the pilot the direction in which the boat pointed, to enable him to steer correctly.” (Dewey 1910: 69–70; 1933: 92–93)

Bubbles : “In washing tumblers in hot soapsuds and placing them mouth downward on a plate, bubbles appeared on the outside of the mouth of the tumblers and then went inside. Why? The presence of bubbles suggests air, which I note must come from inside the tumbler. I see that the soapy water on the plate prevents escape of the air save as it may be caught in bubbles. But why should air leave the tumbler? There was no substance entering to force it out. It must have expanded. It expands by increase of heat, or by decrease of pressure, or both. Could the air have become heated after the tumbler was taken from the hot suds? Clearly not the air that was already entangled in the water. If heated air was the cause, cold air must have entered in transferring the tumblers from the suds to the plate. I test to see if this supposition is true by taking several more tumblers out. Some I shake so as to make sure of entrapping cold air in them. Some I take out holding mouth downward in order to prevent cold air from entering. Bubbles appear on the outside of every one of the former and on none of the latter. I must be right in my inference. Air from the outside must have been expanded by the heat of the tumbler, which explains the appearance of the bubbles on the outside. But why do they then go inside? Cold contracts. The tumbler cooled and also the air inside it. Tension was removed, and hence bubbles appeared inside. To be sure of this, I test by placing a cup of ice on the tumbler while the bubbles are still forming outside. They soon reverse” (Dewey 1910: 70–71; 1933: 93–94).

Dewey (1910, 1933) sprinkles his book with other examples of critical thinking. We will refer to the following.

Weather : A man on a walk notices that it has suddenly become cool, thinks that it is probably going to rain, looks up and sees a dark cloud obscuring the sun, and quickens his steps (1910: 6–10; 1933: 9–13).

Disorder : A man finds his rooms on his return to them in disorder with his belongings thrown about, thinks at first of burglary as an explanation, then thinks of mischievous children as being an alternative explanation, then looks to see whether valuables are missing, and discovers that they are (1910: 82–83; 1933: 166–168).

Typhoid : A physician diagnosing a patient whose conspicuous symptoms suggest typhoid avoids drawing a conclusion until more data are gathered by questioning the patient and by making tests (1910: 85–86; 1933: 170).

Blur : A moving blur catches our eye in the distance, we ask ourselves whether it is a cloud of whirling dust or a tree moving its branches or a man signaling to us, we think of other traits that should be found on each of those possibilities, and we look and see if those traits are found (1910: 102, 108; 1933: 121, 133).

Suction pump : In thinking about the suction pump, the scientist first notes that it will draw water only to a maximum height of 33 feet at sea level and to a lesser maximum height at higher elevations, selects for attention the differing atmospheric pressure at these elevations, sets up experiments in which the air is removed from a vessel containing water (when suction no longer works) and in which the weight of air at various levels is calculated, compares the results of reasoning about the height to which a given weight of air will allow a suction pump to raise water with the observed maximum height at different elevations, and finally assimilates the suction pump to such apparently different phenomena as the siphon and the rising of a balloon (1910: 150–153; 1933: 195–198).

Diamond : A passenger in a car driving in a diamond lane reserved for vehicles with at least one passenger notices that the diamond marks on the pavement are far apart in some places and close together in others. Why? The driver suggests that the reason may be that the diamond marks are not needed where there is a solid double line separating the diamond lane from the adjoining lane, but are needed when there is a dotted single line permitting crossing into the diamond lane. Further observation confirms that the diamonds are close together when a dotted line separates the diamond lane from its neighbour, but otherwise far apart.

Rash : A woman suddenly develops a very itchy red rash on her throat and upper chest. She recently noticed a mark on the back of her right hand, but was not sure whether the mark was a rash or a scrape. She lies down in bed and thinks about what might be causing the rash and what to do about it. About two weeks before, she began taking blood pressure medication that contained a sulfa drug, and the pharmacist had warned her, in view of a previous allergic reaction to a medication containing a sulfa drug, to be on the alert for an allergic reaction; however, she had been taking the medication for two weeks with no such effect. The day before, she began using a new cream on her neck and upper chest; against the new cream as the cause was mark on the back of her hand, which had not been exposed to the cream. She began taking probiotics about a month before. She also recently started new eye drops, but she supposed that manufacturers of eye drops would be careful not to include allergy-causing components in the medication. The rash might be a heat rash, since she recently was sweating profusely from her upper body. Since she is about to go away on a short vacation, where she would not have access to her usual physician, she decides to keep taking the probiotics and using the new eye drops but to discontinue the blood pressure medication and to switch back to the old cream for her neck and upper chest. She forms a plan to consult her regular physician on her return about the blood pressure medication.

Candidate : Although Dewey included no examples of thinking directed at appraising the arguments of others, such thinking has come to be considered a kind of critical thinking. We find an example of such thinking in the performance task on the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA+), which its sponsoring organization describes as

a performance-based assessment that provides a measure of an institution’s contribution to the development of critical-thinking and written communication skills of its students. (Council for Aid to Education 2017)

A sample task posted on its website requires the test-taker to write a report for public distribution evaluating a fictional candidate’s policy proposals and their supporting arguments, using supplied background documents, with a recommendation on whether to endorse the candidate.

Immediate acceptance of an idea that suggests itself as a solution to a problem (e.g., a possible explanation of an event or phenomenon, an action that seems likely to produce a desired result) is “uncritical thinking, the minimum of reflection” (Dewey 1910: 13). On-going suspension of judgment in the light of doubt about a possible solution is not critical thinking (Dewey 1910: 108). Critique driven by a dogmatically held political or religious ideology is not critical thinking; thus Paulo Freire (1968 [1970]) is using the term (e.g., at 1970: 71, 81, 100, 146) in a more politically freighted sense that includes not only reflection but also revolutionary action against oppression. Derivation of a conclusion from given data using an algorithm is not critical thinking.

What is critical thinking? There are many definitions. Ennis (2016) lists 14 philosophically oriented scholarly definitions and three dictionary definitions. Following Rawls (1971), who distinguished his conception of justice from a utilitarian conception but regarded them as rival conceptions of the same concept, Ennis maintains that the 17 definitions are different conceptions of the same concept. Rawls articulated the shared concept of justice as

a characteristic set of principles for assigning basic rights and duties and for determining… the proper distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation. (Rawls 1971: 5)

Bailin et al. (1999b) claim that, if one considers what sorts of thinking an educator would take not to be critical thinking and what sorts to be critical thinking, one can conclude that educators typically understand critical thinking to have at least three features.

• It is done for the purpose of making up one’s mind about what to believe or do.
• The person engaging in the thinking is trying to fulfill standards of adequacy and accuracy appropriate to the thinking.
• The thinking fulfills the relevant standards to some threshold level.

One could sum up the core concept that involves these three features by saying that critical thinking is careful goal-directed thinking. This core concept seems to apply to all the examples of critical thinking described in the previous section. As for the non-examples, their exclusion depends on construing careful thinking as excluding jumping immediately to conclusions, suspending judgment no matter how strong the evidence, reasoning from an unquestioned ideological or religious perspective, and routinely using an algorithm to answer a question.

If the core of critical thinking is careful goal-directed thinking, conceptions of it can vary according to its presumed scope, its presumed goal, one’s criteria and threshold for being careful, and the thinking component on which one focuses. As to its scope, some conceptions (e.g., Dewey 1910, 1933) restrict it to constructive thinking on the basis of one’s own observations and experiments, others (e.g., Ennis 1962; Fisher & Scriven 1997; Johnson 1992) to appraisal of the products of such thinking. Ennis (1991) and Bailin et al. (1999b) take it to cover both construction and appraisal. As to its goal, some conceptions restrict it to forming a judgment (Dewey 1910, 1933; Lipman 1987; Facione 1990a). Others allow for actions as well as beliefs as the end point of a process of critical thinking (Ennis 1991; Bailin et al. 1999b). As to the criteria and threshold for being careful, definitions vary in the term used to indicate that critical thinking satisfies certain norms: “intellectually disciplined” (Scriven & Paul 1987), “reasonable” (Ennis 1991), “skillful” (Lipman 1987), “skilled” (Fisher & Scriven 1997), “careful” (Bailin & Battersby 2009). Some definitions specify these norms, referring variously to “consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends” (Dewey 1910, 1933); “the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning” (Glaser 1941); “conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication” (Scriven & Paul 1987); the requirement that “it is sensitive to context, relies on criteria, and is self-correcting” (Lipman 1987); “evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations” (Facione 1990a); and “plus-minus considerations of the product in terms of appropriate standards (or criteria)” (Johnson 1992). Stanovich and Stanovich (2010) propose to ground the concept of critical thinking in the concept of rationality, which they understand as combining epistemic rationality (fitting one’s beliefs to the world) and instrumental rationality (optimizing goal fulfillment); a critical thinker, in their view, is someone with “a propensity to override suboptimal responses from the autonomous mind” (2010: 227). These variant specifications of norms for critical thinking are not necessarily incompatible with one another, and in any case presuppose the core notion of thinking carefully. As to the thinking component singled out, some definitions focus on suspension of judgment during the thinking (Dewey 1910; McPeck 1981), others on inquiry while judgment is suspended (Bailin & Battersby 2009, 2021), others on the resulting judgment (Facione 1990a), and still others on responsiveness to reasons (Siegel 1988). Kuhn (2019) takes critical thinking to be more a dialogic practice of advancing and responding to arguments than an individual ability.

In educational contexts, a definition of critical thinking is a “programmatic definition” (Scheffler 1960: 19). It expresses a practical program for achieving an educational goal. For this purpose, a one-sentence formulaic definition is much less useful than articulation of a critical thinking process, with criteria and standards for the kinds of thinking that the process may involve. The real educational goal is recognition, adoption and implementation by students of those criteria and standards. That adoption and implementation in turn consists in acquiring the knowledge, abilities and dispositions of a critical thinker.

Conceptions of critical thinking generally do not include moral integrity as part of the concept. Dewey, for example, took critical thinking to be the ultimate intellectual goal of education, but distinguished it from the development of social cooperation among school children, which he took to be the central moral goal. Ennis (1996, 2011) added to his previous list of critical thinking dispositions a group of dispositions to care about the dignity and worth of every person, which he described as a “correlative” (1996) disposition without which critical thinking would be less valuable and perhaps harmful. An educational program that aimed at developing critical thinking but not the correlative disposition to care about the dignity and worth of every person, he asserted, “would be deficient and perhaps dangerous” (Ennis 1996: 172).

Dewey thought that education for reflective thinking would be of value to both the individual and society; recognition in educational practice of the kinship to the scientific attitude of children’s native curiosity, fertile imagination and love of experimental inquiry “would make for individual happiness and the reduction of social waste” (Dewey 1910: iii). Schools participating in the Eight-Year Study took development of the habit of reflective thinking and skill in solving problems as a means to leading young people to understand, appreciate and live the democratic way of life characteristic of the United States (Aikin 1942: 17–18, 81). Harvey Siegel (1988: 55–61) has offered four considerations in support of adopting critical thinking as an educational ideal. (1) Respect for persons requires that schools and teachers honour students’ demands for reasons and explanations, deal with students honestly, and recognize the need to confront students’ independent judgment; these requirements concern the manner in which teachers treat students. (2) Education has the task of preparing children to be successful adults, a task that requires development of their self-sufficiency. (3) Education should initiate children into the rational traditions in such fields as history, science and mathematics. (4) Education should prepare children to become democratic citizens, which requires reasoned procedures and critical talents and attitudes. To supplement these considerations, Siegel (1988: 62–90) responds to two objections: the ideology objection that adoption of any educational ideal requires a prior ideological commitment and the indoctrination objection that cultivation of critical thinking cannot escape being a form of indoctrination.

Despite the diversity of our 11 examples, one can recognize a common pattern. Dewey analyzed it as consisting of five phases:

• suggestions , in which the mind leaps forward to a possible solution;
• an intellectualization of the difficulty or perplexity into a problem to be solved, a question for which the answer must be sought;
• the use of one suggestion after another as a leading idea, or hypothesis , to initiate and guide observation and other operations in collection of factual material;
• the mental elaboration of the idea or supposition as an idea or supposition ( reasoning , in the sense on which reasoning is a part, not the whole, of inference); and
• testing the hypothesis by overt or imaginative action. (Dewey 1933: 106–107; italics in original)

The process of reflective thinking consisting of these phases would be preceded by a perplexed, troubled or confused situation and followed by a cleared-up, unified, resolved situation (Dewey 1933: 106). The term ‘phases’ replaced the term ‘steps’ (Dewey 1910: 72), thus removing the earlier suggestion of an invariant sequence. Variants of the above analysis appeared in (Dewey 1916: 177) and (Dewey 1938: 101–119).

The variant formulations indicate the difficulty of giving a single logical analysis of such a varied process. The process of critical thinking may have a spiral pattern, with the problem being redefined in the light of obstacles to solving it as originally formulated. For example, the person in Transit might have concluded that getting to the appointment at the scheduled time was impossible and have reformulated the problem as that of rescheduling the appointment for a mutually convenient time. Further, defining a problem does not always follow after or lead immediately to an idea of a suggested solution. Nor should it do so, as Dewey himself recognized in describing the physician in Typhoid as avoiding any strong preference for this or that conclusion before getting further information (Dewey 1910: 85; 1933: 170). People with a hypothesis in mind, even one to which they have a very weak commitment, have a so-called “confirmation bias” (Nickerson 1998): they are likely to pay attention to evidence that confirms the hypothesis and to ignore evidence that counts against it or for some competing hypothesis. Detectives, intelligence agencies, and investigators of airplane accidents are well advised to gather relevant evidence systematically and to postpone even tentative adoption of an explanatory hypothesis until the collected evidence rules out with the appropriate degree of certainty all but one explanation. Dewey’s analysis of the critical thinking process can be faulted as well for requiring acceptance or rejection of a possible solution to a defined problem, with no allowance for deciding in the light of the available evidence to suspend judgment. Further, given the great variety of kinds of problems for which reflection is appropriate, there is likely to be variation in its component events. Perhaps the best way to conceptualize the critical thinking process is as a checklist whose component events can occur in a variety of orders, selectively, and more than once. These component events might include (1) noticing a difficulty, (2) defining the problem, (3) dividing the problem into manageable sub-problems, (4) formulating a variety of possible solutions to the problem or sub-problem, (5) determining what evidence is relevant to deciding among possible solutions to the problem or sub-problem, (6) devising a plan of systematic observation or experiment that will uncover the relevant evidence, (7) carrying out the plan of systematic observation or experimentation, (8) noting the results of the systematic observation or experiment, (9) gathering relevant testimony and information from others, (10) judging the credibility of testimony and information gathered from others, (11) drawing conclusions from gathered evidence and accepted testimony, and (12) accepting a solution that the evidence adequately supports (cf. Hitchcock 2017: 485).

Checklist conceptions of the process of critical thinking are open to the objection that they are too mechanical and procedural to fit the multi-dimensional and emotionally charged issues for which critical thinking is urgently needed (Paul 1984). For such issues, a more dialectical process is advocated, in which competing relevant world views are identified, their implications explored, and some sort of creative synthesis attempted.

If one considers the critical thinking process illustrated by the 11 examples, one can identify distinct kinds of mental acts and mental states that form part of it. To distinguish, label and briefly characterize these components is a useful preliminary to identifying abilities, skills, dispositions, attitudes, habits and the like that contribute causally to thinking critically. Identifying such abilities and habits is in turn a useful preliminary to setting educational goals. Setting the goals is in its turn a useful preliminary to designing strategies for helping learners to achieve the goals and to designing ways of measuring the extent to which learners have done so. Such measures provide both feedback to learners on their achievement and a basis for experimental research on the effectiveness of various strategies for educating people to think critically. Let us begin, then, by distinguishing the kinds of mental acts and mental events that can occur in a critical thinking process.

• Observing : One notices something in one’s immediate environment (sudden cooling of temperature in Weather , bubbles forming outside a glass and then going inside in Bubbles , a moving blur in the distance in Blur , a rash in Rash ). Or one notes the results of an experiment or systematic observation (valuables missing in Disorder , no suction without air pressure in Suction pump )
• Feeling : One feels puzzled or uncertain about something (how to get to an appointment on time in Transit , why the diamonds vary in spacing in Diamond ). One wants to resolve this perplexity. One feels satisfaction once one has worked out an answer (to take the subway express in Transit , diamonds closer when needed as a warning in Diamond ).
• Wondering : One formulates a question to be addressed (why bubbles form outside a tumbler taken from hot water in Bubbles , how suction pumps work in Suction pump , what caused the rash in Rash ).
• Imagining : One thinks of possible answers (bus or subway or elevated in Transit , flagpole or ornament or wireless communication aid or direction indicator in Ferryboat , allergic reaction or heat rash in Rash ).
• Inferring : One works out what would be the case if a possible answer were assumed (valuables missing if there has been a burglary in Disorder , earlier start to the rash if it is an allergic reaction to a sulfa drug in Rash ). Or one draws a conclusion once sufficient relevant evidence is gathered (take the subway in Transit , burglary in Disorder , discontinue blood pressure medication and new cream in Rash ).
• Knowledge : One uses stored knowledge of the subject-matter to generate possible answers or to infer what would be expected on the assumption of a particular answer (knowledge of a city’s public transit system in Transit , of the requirements for a flagpole in Ferryboat , of Boyle’s law in Bubbles , of allergic reactions in Rash ).
• Experimenting : One designs and carries out an experiment or a systematic observation to find out whether the results deduced from a possible answer will occur (looking at the location of the flagpole in relation to the pilot’s position in Ferryboat , putting an ice cube on top of a tumbler taken from hot water in Bubbles , measuring the height to which a suction pump will draw water at different elevations in Suction pump , noticing the spacing of diamonds when movement to or from a diamond lane is allowed in Diamond ).
• Consulting : One finds a source of information, gets the information from the source, and makes a judgment on whether to accept it. None of our 11 examples include searching for sources of information. In this respect they are unrepresentative, since most people nowadays have almost instant access to information relevant to answering any question, including many of those illustrated by the examples. However, Candidate includes the activities of extracting information from sources and evaluating its credibility.
• Identifying and analyzing arguments : One notices an argument and works out its structure and content as a preliminary to evaluating its strength. This activity is central to Candidate . It is an important part of a critical thinking process in which one surveys arguments for various positions on an issue.
• Judging : One makes a judgment on the basis of accumulated evidence and reasoning, such as the judgment in Ferryboat that the purpose of the pole is to provide direction to the pilot.
• Deciding : One makes a decision on what to do or on what policy to adopt, as in the decision in Transit to take the subway.

By definition, a person who does something voluntarily is both willing and able to do that thing at that time. Both the willingness and the ability contribute causally to the person’s action, in the sense that the voluntary action would not occur if either (or both) of these were lacking. For example, suppose that one is standing with one’s arms at one’s sides and one voluntarily lifts one’s right arm to an extended horizontal position. One would not do so if one were unable to lift one’s arm, if for example one’s right side was paralyzed as the result of a stroke. Nor would one do so if one were unwilling to lift one’s arm, if for example one were participating in a street demonstration at which a white supremacist was urging the crowd to lift their right arm in a Nazi salute and one were unwilling to express support in this way for the racist Nazi ideology. The same analysis applies to a voluntary mental process of thinking critically. It requires both willingness and ability to think critically, including willingness and ability to perform each of the mental acts that compose the process and to coordinate those acts in a sequence that is directed at resolving the initiating perplexity.

Consider willingness first. We can identify causal contributors to willingness to think critically by considering factors that would cause a person who was able to think critically about an issue nevertheless not to do so (Hamby 2014). For each factor, the opposite condition thus contributes causally to willingness to think critically on a particular occasion. For example, people who habitually jump to conclusions without considering alternatives will not think critically about issues that arise, even if they have the required abilities. The contrary condition of willingness to suspend judgment is thus a causal contributor to thinking critically.

Now consider ability. In contrast to the ability to move one’s arm, which can be completely absent because a stroke has left the arm paralyzed, the ability to think critically is a developed ability, whose absence is not a complete absence of ability to think but absence of ability to think well. We can identify the ability to think well directly, in terms of the norms and standards for good thinking. In general, to be able do well the thinking activities that can be components of a critical thinking process, one needs to know the concepts and principles that characterize their good performance, to recognize in particular cases that the concepts and principles apply, and to apply them. The knowledge, recognition and application may be procedural rather than declarative. It may be domain-specific rather than widely applicable, and in either case may need subject-matter knowledge, sometimes of a deep kind.

Reflections of the sort illustrated by the previous two paragraphs have led scholars to identify the knowledge, abilities and dispositions of a “critical thinker”, i.e., someone who thinks critically whenever it is appropriate to do so. We turn now to these three types of causal contributors to thinking critically. We start with dispositions, since arguably these are the most powerful contributors to being a critical thinker, can be fostered at an early stage of a child’s development, and are susceptible to general improvement (Glaser 1941: 175)

8. Critical Thinking Dispositions

Educational researchers use the term ‘dispositions’ broadly for the habits of mind and attitudes that contribute causally to being a critical thinker. Some writers (e.g., Paul & Elder 2006; Hamby 2014; Bailin & Battersby 2016a) propose to use the term ‘virtues’ for this dimension of a critical thinker. The virtues in question, although they are virtues of character, concern the person’s ways of thinking rather than the person’s ways of behaving towards others. They are not moral virtues but intellectual virtues, of the sort articulated by Zagzebski (1996) and discussed by Turri, Alfano, and Greco (2017).

On a realistic conception, thinking dispositions or intellectual virtues are real properties of thinkers. They are general tendencies, propensities, or inclinations to think in particular ways in particular circumstances, and can be genuinely explanatory (Siegel 1999). Sceptics argue that there is no evidence for a specific mental basis for the habits of mind that contribute to thinking critically, and that it is pedagogically misleading to posit such a basis (Bailin et al. 1999a). Whatever their status, critical thinking dispositions need motivation for their initial formation in a child—motivation that may be external or internal. As children develop, the force of habit will gradually become important in sustaining the disposition (Nieto & Valenzuela 2012). Mere force of habit, however, is unlikely to sustain critical thinking dispositions. Critical thinkers must value and enjoy using their knowledge and abilities to think things through for themselves. They must be committed to, and lovers of, inquiry.

A person may have a critical thinking disposition with respect to only some kinds of issues. For example, one could be open-minded about scientific issues but not about religious issues. Similarly, one could be confident in one’s ability to reason about the theological implications of the existence of evil in the world but not in one’s ability to reason about the best design for a guided ballistic missile.

Facione (1990a: 25) divides “affective dispositions” of critical thinking into approaches to life and living in general and approaches to specific issues, questions or problems. Adapting this distinction, one can usefully divide critical thinking dispositions into initiating dispositions (those that contribute causally to starting to think critically about an issue) and internal dispositions (those that contribute causally to doing a good job of thinking critically once one has started). The two categories are not mutually exclusive. For example, open-mindedness, in the sense of willingness to consider alternative points of view to one’s own, is both an initiating and an internal disposition.

Using the strategy of considering factors that would block people with the ability to think critically from doing so, we can identify as initiating dispositions for thinking critically attentiveness, a habit of inquiry, self-confidence, courage, open-mindedness, willingness to suspend judgment, trust in reason, wanting evidence for one’s beliefs, and seeking the truth. We consider briefly what each of these dispositions amounts to, in each case citing sources that acknowledge them.

• Attentiveness : One will not think critically if one fails to recognize an issue that needs to be thought through. For example, the pedestrian in Weather would not have looked up if he had not noticed that the air was suddenly cooler. To be a critical thinker, then, one needs to be habitually attentive to one’s surroundings, noticing not only what one senses but also sources of perplexity in messages received and in one’s own beliefs and attitudes (Facione 1990a: 25; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001).
• Habit of inquiry : Inquiry is effortful, and one needs an internal push to engage in it. For example, the student in Bubbles could easily have stopped at idle wondering about the cause of the bubbles rather than reasoning to a hypothesis, then designing and executing an experiment to test it. Thus willingness to think critically needs mental energy and initiative. What can supply that energy? Love of inquiry, or perhaps just a habit of inquiry. Hamby (2015) has argued that willingness to inquire is the central critical thinking virtue, one that encompasses all the others. It is recognized as a critical thinking disposition by Dewey (1910: 29; 1933: 35), Glaser (1941: 5), Ennis (1987: 12; 1991: 8), Facione (1990a: 25), Bailin et al. (1999b: 294), Halpern (1998: 452), and Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo (2001).
• Self-confidence : Lack of confidence in one’s abilities can block critical thinking. For example, if the woman in Rash lacked confidence in her ability to figure things out for herself, she might just have assumed that the rash on her chest was the allergic reaction to her medication against which the pharmacist had warned her. Thus willingness to think critically requires confidence in one’s ability to inquire (Facione 1990a: 25; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001).
• Courage : Fear of thinking for oneself can stop one from doing it. Thus willingness to think critically requires intellectual courage (Paul & Elder 2006: 16).
• Open-mindedness : A dogmatic attitude will impede thinking critically. For example, a person who adheres rigidly to a “pro-choice” position on the issue of the legal status of induced abortion is likely to be unwilling to consider seriously the issue of when in its development an unborn child acquires a moral right to life. Thus willingness to think critically requires open-mindedness, in the sense of a willingness to examine questions to which one already accepts an answer but which further evidence or reasoning might cause one to answer differently (Dewey 1933; Facione 1990a; Ennis 1991; Bailin et al. 1999b; Halpern 1998, Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001). Paul (1981) emphasizes open-mindedness about alternative world-views, and recommends a dialectical approach to integrating such views as central to what he calls “strong sense” critical thinking. In three studies, Haran, Ritov, & Mellers (2013) found that actively open-minded thinking, including “the tendency to weigh new evidence against a favored belief, to spend sufficient time on a problem before giving up, and to consider carefully the opinions of others in forming one’s own”, led study participants to acquire information and thus to make accurate estimations.
• Willingness to suspend judgment : Premature closure on an initial solution will block critical thinking. Thus willingness to think critically requires a willingness to suspend judgment while alternatives are explored (Facione 1990a; Ennis 1991; Halpern 1998).
• Trust in reason : Since distrust in the processes of reasoned inquiry will dissuade one from engaging in it, trust in them is an initiating critical thinking disposition (Facione 1990a, 25; Bailin et al. 1999b: 294; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001; Paul & Elder 2006). In reaction to an allegedly exclusive emphasis on reason in critical thinking theory and pedagogy, Thayer-Bacon (2000) argues that intuition, imagination, and emotion have important roles to play in an adequate conception of critical thinking that she calls “constructive thinking”. From her point of view, critical thinking requires trust not only in reason but also in intuition, imagination, and emotion.
• Seeking the truth : If one does not care about the truth but is content to stick with one’s initial bias on an issue, then one will not think critically about it. Seeking the truth is thus an initiating critical thinking disposition (Bailin et al. 1999b: 294; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001). A disposition to seek the truth is implicit in more specific critical thinking dispositions, such as trying to be well-informed, considering seriously points of view other than one’s own, looking for alternatives, suspending judgment when the evidence is insufficient, and adopting a position when the evidence supporting it is sufficient.

Some of the initiating dispositions, such as open-mindedness and willingness to suspend judgment, are also internal critical thinking dispositions, in the sense of mental habits or attitudes that contribute causally to doing a good job of critical thinking once one starts the process. But there are many other internal critical thinking dispositions. Some of them are parasitic on one’s conception of good thinking. For example, it is constitutive of good thinking about an issue to formulate the issue clearly and to maintain focus on it. For this purpose, one needs not only the corresponding ability but also the corresponding disposition. Ennis (1991: 8) describes it as the disposition “to determine and maintain focus on the conclusion or question”, Facione (1990a: 25) as “clarity in stating the question or concern”. Other internal dispositions are motivators to continue or adjust the critical thinking process, such as willingness to persist in a complex task and willingness to abandon nonproductive strategies in an attempt to self-correct (Halpern 1998: 452). For a list of identified internal critical thinking dispositions, see the Supplement on Internal Critical Thinking Dispositions .

Some theorists postulate skills, i.e., acquired abilities, as operative in critical thinking. It is not obvious, however, that a good mental act is the exercise of a generic acquired skill. Inferring an expected time of arrival, as in Transit , has some generic components but also uses non-generic subject-matter knowledge. Bailin et al. (1999a) argue against viewing critical thinking skills as generic and discrete, on the ground that skilled performance at a critical thinking task cannot be separated from knowledge of concepts and from domain-specific principles of good thinking. Talk of skills, they concede, is unproblematic if it means merely that a person with critical thinking skills is capable of intelligent performance.

Despite such scepticism, theorists of critical thinking have listed as general contributors to critical thinking what they variously call abilities (Glaser 1941; Ennis 1962, 1991), skills (Facione 1990a; Halpern 1998) or competencies (Fisher & Scriven 1997). Amalgamating these lists would produce a confusing and chaotic cornucopia of more than 50 possible educational objectives, with only partial overlap among them. It makes sense instead to try to understand the reasons for the multiplicity and diversity, and to make a selection according to one’s own reasons for singling out abilities to be developed in a critical thinking curriculum. Two reasons for diversity among lists of critical thinking abilities are the underlying conception of critical thinking and the envisaged educational level. Appraisal-only conceptions, for example, involve a different suite of abilities than constructive-only conceptions. Some lists, such as those in (Glaser 1941), are put forward as educational objectives for secondary school students, whereas others are proposed as objectives for college students (e.g., Facione 1990a).

The abilities described in the remaining paragraphs of this section emerge from reflection on the general abilities needed to do well the thinking activities identified in section 6 as components of the critical thinking process described in section 5 . The derivation of each collection of abilities is accompanied by citation of sources that list such abilities and of standardized tests that claim to test them.

Observational abilities : Careful and accurate observation sometimes requires specialist expertise and practice, as in the case of observing birds and observing accident scenes. However, there are general abilities of noticing what one’s senses are picking up from one’s environment and of being able to articulate clearly and accurately to oneself and others what one has observed. It helps in exercising them to be able to recognize and take into account factors that make one’s observation less trustworthy, such as prior framing of the situation, inadequate time, deficient senses, poor observation conditions, and the like. It helps as well to be skilled at taking steps to make one’s observation more trustworthy, such as moving closer to get a better look, measuring something three times and taking the average, and checking what one thinks one is observing with someone else who is in a good position to observe it. It also helps to be skilled at recognizing respects in which one’s report of one’s observation involves inference rather than direct observation, so that one can then consider whether the inference is justified. These abilities come into play as well when one thinks about whether and with what degree of confidence to accept an observation report, for example in the study of history or in a criminal investigation or in assessing news reports. Observational abilities show up in some lists of critical thinking abilities (Ennis 1962: 90; Facione 1990a: 16; Ennis 1991: 9). There are items testing a person’s ability to judge the credibility of observation reports in the Cornell Critical Thinking Tests, Levels X and Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005). Norris and King (1983, 1985, 1990a, 1990b) is a test of ability to appraise observation reports.

Emotional abilities : The emotions that drive a critical thinking process are perplexity or puzzlement, a wish to resolve it, and satisfaction at achieving the desired resolution. Children experience these emotions at an early age, without being trained to do so. Education that takes critical thinking as a goal needs only to channel these emotions and to make sure not to stifle them. Collaborative critical thinking benefits from ability to recognize one’s own and others’ emotional commitments and reactions.

Questioning abilities : A critical thinking process needs transformation of an inchoate sense of perplexity into a clear question. Formulating a question well requires not building in questionable assumptions, not prejudging the issue, and using language that in context is unambiguous and precise enough (Ennis 1962: 97; 1991: 9).

Imaginative abilities : Thinking directed at finding the correct causal explanation of a general phenomenon or particular event requires an ability to imagine possible explanations. Thinking about what policy or plan of action to adopt requires generation of options and consideration of possible consequences of each option. Domain knowledge is required for such creative activity, but a general ability to imagine alternatives is helpful and can be nurtured so as to become easier, quicker, more extensive, and deeper (Dewey 1910: 34–39; 1933: 40–47). Facione (1990a) and Halpern (1998) include the ability to imagine alternatives as a critical thinking ability.

Inferential abilities : The ability to draw conclusions from given information, and to recognize with what degree of certainty one’s own or others’ conclusions follow, is universally recognized as a general critical thinking ability. All 11 examples in section 2 of this article include inferences, some from hypotheses or options (as in Transit , Ferryboat and Disorder ), others from something observed (as in Weather and Rash ). None of these inferences is formally valid. Rather, they are licensed by general, sometimes qualified substantive rules of inference (Toulmin 1958) that rest on domain knowledge—that a bus trip takes about the same time in each direction, that the terminal of a wireless telegraph would be located on the highest possible place, that sudden cooling is often followed by rain, that an allergic reaction to a sulfa drug generally shows up soon after one starts taking it. It is a matter of controversy to what extent the specialized ability to deduce conclusions from premisses using formal rules of inference is needed for critical thinking. Dewey (1933) locates logical forms in setting out the products of reflection rather than in the process of reflection. Ennis (1981a), on the other hand, maintains that a liberally-educated person should have the following abilities: to translate natural-language statements into statements using the standard logical operators, to use appropriately the language of necessary and sufficient conditions, to deal with argument forms and arguments containing symbols, to determine whether in virtue of an argument’s form its conclusion follows necessarily from its premisses, to reason with logically complex propositions, and to apply the rules and procedures of deductive logic. Inferential abilities are recognized as critical thinking abilities by Glaser (1941: 6), Facione (1990a: 9), Ennis (1991: 9), Fisher & Scriven (1997: 99, 111), and Halpern (1998: 452). Items testing inferential abilities constitute two of the five subtests of the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (Watson & Glaser 1980a, 1980b, 1994), two of the four sections in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level X (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005), three of the seven sections in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005), 11 of the 34 items on Forms A and B of the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (Facione 1990b, 1992), and a high but variable proportion of the 25 selected-response questions in the Collegiate Learning Assessment (Council for Aid to Education 2017).

Experimenting abilities : Knowing how to design and execute an experiment is important not just in scientific research but also in everyday life, as in Rash . Dewey devoted a whole chapter of his How We Think (1910: 145–156; 1933: 190–202) to the superiority of experimentation over observation in advancing knowledge. Experimenting abilities come into play at one remove in appraising reports of scientific studies. Skill in designing and executing experiments includes the acknowledged abilities to appraise evidence (Glaser 1941: 6), to carry out experiments and to apply appropriate statistical inference techniques (Facione 1990a: 9), to judge inductions to an explanatory hypothesis (Ennis 1991: 9), and to recognize the need for an adequately large sample size (Halpern 1998). The Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005) includes four items (out of 52) on experimental design. The Collegiate Learning Assessment (Council for Aid to Education 2017) makes room for appraisal of study design in both its performance task and its selected-response questions.

Consulting abilities : Skill at consulting sources of information comes into play when one seeks information to help resolve a problem, as in Candidate . Ability to find and appraise information includes ability to gather and marshal pertinent information (Glaser 1941: 6), to judge whether a statement made by an alleged authority is acceptable (Ennis 1962: 84), to plan a search for desired information (Facione 1990a: 9), and to judge the credibility of a source (Ennis 1991: 9). Ability to judge the credibility of statements is tested by 24 items (out of 76) in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level X (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005) and by four items (out of 52) in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005). The College Learning Assessment’s performance task requires evaluation of whether information in documents is credible or unreliable (Council for Aid to Education 2017).

Argument analysis abilities : The ability to identify and analyze arguments contributes to the process of surveying arguments on an issue in order to form one’s own reasoned judgment, as in Candidate . The ability to detect and analyze arguments is recognized as a critical thinking skill by Facione (1990a: 7–8), Ennis (1991: 9) and Halpern (1998). Five items (out of 34) on the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (Facione 1990b, 1992) test skill at argument analysis. The College Learning Assessment (Council for Aid to Education 2017) incorporates argument analysis in its selected-response tests of critical reading and evaluation and of critiquing an argument.

Judging skills and deciding skills : Skill at judging and deciding is skill at recognizing what judgment or decision the available evidence and argument supports, and with what degree of confidence. It is thus a component of the inferential skills already discussed.

Lists and tests of critical thinking abilities often include two more abilities: identifying assumptions and constructing and evaluating definitions.

In addition to dispositions and abilities, critical thinking needs knowledge: of critical thinking concepts, of critical thinking principles, and of the subject-matter of the thinking.

We can derive a short list of concepts whose understanding contributes to critical thinking from the critical thinking abilities described in the preceding section. Observational abilities require an understanding of the difference between observation and inference. Questioning abilities require an understanding of the concepts of ambiguity and vagueness. Inferential abilities require an understanding of the difference between conclusive and defeasible inference (traditionally, between deduction and induction), as well as of the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions. Experimenting abilities require an understanding of the concepts of hypothesis, null hypothesis, assumption and prediction, as well as of the concept of statistical significance and of its difference from importance. They also require an understanding of the difference between an experiment and an observational study, and in particular of the difference between a randomized controlled trial, a prospective correlational study and a retrospective (case-control) study. Argument analysis abilities require an understanding of the concepts of argument, premiss, assumption, conclusion and counter-consideration. Additional critical thinking concepts are proposed by Bailin et al. (1999b: 293), Fisher & Scriven (1997: 105–106), Black (2012), and Blair (2021).

According to Glaser (1941: 25), ability to think critically requires knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning. If we review the list of abilities in the preceding section, however, we can see that some of them can be acquired and exercised merely through practice, possibly guided in an educational setting, followed by feedback. Searching intelligently for a causal explanation of some phenomenon or event requires that one consider a full range of possible causal contributors, but it seems more important that one implements this principle in one’s practice than that one is able to articulate it. What is important is “operational knowledge” of the standards and principles of good thinking (Bailin et al. 1999b: 291–293). But the development of such critical thinking abilities as designing an experiment or constructing an operational definition can benefit from learning their underlying theory. Further, explicit knowledge of quirks of human thinking seems useful as a cautionary guide. Human memory is not just fallible about details, as people learn from their own experiences of misremembering, but is so malleable that a detailed, clear and vivid recollection of an event can be a total fabrication (Loftus 2017). People seek or interpret evidence in ways that are partial to their existing beliefs and expectations, often unconscious of their “confirmation bias” (Nickerson 1998). Not only are people subject to this and other cognitive biases (Kahneman 2011), of which they are typically unaware, but it may be counter-productive for one to make oneself aware of them and try consciously to counteract them or to counteract social biases such as racial or sexual stereotypes (Kenyon & Beaulac 2014). It is helpful to be aware of these facts and of the superior effectiveness of blocking the operation of biases—for example, by making an immediate record of one’s observations, refraining from forming a preliminary explanatory hypothesis, blind refereeing, double-blind randomized trials, and blind grading of students’ work. It is also helpful to be aware of the prevalence of “noise” (unwanted unsystematic variability of judgments), of how to detect noise (through a noise audit), and of how to reduce noise: make accuracy the goal, think statistically, break a process of arriving at a judgment into independent tasks, resist premature intuitions, in a group get independent judgments first, favour comparative judgments and scales (Kahneman, Sibony, & Sunstein 2021). It is helpful as well to be aware of the concept of “bounded rationality” in decision-making and of the related distinction between “satisficing” and optimizing (Simon 1956; Gigerenzer 2001).

Critical thinking about an issue requires substantive knowledge of the domain to which the issue belongs. Critical thinking abilities are not a magic elixir that can be applied to any issue whatever by somebody who has no knowledge of the facts relevant to exploring that issue. For example, the student in Bubbles needed to know that gases do not penetrate solid objects like a glass, that air expands when heated, that the volume of an enclosed gas varies directly with its temperature and inversely with its pressure, and that hot objects will spontaneously cool down to the ambient temperature of their surroundings unless kept hot by insulation or a source of heat. Critical thinkers thus need a rich fund of subject-matter knowledge relevant to the variety of situations they encounter. This fact is recognized in the inclusion among critical thinking dispositions of a concern to become and remain generally well informed.

Experimental educational interventions, with control groups, have shown that education can improve critical thinking skills and dispositions, as measured by standardized tests. For information about these tests, see the Supplement on Assessment .

What educational methods are most effective at developing the dispositions, abilities and knowledge of a critical thinker? In a comprehensive meta-analysis of experimental and quasi-experimental studies of strategies for teaching students to think critically, Abrami et al. (2015) found that dialogue, anchored instruction, and mentoring each increased the effectiveness of the educational intervention, and that they were most effective when combined. They also found that in these studies a combination of separate instruction in critical thinking with subject-matter instruction in which students are encouraged to think critically was more effective than either by itself. However, the difference was not statistically significant; that is, it might have arisen by chance.

Most of these studies lack the longitudinal follow-up required to determine whether the observed differential improvements in critical thinking abilities or dispositions continue over time, for example until high school or college graduation. For details on studies of methods of developing critical thinking skills and dispositions, see the Supplement on Educational Methods .

12. Controversies

Scholars have denied the generalizability of critical thinking abilities across subject domains, have alleged bias in critical thinking theory and pedagogy, and have investigated the relationship of critical thinking to other kinds of thinking.

McPeck (1981) attacked the thinking skills movement of the 1970s, including the critical thinking movement. He argued that there are no general thinking skills, since thinking is always thinking about some subject-matter. It is futile, he claimed, for schools and colleges to teach thinking as if it were a separate subject. Rather, teachers should lead their pupils to become autonomous thinkers by teaching school subjects in a way that brings out their cognitive structure and that encourages and rewards discussion and argument. As some of his critics (e.g., Paul 1985; Siegel 1985) pointed out, McPeck’s central argument needs elaboration, since it has obvious counter-examples in writing and speaking, for which (up to a certain level of complexity) there are teachable general abilities even though they are always about some subject-matter. To make his argument convincing, McPeck needs to explain how thinking differs from writing and speaking in a way that does not permit useful abstraction of its components from the subject-matters with which it deals. He has not done so. Nevertheless, his position that the dispositions and abilities of a critical thinker are best developed in the context of subject-matter instruction is shared by many theorists of critical thinking, including Dewey (1910, 1933), Glaser (1941), Passmore (1980), Weinstein (1990), Bailin et al. (1999b), and Willingham (2019).

McPeck’s challenge prompted reflection on the extent to which critical thinking is subject-specific. McPeck argued for a strong subject-specificity thesis, according to which it is a conceptual truth that all critical thinking abilities are specific to a subject. (He did not however extend his subject-specificity thesis to critical thinking dispositions. In particular, he took the disposition to suspend judgment in situations of cognitive dissonance to be a general disposition.) Conceptual subject-specificity is subject to obvious counter-examples, such as the general ability to recognize confusion of necessary and sufficient conditions. A more modest thesis, also endorsed by McPeck, is epistemological subject-specificity, according to which the norms of good thinking vary from one field to another. Epistemological subject-specificity clearly holds to a certain extent; for example, the principles in accordance with which one solves a differential equation are quite different from the principles in accordance with which one determines whether a painting is a genuine Picasso. But the thesis suffers, as Ennis (1989) points out, from vagueness of the concept of a field or subject and from the obvious existence of inter-field principles, however broadly the concept of a field is construed. For example, the principles of hypothetico-deductive reasoning hold for all the varied fields in which such reasoning occurs. A third kind of subject-specificity is empirical subject-specificity, according to which as a matter of empirically observable fact a person with the abilities and dispositions of a critical thinker in one area of investigation will not necessarily have them in another area of investigation.

The thesis of empirical subject-specificity raises the general problem of transfer. If critical thinking abilities and dispositions have to be developed independently in each school subject, how are they of any use in dealing with the problems of everyday life and the political and social issues of contemporary society, most of which do not fit into the framework of a traditional school subject? Proponents of empirical subject-specificity tend to argue that transfer is more likely to occur if there is critical thinking instruction in a variety of domains, with explicit attention to dispositions and abilities that cut across domains. But evidence for this claim is scanty. There is a need for well-designed empirical studies that investigate the conditions that make transfer more likely.

It is common ground in debates about the generality or subject-specificity of critical thinking dispositions and abilities that critical thinking about any topic requires background knowledge about the topic. For example, the most sophisticated understanding of the principles of hypothetico-deductive reasoning is of no help unless accompanied by some knowledge of what might be plausible explanations of some phenomenon under investigation.

Critics have objected to bias in the theory, pedagogy and practice of critical thinking. Commentators (e.g., Alston 1995; Ennis 1998) have noted that anyone who takes a position has a bias in the neutral sense of being inclined in one direction rather than others. The critics, however, are objecting to bias in the pejorative sense of an unjustified favoring of certain ways of knowing over others, frequently alleging that the unjustly favoured ways are those of a dominant sex or culture (Bailin 1995). These ways favour:

• reinforcement of egocentric and sociocentric biases over dialectical engagement with opposing world-views (Paul 1981, 1984; Warren 1998)
• distancing from the object of inquiry over closeness to it (Martin 1992; Thayer-Bacon 1992)
• indifference to the situation of others over care for them (Martin 1992)
• orientation to thought over orientation to action (Martin 1992)
• being reasonable over caring to understand people’s ideas (Thayer-Bacon 1993)
• being neutral and objective over being embodied and situated (Thayer-Bacon 1995a)
• doubting over believing (Thayer-Bacon 1995b)
• reason over emotion, imagination and intuition (Thayer-Bacon 2000)
• solitary thinking over collaborative thinking (Thayer-Bacon 2000)
• written and spoken assignments over other forms of expression (Alston 2001)
• attention to written and spoken communications over attention to human problems (Alston 2001)
• winning debates in the public sphere over making and understanding meaning (Alston 2001)

A common thread in this smorgasbord of accusations is dissatisfaction with focusing on the logical analysis and evaluation of reasoning and arguments. While these authors acknowledge that such analysis and evaluation is part of critical thinking and should be part of its conceptualization and pedagogy, they insist that it is only a part. Paul (1981), for example, bemoans the tendency of atomistic teaching of methods of analyzing and evaluating arguments to turn students into more able sophists, adept at finding fault with positions and arguments with which they disagree but even more entrenched in the egocentric and sociocentric biases with which they began. Martin (1992) and Thayer-Bacon (1992) cite with approval the self-reported intimacy with their subject-matter of leading researchers in biology and medicine, an intimacy that conflicts with the distancing allegedly recommended in standard conceptions and pedagogy of critical thinking. Thayer-Bacon (2000) contrasts the embodied and socially embedded learning of her elementary school students in a Montessori school, who used their imagination, intuition and emotions as well as their reason, with conceptions of critical thinking as

thinking that is used to critique arguments, offer justifications, and make judgments about what are the good reasons, or the right answers. (Thayer-Bacon 2000: 127–128)

Alston (2001) reports that her students in a women’s studies class were able to see the flaws in the Cinderella myth that pervades much romantic fiction but in their own romantic relationships still acted as if all failures were the woman’s fault and still accepted the notions of love at first sight and living happily ever after. Students, she writes, should

be able to connect their intellectual critique to a more affective, somatic, and ethical account of making risky choices that have sexist, racist, classist, familial, sexual, or other consequences for themselves and those both near and far… critical thinking that reads arguments, texts, or practices merely on the surface without connections to feeling/desiring/doing or action lacks an ethical depth that should infuse the difference between mere cognitive activity and something we want to call critical thinking. (Alston 2001: 34)

Some critics portray such biases as unfair to women. Thayer-Bacon (1992), for example, has charged modern critical thinking theory with being sexist, on the ground that it separates the self from the object and causes one to lose touch with one’s inner voice, and thus stigmatizes women, who (she asserts) link self to object and listen to their inner voice. Her charge does not imply that women as a group are on average less able than men to analyze and evaluate arguments. Facione (1990c) found no difference by sex in performance on his California Critical Thinking Skills Test. Kuhn (1991: 280–281) found no difference by sex in either the disposition or the competence to engage in argumentative thinking.

The critics propose a variety of remedies for the biases that they allege. In general, they do not propose to eliminate or downplay critical thinking as an educational goal. Rather, they propose to conceptualize critical thinking differently and to change its pedagogy accordingly. Their pedagogical proposals arise logically from their objections. They can be summarized as follows:

• Focus on argument networks with dialectical exchanges reflecting contesting points of view rather than on atomic arguments, so as to develop “strong sense” critical thinking that transcends egocentric and sociocentric biases (Paul 1981, 1984).
• Foster closeness to the subject-matter and feeling connected to others in order to inform a humane democracy (Martin 1992).
• Develop “constructive thinking” as a social activity in a community of physically embodied and socially embedded inquirers with personal voices who value not only reason but also imagination, intuition and emotion (Thayer-Bacon 2000).
• In developing critical thinking in school subjects, treat as important neither skills nor dispositions but opening worlds of meaning (Alston 2001).
• Attend to the development of critical thinking dispositions as well as skills, and adopt the “critical pedagogy” practised and advocated by Freire (1968 [1970]) and hooks (1994) (Dalgleish, Girard, & Davies 2017).

A common thread in these proposals is treatment of critical thinking as a social, interactive, personally engaged activity like that of a quilting bee or a barn-raising (Thayer-Bacon 2000) rather than as an individual, solitary, distanced activity symbolized by Rodin’s The Thinker . One can get a vivid description of education with the former type of goal from the writings of bell hooks (1994, 2010). Critical thinking for her is open-minded dialectical exchange across opposing standpoints and from multiple perspectives, a conception similar to Paul’s “strong sense” critical thinking (Paul 1981). She abandons the structure of domination in the traditional classroom. In an introductory course on black women writers, for example, she assigns students to write an autobiographical paragraph about an early racial memory, then to read it aloud as the others listen, thus affirming the uniqueness and value of each voice and creating a communal awareness of the diversity of the group’s experiences (hooks 1994: 84). Her “engaged pedagogy” is thus similar to the “freedom under guidance” implemented in John Dewey’s Laboratory School of Chicago in the late 1890s and early 1900s. It incorporates the dialogue, anchored instruction, and mentoring that Abrami (2015) found to be most effective in improving critical thinking skills and dispositions.

What is the relationship of critical thinking to problem solving, decision-making, higher-order thinking, creative thinking, and other recognized types of thinking? One’s answer to this question obviously depends on how one defines the terms used in the question. If critical thinking is conceived broadly to cover any careful thinking about any topic for any purpose, then problem solving and decision making will be kinds of critical thinking, if they are done carefully. Historically, ‘critical thinking’ and ‘problem solving’ were two names for the same thing. If critical thinking is conceived more narrowly as consisting solely of appraisal of intellectual products, then it will be disjoint with problem solving and decision making, which are constructive.

Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives used the phrase “intellectual abilities and skills” for what had been labeled “critical thinking” by some, “reflective thinking” by Dewey and others, and “problem solving” by still others (Bloom et al. 1956: 38). Thus, the so-called “higher-order thinking skills” at the taxonomy’s top levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation are just critical thinking skills, although they do not come with general criteria for their assessment (Ennis 1981b). The revised version of Bloom’s taxonomy (Anderson et al. 2001) likewise treats critical thinking as cutting across those types of cognitive process that involve more than remembering (Anderson et al. 2001: 269–270). For details, see the Supplement on History .

As to creative thinking, it overlaps with critical thinking (Bailin 1987, 1988). Thinking about the explanation of some phenomenon or event, as in Ferryboat , requires creative imagination in constructing plausible explanatory hypotheses. Likewise, thinking about a policy question, as in Candidate , requires creativity in coming up with options. Conversely, creativity in any field needs to be balanced by critical appraisal of the draft painting or novel or mathematical theory.

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What is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally, understanding the logical connection between ideas.  Critical thinking has been the subject of much debate and thought since the time of early Greek philosophers such as Plato and Socrates and has continued to be a subject of discussion into the modern age, for example the ability to recognise fake news .

Critical thinking might be described as the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking.

In essence, critical thinking requires you to use your ability to reason. It is about being an active learner rather than a passive recipient of information.

Critical thinkers rigorously question ideas and assumptions rather than accepting them at face value. They will always seek to determine whether the ideas, arguments and findings represent the entire picture and are open to finding that they do not.

Critical thinkers will identify, analyse and solve problems systematically rather than by intuition or instinct.

Someone with critical thinking skills can:

Understand the links between ideas.

Determine the importance and relevance of arguments and ideas.

Recognise, build and appraise arguments.

Identify inconsistencies and errors in reasoning.

Approach problems in a consistent and systematic way.

Reflect on the justification of their own assumptions, beliefs and values.

Critical thinking is thinking about things in certain ways so as to arrive at the best possible solution in the circumstances that the thinker is aware of. In more everyday language, it is a way of thinking about whatever is presently occupying your mind so that you come to the best possible conclusion.

Critical Thinking is:

A way of thinking about particular things at a particular time; it is not the accumulation of facts and knowledge or something that you can learn once and then use in that form forever, such as the nine times table you learn and use in school.

The Skills We Need for Critical Thinking

The skills that we need in order to be able to think critically are varied and include observation, analysis, interpretation, reflection, evaluation, inference, explanation, problem solving, and decision making.

Specifically we need to be able to:

Think about a topic or issue in an objective and critical way.

Identify the different arguments there are in relation to a particular issue.

Evaluate a point of view to determine how strong or valid it is.

Recognise any weaknesses or negative points that there are in the evidence or argument.

Notice what implications there might be behind a statement or argument.

Provide structured reasoning and support for an argument that we wish to make.

The Critical Thinking Process

You should be aware that none of us think critically all the time.

Sometimes we think in almost any way but critically, for example when our self-control is affected by anger, grief or joy or when we are feeling just plain ‘bloody minded’.

On the other hand, the good news is that, since our critical thinking ability varies according to our current mindset, most of the time we can learn to improve our critical thinking ability by developing certain routine activities and applying them to all problems that present themselves.

Once you understand the theory of critical thinking, improving your critical thinking skills takes persistence and practice.

Try this simple exercise to help you to start thinking critically.

Think of something that someone has recently told you. Then ask yourself the following questions:

Who said it?

Someone you know? Someone in a position of authority or power? Does it matter who told you this?

What did they say?

Did they give facts or opinions? Did they provide all the facts? Did they leave anything out?

Where did they say it?

Was it in public or in private? Did other people have a chance to respond an provide an alternative account?

When did they say it?

Was it before, during or after an important event? Is timing important?

Why did they say it?

Did they explain the reasoning behind their opinion? Were they trying to make someone look good or bad?

How did they say it?

Were they happy or sad, angry or indifferent? Did they write it or say it? Could you understand what was said?

What are you Aiming to Achieve?

One of the most important aspects of critical thinking is to decide what you are aiming to achieve and then make a decision based on a range of possibilities.

Once you have clarified that aim for yourself you should use it as the starting point in all future situations requiring thought and, possibly, further decision making. Where needed, make your workmates, family or those around you aware of your intention to pursue this goal. You must then discipline yourself to keep on track until changing circumstances mean you have to revisit the start of the decision making process.

However, there are things that get in the way of simple decision making. We all carry with us a range of likes and dislikes, learnt behaviours and personal preferences developed throughout our lives; they are the hallmarks of being human. A major contribution to ensuring we think critically is to be aware of these personal characteristics, preferences and biases and make allowance for them when considering possible next steps, whether they are at the pre-action consideration stage or as part of a rethink caused by unexpected or unforeseen impediments to continued progress.

The more clearly we are aware of ourselves, our strengths and weaknesses, the more likely our critical thinking will be productive.

The Benefit of Foresight

Perhaps the most important element of thinking critically is foresight.

Almost all decisions we make and implement don’t prove disastrous if we find reasons to abandon them. However, our decision making will be infinitely better and more likely to lead to success if, when we reach a tentative conclusion, we pause and consider the impact on the people and activities around us.

The elements needing consideration are generally numerous and varied. In many cases, consideration of one element from a different perspective will reveal potential dangers in pursuing our decision.

For instance, moving a business activity to a new location may improve potential output considerably but it may also lead to the loss of skilled workers if the distance moved is too great. Which of these is the more important consideration? Is there some way of lessening the conflict?

These are the sort of problems that may arise from incomplete critical thinking, a demonstration perhaps of the critical importance of good critical thinking.

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In Summary:

Critical thinking is aimed at achieving the best possible outcomes in any situation. In order to achieve this it must involve gathering and evaluating information from as many different sources possible.

Critical thinking requires a clear, often uncomfortable, assessment of your personal strengths, weaknesses and preferences and their possible impact on decisions you may make.

Critical thinking requires the development and use of foresight as far as this is possible. As Doris Day sang, “the future’s not ours to see”.

Implementing the decisions made arising from critical thinking must take into account an assessment of possible outcomes and ways of avoiding potentially negative outcomes, or at least lessening their impact.

• Critical thinking involves reviewing the results of the application of decisions made and implementing change where possible.

It might be thought that we are overextending our demands on critical thinking in expecting that it can help to construct focused meaning rather than examining the information given and the knowledge we have acquired to see if we can, if necessary, construct a meaning that will be acceptable and useful.

After all, almost no information we have available to us, either externally or internally, carries any guarantee of its life or appropriateness.  Neat step-by-step instructions may provide some sort of trellis on which our basic understanding of critical thinking can blossom but it doesn’t and cannot provide any assurance of certainty, utility or longevity.

Continue to: Critical Thinking and Fake News Critical Reading

See also: Analytical Skills Understanding and Addressing Conspiracy Theories Introduction to Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)

Thinking and Analysis

Critical thinking skills.

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks. —Christopher Hitchens, author and journalist

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Define critical thinking
• Describe the role that logic plays in critical thinking
• Describe how critical thinking skills can be used to problem-solve
• Describe how critical thinking skills can be used to evaluate information
• Identify strategies for developing yourself as a critical thinker

Critical Thinking

Thinking comes naturally. You don’t have to make it happen—it just does. But you can make it happen in different ways. For example, you can think positively or negatively. You can think with “heart” and you can think with rational judgment. You can also think strategically and analytically, and mathematically and scientifically. These are a few of multiple ways in which the mind can process thought.

What are some forms of thinking you use? When do you use them, and why?

As a college student, you are tasked with engaging and expanding your thinking skills. One of the most important of these skills is critical thinking. Critical thinking is important because it relates to nearly all tasks, situations, topics, careers, environments, challenges, and opportunities. It’s a “domain-general” thinking skill—not a thinking skill that’s reserved for a one subject alone or restricted to a particular subject area.

Great leaders have highly attuned critical thinking skills, and you can, too. In fact, you probably have a lot of these skills already. Of all your thinking skills, critical thinking may have the greatest value.

What Is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is clear, reasonable, reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do. It means asking probing questions like, “How do we know?” or “Is this true in every case or just in this instance?” It involves being skeptical and challenging assumptions, rather than simply memorizing facts or blindly accepting what you hear or read.

Imagine, for example, that you’re reading a history textbook. You wonder who wrote it and why, because you detect certain biases in the writing. You find that the author has a limited scope of research focused only on a particular group within a population. In this case, your critical thinking reveals that there are “other sides to the story.”

Who are critical thinkers, and what characteristics do they have in common? Critical thinkers are usually curious and reflective people. They like to explore and probe new areas and seek knowledge, clarification, and new solutions. They ask pertinent questions, evaluate statements and arguments, and they distinguish between facts and opinion. They are also willing to examine their own beliefs, possessing a manner of humility that allows them to admit lack of knowledge or understanding when needed. They are open to changing their mind. Perhaps most of all, they actively enjoy learning, and seeking new knowledge is a lifelong pursuit.

This may well be you!

No matter where you are on the road to being a critical thinker, you can always more fully develop and finely tune your skills. Doing so will help you develop more balanced arguments, express yourself clearly, read critically, and glean important information efficiently. Critical thinking skills will help you in any profession or any circumstance of life, from science to art to business to teaching. With critical thinking, you become a clearer thinker and problem solver.

The following video, from Lawrence Bland, presents the major concepts and benefits of critical thinking.

Activity: Self-Assess Your Critical Thinking Strategies

• Assess your basic understanding of the skills involved in critical thinking.
• Visit the Quia Critical Thinking Quiz page and click on Start Now (you don’t need to enter your name). Select the best answer for each question, and then click on Submit Answers. A score of 70 percent or better on this quiz is considering passing.
• Based on the content of the questions, do you feel you use good critical thinking strategies in college? In what ways might you improve as a critical thinker?

Critical Thinking and Logic

Critical thinking is fundamentally a process of questioning information and data. You may question the information you read in a textbook, or you may question what a politician or a professor or a classmate says. You can also question a commonly-held belief or a new idea. With critical thinking, anything and everything is subject to question and examination for the purpose of logically constructing reasoned perspectives.

What Is Logic, and Why Is It Important in Critical Thinking?

The word logic comes from the Ancient Greek logike , referring to the science or art of reasoning. Using logic, a person evaluates arguments and reasoning and strives to distinguish between good and bad reasoning, or between truth and falsehood. Using logic, you can evaluate ideas or claims people make, make good decisions, and form sound beliefs about the world. [1]

Questions of Logic in Critical Thinking

Let’s use a simple example of applying logic to a critical-thinking situation. In this hypothetical scenario, a man has a PhD in political science, and he works as a professor at a local college. His wife works at the college, too. They have three young children in the local school system, and their family is well known in the community. The man is now running for political office. Are his credentials and experience sufficient for entering public office? Will he be effective in the political office? Some voters might believe that his personal life and current job, on the surface, suggest he will do well in the position, and they will vote for him. In truth, the characteristics described don’t guarantee that the man will do a good job. The information is somewhat irrelevant. What else might you want to know? How about whether the man had already held a political office and done a good job? In this case, we want to ask, How much information is adequate in order to make a decision based on logic instead of assumptions?

The following questions, presented in Figure 1, below, are ones you may apply to formulating a logical, reasoned perspective in the above scenario or any other situation:

• What’s happening? Gather the basic information and begin to think of questions.
• Why is it important? Ask yourself why it’s significant and whether or not you agree.
• What don’t I see? Is there anything important missing?
• How do I know? Ask yourself where the information came from and how it was constructed.
• Who is saying it? What’s the position of the speaker and what is influencing them?
• What else? What if? What other ideas exist and are there other possibilities?

Problem-Solving with Critical Thinking

For most people, a typical day is filled with critical thinking and problem-solving challenges. In fact, critical thinking and problem-solving go hand-in-hand. They both refer to using knowledge, facts, and data to solve problems effectively. But with problem-solving, you are specifically identifying, selecting, and defending your solution. Below are some examples of using critical thinking to problem-solve:

• Your roommate was upset and said some unkind words to you, which put a crimp in the relationship. You try to see through the angry behaviors to determine how you might best support the roommate and help bring the relationship back to a comfortable spot.
• Your campus club has been languishing on account of lack of participation and funds. The new club president, though, is a marketing major and has identified some strategies to interest students in joining and supporting the club. Implementation is forthcoming.
• Your final art class project challenges you to conceptualize form in new ways. On the last day of class when students present their projects, you describe the techniques you used to fulfill the assignment. You explain why and how you selected that approach.
• Your math teacher sees that the class is not quite grasping a concept. She uses clever questioning to dispel anxiety and guide you to new understanding of the concept.
• You have a job interview for a position that you feel you are only partially qualified for, although you really want the job and you are excited about the prospects. You analyze how you will explain your skills and experiences in a way to show that you are a good match for the prospective employer.
• You are doing well in college, and most of your college and living expenses are covered. But there are some gaps between what you want and what you feel you can afford. You analyze your income, savings, and budget to better calculate what you will need to stay in college and maintain your desired level of spending.

Problem-Solving Activity

Now let’s practice problem solving by working through the following activity.

Problem-Solving Action Checklist

Problem-solving can be an efficient and rewarding process, especially if you are organized and mindful of critical steps and strategies. Remember, too, to assume the attributes of a good critical thinker. If you are curious, reflective, knowledge-seeking, open to change, probing, organized, and ethical, your challenge or problem will be less of a hurdle, and you’ll be in a good position to find intelligent solutions.

Evaluating Information with Critical Thinking

Evaluating information can be one of the most complex tasks you will be faced with in college. But if you utilize the following four strategies, you will be well on your way to success:

• Read for understanding by using text coding
• Examine arguments
• Clarify thinking
• Cultivate “habits of mind”

Read for Understanding Using Text Coding

When you read and take notes, use the text coding strategy . Text coding is a way of tracking your thinking while reading. It entails marking the text and recording what you are thinking either in the margins or perhaps on Post-it notes. As you make connections and ask questions in response to what you read,  you monitor your comprehension and enhance your long-term understanding of the material.

With text coding, mark important arguments and key facts. Indicate where you agree and disagree or have further questions. You don’t necessarily need to read every word, but make sure you understand the concepts or the intentions behind what is written. Feel free to develop your own shorthand style when reading or taking notes. The following are a few options to consider using while coding text.

See more text coding from PBWorks and Collaborative for Teaching and Learning .

Examine Arguments

When you examine arguments or claims that an author, speaker, or other source is making, your goal is to identify and examine the hard facts. You can use the spectrum of authority strategy for this purpose. The spectrum of authority strategy assists you in identifying the “hot” end of an argument—feelings, beliefs, cultural influences, and societal influences—and the “cold” end of an argument—scientific influences. The following video explains this strategy.

Clarify Thinking

When you use critical thinking to evaluate information, you need to clarify your thinking to yourself and likely to others. Doing this well is mainly a process of asking and answering probing questions, such as the logic questions discussed earlier. Design your questions to fit your needs, but be sure to cover adequate ground. What is the purpose? What question are we trying to answer? What point of view is being expressed? What assumptions are we or others making? What are the facts and data we know, and how do we know them? What are the concepts we’re working with? What are the conclusions, and do they make sense? What are the implications?

Cultivate “Habits of Mind”

“Habits of mind” are the personal commitments, values, and standards you have about the principle of good thinking. Consider your intellectual commitments, values, and standards. Do you approach problems with an open mind, a respect for truth, and an inquiring attitude? Some good habits to have when thinking critically are being receptive to having your opinions changed, having respect for others, being independent and not accepting something is true until you’ve had the time to examine the available evidence, being fair-minded, having respect for a reason, having an inquiring mind, not making assumptions, and always, especially, questioning your own conclusions—in other words, developing an intellectual work ethic. Try to work these qualities into your daily life.

Developing Yourself As a Critical Thinker

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. —Francis Bacon, philosopher

Critical thinking is a fundamental skill for college students, but it should also be a lifelong pursuit. Below are additional strategies to develop yourself as a critical thinker in college and in everyday life:

• Reflect and practice : Always reflect on what you’ve learned. Is it true all the time? How did you arrive at your conclusions?
• Use wasted time : It’s certainly important to make time for relaxing, but if you find you are indulging in too much of a good thing, think about using your time more constructively. Determine when you do your best thinking and try to learn something new during that part of the day.
• Redefine the way you see things : It can be very uninteresting to always think the same way. Challenge yourself to see familiar things in new ways. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes and consider things from a different angle or perspective.  If you’re trying to solve a problem, list all your concerns: what you need in order to solve it, who can help, what some possible barriers might be, etc. It’s often possible to reframe a problem as an opportunity. Try to find a solution where there seems to be none.
• Analyze the influences on your thinking and in your life : Why do you think or feel the way you do? Analyze your influences. Think about who in your life influences you. Do you feel or react a certain way because of social convention, or because you believe it is what is expected of you? Try to break out of any molds that may be constricting you.
• Express yourself : Critical thinking also involves being able to express yourself clearly. Most important in expressing yourself clearly is stating one point at a time. You might be inclined to argue every thought, but you might have greater impact if you focus just on your main arguments. This will help others to follow your thinking clearly. For more abstract ideas, assume that your audience may not understand. Provide examples, analogies, or metaphors where you can.
• Enhance your wellness : It’s easier to think critically when you take care of your mental and physical health. Try taking 10-minute activity breaks to reach 30 to 60 minutes of physical activity each day . Try taking a break between classes and walk to the coffee shop that’s farthest away. Scheduling physical activity into your day can help lower stress and increase mental alertness. Also, do your most difficult work when you have the most energy . Think about the time of day you are most effective and have the most energy. Plan to do your most difficult work during these times. And be sure to reach out for help . If you feel you need assistance with your mental or physical health, talk to a counselor or visit a doctor.

Activity: Reflect on Critical Thinking

• Apply critical thinking strategies to your life

Directions:

• Think about someone you consider to be a critical thinker (friend, professor, historical figure, etc). What qualities does he/she have?
• Review some of the critical thinking strategies discussed on this page. Pick one strategy that makes sense to you. How can you apply this critical thinking technique to your academic work?
• Habits of mind are attitudes and beliefs that influence how you approach the world (i.e., inquiring attitude, open mind, respect for truth, etc). What is one habit of mind you would like to actively develop over the next year? How will you develop a daily practice to cultivate this habit?
• Write your responses in journal form, and submit according to your instructor’s guidelines.

The following text is an excerpt from an essay by Dr. Andrew Robert Baker, “Thinking Critically and Creatively.” In these paragraphs, Dr. Baker underscores the importance of critical thinking—the imperative of critical thinking, really—to improving as students, teachers, and researchers. The follow-up portion of this essay appears in the Creative Thinking section of this course.

Thinking Critically and Creatively

Critical thinking skills are perhaps the most fundamental skills involved in making judgments and solving problems. You use them every day, and you can continue improving them.

The ability to think critically about a matter—to analyze a question, situation, or problem down to its most basic parts—is what helps us evaluate the accuracy and truthfulness of statements, claims, and information we read and hear. It is the sharp knife that, when honed, separates fact from fiction, honesty from lies, and the accurate from the misleading. We all use this skill to one degree or another almost every day. For example, we use critical thinking every day as we consider the latest consumer products and why one particular product is the best among its peers. Is it a quality product because a celebrity endorses it? Because a lot of other people may have used it? Because it is made by one company versus another? Or perhaps because it is made in one country or another? These are questions representative of critical thinking.

The academic setting demands more of us in terms of critical thinking than everyday life. It demands that we evaluate information and analyze myriad issues. It is the environment where our critical thinking skills can be the difference between success and failure. In this environment we must consider information in an analytical, critical manner. We must ask questions—What is the source of this information? Is this source an expert one and what makes it so? Are there multiple perspectives to consider on an issue? Do multiple sources agree or disagree on an issue? Does quality research substantiate information or opinion? Do I have any personal biases that may affect my consideration of this information?

It is only through purposeful, frequent, intentional questioning such as this that we can sharpen our critical thinking skills and improve as students, learners and researchers.

—Dr. Andrew Robert Baker,  Foundations of Academic Success: Words of Wisdom

Resources for Critical Thinking

• Glossary of Critical Thinking Terms
• Critical Thinking Self-Assessment
• Logical Fallacies Jeopardy Template
• Fallacies Files—Home
• Thinking Critically | Learning Commons
• Foundation for Critical Thinking
• To Analyze Thinking We Must Identify and Question Its Elemental Structures
• Critical Thinking in Everyday Life
• "logike." Wordnik. n.d. Web. 16 Feb 2016. ↵
• "Student Success-Thinking Critically In Class and Online."  Critical Thinking Gateway . St Petersburg College, n.d. Web. 16 Feb 2016. ↵
• Critical Thinking Skills. Authored by : Linda Bruce. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Image of three students. Authored by : PopTech. Located at : https://flic.kr/p/8tXtQp . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Critical Thinking. Provided by : Critical and Creative Thinking Program. Located at : http://cct.wikispaces.umb.edu/Critical+Thinking . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Thinking Critically. Authored by : UBC Learning Commons. Provided by : The University of British Columbia, Vancouver Campus. Located at : http://www.oercommons.org/courses/learning-toolkit-critical-thinking/view . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Critical Thinking 101: Spectrum of Authority. Authored by : UBC Leap. Located at : https://youtu.be/9G5xooMN2_c . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Image of students putting post-its on wall. Authored by : Hector Alejandro. Located at : https://flic.kr/p/7b2Ax2 . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Foundations of Academic Success. Authored by : Thomas C. Priester, editor. Provided by : Open SUNY Textbooks. Located at : http://textbooks.opensuny.org/foundations-of-academic-success/ . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Critical Thinking.wmv. Authored by : Lawrence Bland. Located at : https://youtu.be/WiSklIGUblo . License : All Rights Reserved . License Terms : Standard YouTube License

Creativity in Life (Part 2)

Research about creativity, creative thinking plus critical thinking, creative thinking is extremely useful — and it's fun — but it should be combined with critical thinking, during your process of productive thinking .  why.

During productive PROBLEM SOLVING you creatively Generate Ideas and critically Evaluate Ideas.   Usually, creative generation is the most exciting part of creative-and-critical Productive Thinking and it's very important.  But critical evaluation (i.e. logical evaluation ) is usually more important, in two ways:  • if creative ideas are immediately converted into action (without being wisely evaluated) the result can be unwise action;   • your critical evaluation of ideas can motivate-and-guide your creative generation of ideas, as explained in the next section, Creative Thinking in Everyday Living.

By itself, creativity is not sufficient.   But it is useful and fun.   Hopefully this page — with its fascinating “ideas about getting ideas” — will inspire exciting mental adventures and creatively productive ideas, because (as expressed by the creative Albert Einstein ) “creativity is intelligence having fun.”  Enjoy!

Options   —  You can explore the page in any way you want, by clicking a link and jumping to...   Creativity in Everyday Living (Part 1)   –  What is Creativity?   –  Teaching Creativity, Why & How   –  Principles & Strategies for Improving Creativity   –  Liberating Creativity   –  Creativity in Everyday Living (Part 2)   –  Education for Creativity   –  Research about Creativity .

Creative thinking in everyday living  –  part 1, generative creativity:   many times throughout every day – whenever you make a decision so you can do an action – you're using practical creative thinking.   how  when you make a conscious decision, you combine creative thinking (to get ideas, to generate options for “what to do”) and critical thinking (to evaluate your options and decide “what to do”), as shown in the diagram.  during this process — when you creatively generate options and critically evaluate options — you are using cycles of creative -and- critical thinking, when you generate -and- evaluate -and- generate -and- evaluate -..... until you make a decision , and do an action., that's the basic process for a common way to be creative.   in the rest of this section, you'll see:.

• how Decision Making (using Generative Creativity) is the practical Problem Solving you do many times every day, in all areas of your life;

• how a productive interaction between creative thinking and critical thinking occurs in the Guided Creativity (when creative thinking is motivated-and-guided by critical thinking ) that is one kind of creativity .

You use practical idea-generating creativity many times every day, whenever you try to “make things better” in some way.

Problem Solving:   a problem is an opportunity , in any area of life, to make things better.   Whenever a decision-and-action helps you “ make it better ” (or “do it better”) you are problem solving , and this includes almost everything you do in life, in all areas of life.      { You can make things better if you increase quality for any aspect of life, or maintain quality by minimizing a potential decrease of quality.   }    { design thinking is the problem-solving thinking we use to solve problems }

Education:   In another broad definition, education is learning from life-experiences, learning how to improve, to become more effective in making things better.   For example, Maya Angelou – describing an essential difference between past and present – says "I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better, " where improved problem solving (when "do better" leads to more effectively “making things better”) has been a beneficial result of education, of "knowing better" due to learning from life-experiences.

Growth:   One of the best ways to learn more effectively is by developing-and-using a better growth mindset so — when you ask yourself “how well am I doing in this area of life?” and honestly self-answer “not well enough” — instead of thinking “not ever” you are thinking “not yet” because you know that your past performance isn't your future performance;  and you are confident that in this area of life (and in other areas) you can “grow” by improving your understandings-and-skills, when you invest intelligent effort in your self-education and self-improving.  And you can support the self-improving of other people by helping them improve their own growth mindsets.

Growth in Creativity:   The goal of this page is to help you improve your creativity and your ability to combine creative thinking with critical thinking in ways that are practical & productive, in all areas of your everyday living.  Yes, you can do it.    {resources: growth mindset for creativity }

Guided Creativity   —  Part 1

Critical thinking can motivate-and-guide creative thinking..

When you carefully examine this diagram — showing how people use 3 Elements in 3 Comparisons, when they are trying to solve a problem and “make things better” in some way — you can recognize a useful strategy for practical creativity.

After you've been examining for awhile, exploring the diagram (thinking about each part and how the parts interact), you may find it helpful to use these questions:

What are the 3 Elements?  How do you “make” each of them?

Think about your own experiences and ask “what part of my own problem-solving process is in each part of the diagram?”   Why do you think I said "you can recognize a useful strategy" instead of “you can discover... ” or “you can learn... ”   ?

What are the 3 Comparisons?  In what situations (and in what ways) will each comparison be useful?   What kinds of things might you be “designing” in General Design?  and in Science-Design?

Guided Creativity:   During cycles of problem solving (when you Generate -and- Evaluate -and- Generate -and- Evaluate -...), how can your critical Evaluation of an Option (it's a possible Problem-Solution) motivate you to creatively Generate a New Option?  and how can your critical Evaluation guide your creative Generation in a critical - and - creative process of Guided Generation ?

Your diagram-examining & question-responding can help you develop a better understanding of problem-solving process.  And if you want, you can see some results of my examining & responding .

Why, How, and What?

  why teach creativity , why should educators help students become more creative.

Basically, because it will help them live more effectively.

Why Creativity? – Creativity: What, Who, and Why – Why Creativity Is The Most Important Quality You Have – creativity is one of the most critical skills for the future – the economic value of creativity (from LateralAction.com ) – Why Creativity Now?  A Conversation with Sir Ken Robinson .

The International Center for Studies in Creativity asks Why study creativity? and explains the benefits.  And they claim that yes, teaching creativity (i.e. "helping students become more creative") is possible :  "Creativity is an effective resource that resides in all people and within all organizations.  Our more than 30 years of research has conclusively demonstrated that creativity can be nurtured and enhanced through the use of deliberate tools, techniques, and strategies."

what creativity really is - and why schools need it (by Liane Gabora ) -

Why Creative Education is Important for Kids (from Parenting.com) – Why Care About It? – because Creativity in the Classroom Matters More Than Ever so...

  HOW to teach creativity ?

How can you help your students become more creative.

Many practical creativity-stimulating ideas are in Education for Creativity .

In a useful general strategy, teachers can encourage creativity when their students do activities that provide opportunities to be creative, while they are learning useful principles and strategies .

  WHAT is creativity ?

The purpose of this page is to help you improve your practical creativity for everyday living.  but... what is creativity.

Wikipedia begins by defining creativity as "a phenomenon [a process? a result?] whereby something" that is " somehow new and somehow valuable is formed," and later describes a general agreement that creative results are "novel and useful,... original and worthwhile."  Beyond these basics, there is much variability.    { why is it educationally useful to use a broad definition of creativity so it occurs anytime "something... somehow new... is formed"   ?}

In the section above you see Guided Creativity but it's only one of many kinds.  One source of variety is...

Multiple Creativities using Multiple Intelligences:   When people are solving a wide variety of problems (to “make things better”) in all areas of life we can think creatively (and do creatively) in a variety of ways, with MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES .  Each of these is a way for us to BE creative (with creative thinking + creative doing ), as described in 8 Types of Creative Intelligence (by Robyn McMaster) and (by Robert Sang) multiple intelligences in the context of faith .

We see a variety of creativities with "intelligences" and with products, process, style:

"The products of creative thought include some obvious things like music, poetry, dance, dramatic literature, inventions, and technical innovations.  But there are some not so obvious examples as well, such as ways of putting a question that expand the horizons of possible solutions, or ways of conceiving of relationships that challenge presuppositions and lead one to see the world in imaginative and different ways. ...  [creative thinking] is the kind of thinking that leads to new insights, novel approaches, fresh perspectives, whole new ways of understanding and conceiving of things." (Peter Facione, in Critical Thinking: What It Is and Why It [along with Creative Thinking] Counts )

We see two approaches to creative process – with Adaptive Creativity and Innovative Creativity – in two styles of creative people who function primarily as adaptors (who focus on improving an existing solution) or innovators (who develop and advocate new solutions).  Each style offers advantages & disadvantages, and when they effectively operate together (in an individual or group) the creative productivity will be higher than with either alone.  Therefore, creativity-facilitators in education (and business,...) should recognize, appreciate, and encourage both styles of creativity.

Guided Creativity and Free Creativity can be useful, with each offering advantages, so we should appreciate and encourage both styles of creativity, guided and free .

In different parts of a problem-solving process we see...

Generative Creativity when a person flexibly-and-fluidly generates many options for a problem-solution .

Proactive Creativity when a person imagines a way to make things better in the future, after they recognize “deficiency gaps” in a current situation, with Creative Questioning of the way things are.    { more about Proactive Creativity }

Knowledge-Gathering Creativity when a person learns more by doing creatively clever “detective work” to gather knowledge that is old and new, made by them and by others.    { more about Knowledge-Gathering Creativity }

Generative Creativity (by thinking with Fluidity & Flexibility, with Originality & Elaboration) will help improve the Mimetic Creativity & Analogous Creativity & Bisociative Creativity & Narrative Creativity & Intuitive Creativity that are possibilities when asking What's Your Creativity Type?

The many kinds of creativity are not mutually exclusive, so they can be combined in a variety of ways.  For example, a person {or group} could do Analogous Creativity with a style that is Adaptively Creative or Innovatively Creative or (usually more productive) some of each.  And there are many other interactive combinations.

These are just a few of the MANY ways to describe-and-define our wide variety of creativities.  Asking “what are the best ways to describe?” can stimulate interesting debates, but there is no consensus about “the answers” when we ask experts who study creativity.  Agreement is not possible because there are many ways to think about creativity, and thus many answers when we ask “what is creativity?”

In a long listing of "many ways to think" with a wide range of perspectives, Wikipedia's page-intro tells us that "scholarly interest in creativity is found in a number of disciplines, primarily psychology, business studies, and cognitive science, but also education, the humanities, technology, engineering, philosophy (particularly philosophy of science), theology, sociology, linguistics, the arts, economics, and mathematics, covering the relations between creativity and general intelligence, personality type, mental and neural processes, mental health, or artificial intelligence; the potential for fostering creativity through education and training; the fostering of creativity for national economic benefit [and for benefits to individuals & businesses], and the application of creative resources to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning."   /   This list is followed by a longer Table of Contents with 59 links.  A few of them — quoted here to give you a feeling for the conflicting theories about many aspects of creativity, including the complex relationships between intelligence and creativity — are "8.1 Creativity as a subset of intelligence,  8.2 Intelligence as a subset of creativity,  8.3 Creativity and intelligence as overlapping yet distinct constructs" and, in 8.4 & 8.5, "...as coincident sets" & "...as conjoint sets."  Wow.

Obviously, this section (and page) cannot cover everything.  Instead my goal is just to provide a coherent overview of essential ideas – along with links to web-resources for further exploration – that I think might be interesting-and-useful for you.

Thus, perseverance and flexibility are contrasting virtues.  When you aim for an optimal balancing of this complementary pair, self-awareness by “knowing yourself” is useful.  Being flexible in your thinking about “where to dig” and “how to dig” are two kinds of...

• Thinking with Flexibility:   If an Opportunity Presented Itself, Would you Notice ? (by Jay Gordon Cone) explains why “yes” is more likely if you can think flexibly with a prepared mind .  And if (as in a pivotal period of life-experiences for Peter Buffett ) you have learned skills that prepare you to take advantage of the opportunity .  And on a much smaller scale, How I didn't Learn to Ski (and then did) with Persevering plus Flexibility with Insight .

Being Creative when we Learn and Define

a context:  When we're thinking creatively about creativity – as in our descriptions of what creativity is – it's useful to think about process & products & styles, in different areas of life.  A few of the many ways to describe creative process are Multiple Creativities (by “thinking” with Multiple Intelligences), and/or Adaptive Creativity (by improving an existing solution) & Innovative Creativity (by developing a new solution) and Generative Creativity (to generate many options for a solution);  the "and/or" is due to overlaps between these ways to use process.   Here are two of the ways your process-of-thinking can be creative, when you Define and Learn, with Proactive Creativity by recognizing “deficiency gaps” in a current situation, and imagining a way to make things better in the future, and with Knowledge-Gathering Creativity by doing creatively clever “detective work” to gather knowledge that is old and new, made by yourself and by others.  Let's look at these two related aspects of creative thinking.

Proactive Creativity to Define:   When you Define a Problem, you can be proactive — defined as " acting in anticipation of future problems... intending to produce a good result or avoid a problem, rather than waiting until there is a problem" — when you use prediction to recognize a problem (an opportunity to make things better) so (with a decision to “go for it”) you can design-and-do actions to help make things better in the future, or at least avoid making things worse.  A creatively proactive defining & doing is more likely to happen if you are able-and-willing * to recognize “deficiency gaps” in a current situation or idea, if (with critical thinking) you can see how it's inadequate and (with creative thinking) you can imagine that it could be improved.   At this point (after you have defined a problem-solving objective ) you can try to solve this problem by generating options & evaluating options, making decisions, and doing actions.  Many things in life will be “made better (or not made worse)” only if people are creatively proactive in defining a problem and deciding it should be solved.    Because most important life-situations involve other people, often a useful process for proactive defining is by asking (to understand with empathy ) “what do they want?” and (to understand with self-empathy ) “what do I want?” and – based on your understandings of others & self and aiming for a win-win outcome (by using Habit 5 and Habit 4) – “what do we want?” and then pursuing your problem-solving goals with decisions & actions that will help you achieve the win-win outcomes you want.    /    *   it's "able and willing " because Proactive Creativity often requires a Creative Questioning of the way things are, and this questioning may lead to resistance by defenders of the status quo.  Many people are not willing to question because they don't want to experience the resistance.

Three Parts of a Process:   What is the relationship between proactivity and gathering knowledge?  My basic model of problem solving has two stages – Define and Solve – beginning (in the top line of my basic diagram) with " Learn so you understand more accurately-and-thoroughly" followed by " Define your Objective, Define your Goals for a Solution." {and in the bottom part of the diagram, trying to Solve the Problem with cycles of Generate-and-Evaluate}   But the time-sequence of "Learn" and "Define" can be reversed, because Learning more is useful in two ways:  your improved knowedge can help you recognize a deficiency-gap and Define your Objective-and- Goals; *    it also will help you Solve the Problem, because your improved understanding will help you be more effective in creatively Generating Options (for a Problem-Solution) and critically Evaluating Options.   /   *   Because you can Define more proactively when you Learn more, your Proactive Creativity (when you proactively Define so you can Solve) can be improved by your...

Knowledge-Gathering Creativity to Learn:  During your process of Defining-and-Solving a Problem you can Learn more by doing creatively clever “detective work” to gather knowledge * that is old and new, made by yourself and others.  You can MAKE knowledge that is new,   and you can FIND knowledge that is old {is already existing} by REMEMBERING it in your personal memory or LOCATING it in our collective memory, in what is recorded {is culturally remembered} in books, web-pages, journals, audio & video recordings, etc.   /   Your process of gathering knowledge can use creative thinking — when you creatively ask “how can I MAKE it?” and “where can I FIND it?”, when you think about creative ways to be systematically thorough in your searching — and always should use critical thinking, so your ideas (your understandings & predictions) are logical and are based on reality, are based on observations that are true because they correspond to the reality of what did happen, or what is happening.

* knowledge is observations, plus ideas that include predictions.     {when you effectively combine relevant knowledge with creative thinking and critical thinking, the result is productive thinking }

{more...  about the process of generating observations and predictions that are old & new, made by yourself & others;   and about using the many ways to gather many kinds of knowledge }   {and from other authors, [[ find ]]

Creativity in Life, for Effective Living  –  Part 2

Practical Creativity for Everyday Living:  This page begins with a reminder that you want practical creativity that makes your life better, so you want productive thinking that effectively combines creative thinking with critical thinking and with knowledge.   Therefore, especially for important actions, “raw creativity” should be combined with wise logical evaluation based on reliable knowledge.    { strategies for decreasing unproductive interactions between critical thinking and creativity }

The purpose of this page is to help you improve your practical creativity for everyday living.  As described in Part 1, you can be more creative, more often, by just expecting it and doing it, ...

    • by viewing more of your daily activities as opportunities for creative-and-critical problem solving (defined broadly as “making things better”) * that combines creative generation of ideas (for “what to do”) with critical evaluation of ideas (so you can wisely decide “what to do” and, with wise filtering, “what not to do”);     • by developing-and-using a growth mindset so you're confident that you can improve all of your everyday skills (including practical creativity) by investing intelligent effort in your self-improving.

* Instead of thinking of creativity as a mysterious process-and-result that happens only in a limited number of special areas (like visual & performing arts, graphic design, product engineering,...) we can recognize the creativity used by people (including you) in many areas of everyday life.  Creative ideas-and-actions can come from professionals (who get paid for what they do) and also from skilled amateurs (who get satisfaction from what they do).    { creative-and-critical design thinking occurs in a wide range of design fields in professional life and in everyday personal life }

The Broad Scope of Creative-and-Critical Problem Solving:

People solve a problem when they try to “make it better” and they design (i.e. they find, invent, or improve ) a better product, activity, relationship, and/or strategy (in General Design) and/or (in Science-Design) explanatory theory.   These objectives extend far beyond traditional “design fields” to include almost everything we do in life.   For example,...

The creative-and-critical designing of a better activity, relationship, and strategy is illustrated in Guided Creativity, Part 3 .

A common creative activity – it's important and fun! – is conversation.   { principles & strategies for improving conversation }

A creatively productive conversation – that improves a relationship or helps achieve some other goal, and is fun – requires an effective combining of many skills.  A productive conversation is a skillful combining of multiple intelligences that include linguistic, logical, intrapersonal (by understanding self) and (by understanding others) interpersonal, along with worthy values and goals.

You can be a creative detective — who is “doing detective work” functionally for personal satisfaction, even if not professionally for pay — when you ask “what is the truth?” and you do what is necessary (by gathering reliable information and logically evaluating it) to help you determine the truth of what has happened, or what is happening.    { creative Detective Work that is creative Scientific Investigation }

With creativity, logic, and knowledge of yourself, you can develop-and-use thinking strategies to improve your performing and/or learning and/or enjoying in all areas of life.

Guided Creativity   —  Part 2

Creative thinking motivated-and-guided by critical thinking.

When you're using creative -and- critical cycles of Generate - Evaluate - Generate - Evaluate -... an effective way to Evaluate is to use evaluative comparisons.  How?  During a problem-solving process of General Design, usually you critically Evaluate an Option (for a Problem-Solution) by comparing your Goals (for the properties you want in a satisfactory Problem-Solution) with two kinds of Information about this Option — your PREDICTIONS (made when you imagine what will happen in the future ) or your OBSERVATIONS (made when you observe what is happening in the present or you remember what has happened in the past ) * — in two kinds of Comparative Evaluations, in a Predictions-Based QUALITY CHECK or Observations-Based QUALITY CHECK .

Your evaluation of this option will help you decide whether to reject it or to accept it as-is;  or you can modify it by asking “in what ways do this option's properties ( predicted or observed ) differ from the desired properties that I have defined as Goals ?” — with your Evaluation showing flaws in the current Option, so you're motivated to Generate a better Option — and then you're guided by asking “how can I creatively modify This Option so its properties will more closely match the desired properties of my Goals ?”  In this way, Guided Generation occurs when feedback from your critical Evaluation of This Option first motivates you (so you want to creatively Generate a New Option ) and then guides your creative Generation of a New Option in the next cycle of Evaluate - and - Generate during your critical - and - creative process of General Design.    /   measuring progress: You want to Generate a New Option that has better Quality – with “quality” defined by your Goals – and you can use Quality Checks (for the Old Option & New Option) to inform you about your progress, to let you know whether you're actually generating a better-quality Option .

In a similar way, during Science-Design the feedback from your critical Evaluation (in a Reality Check for an Explanatory Theory about “how the world works”) can lead you to revise a Theory when you're “surprised” because PREDICTIONS (based on a Theory) and OBSERVATIONS (of Reality) don't match well.  Then you ask “how can I creatively - and - wisely modify This Theory so its PREDICTIONS will more closely match OBSERVATIONS of Reality?”    {or... instead of focusing on the Theory, you can question ALL factors involved in the Reality Check – the Observations & Predictions, and their logical comparison – and for each of these, ask “ what could cause errors and produce a surprising mis-match? ”}

* You can do creatively clever “detective work” to gather information that is old and new, made by yourself and others, because...  Your OBSERVATIONS can be "made when you observe what is happening in the present or you remember what has happened in the past ."  You also can use OBSERVATIONS-of-past or PREDICTIONS-for-future that are made by other people.  Thus, by combining "old and new" with "yourself and others," you can MAKE knowledge-information ( OBSERVATIONS or PREDICTIONS ) that is new,   and you can FIND knowledge-information that is old {is already existing} by REMEMBERING it in your personal memory or LOCATING it in our collective memory, in what is recorded {is culturally remembered} in books, web-pages, journals, audio & video recordings, etc.

Guided Creativity   —  Part 3

This is an application-and-illustration, showing how guided creativity (recognized by you in part 1 and described by me in part 2 ) could be used to improve “the party atmosphere” of a dinner you'll be hosting, by improving a relationship.     {of course, the wide range of goals for problem solving includes improved relationships, because this is an extremely important part of life}.

a general situation:  Imagine that before a decision you creatively generated four options-for-action (A, B, C, D) and after critically evaluating these options you chose C.  Later, you look back on what happened and you think “instead of C, it would have been better to do B2 (a modified version of B)” but earlier you had not creatively generated B2 as a possible option.  In this case your failure to make the better decision (by choosing B2) wasn't due to a lack of wisdom, by considering B2 and unwisely rejecting it.  Instead you were hindered by a lack of creativity when you didn't creatively think “even though B has a weakness (compared with C) it does offer some benefits, so instead of just giving up on B I'll modify it (to convert B into B2) in an effort to decrease its weakness and/or increase its benefits, to discover whether B2 eventually can become better than C.”

a specific illustration:  Imagine that you're hosting a dinner party with six people, and you decide to have a seating arrangement, using name cards.  You consider having Laurie and Susan sit across from each other, because they usually have fascinating conversations that they “invite others to join” and their enthusiasm would help convert your dinner into a joyfully fun party.  But... recently Laurie and Susan have been arguing, with mutually unfriendly attitudes.  You consider Options A & D, to invite only one of them (A) or neither (D) but each is a close friend, so you reject these options.  With things as-is, you predict that Option B (with Buddies sitting near each other) would be worse than Option C (they're seated far apart).  But... you creatively ask “what if I try to modify B, to make it better?  could I be a peacemaker before the evening, helping them improve their relationship?”  So you try to convert B into B2, and it works!  Laurie and Susan return to being “friendly friends” so you have them sit across the table in the center (Option B2) where they will stimulate enjoyable interactions between people to their left & right, and this makes the dinner party more fun for them and for everyone else.

Guided Generation:  During this decision-making process your Creative Generation of a new option (B2) was motivated -and- guided by your Critical Evaluation.   How?  First you OBSERVED (in reality) the current unhealthy relationship of Laurie & Susan, and recognized this as a weakness of B when you PREDICTED (in your imagination) that the actual properties of B (with former Buddies sitting close together) wouldn't match the desired properties you wanted in your dinner party, and this Quality Check (a Comparison of PREDICTIONS with GOALS) motivated you to improve B (instead of rejecting it) by modifying B. *   Your creative process-of-modifying was guided by recognizing that the relationship was causing the mis-matching of reality with hopes, so you modified B to make it B2 whose actual properties (better interactions during your dinner, due to the improved relationship) would be a closer match with your desired properties.

* In a second stage of your overall problem solving, you design a strategy for converting B into B2 — returning the relationship to being healthy — by creatively generating options and critically evaluating options.   You quickly decide that although obviously they should talk with each other eventually, you won't begin by talking with both of them together, so...  should you talk first with Laurie? or Susan?  what will you say?  in what ways might they respond, and (for each possible response) what can you say, and how?  {you're Making a Plan that includes Planning How to Improvise }   If your actions are wisely planned and done well, you are predicting that the overall result will be to “make it better” for them (and you & others) and for your dinner party.

  Scientific Research about Creativity

• There are research-resources in other parts of this page:   pros & cons of brainstorming & Creativity, Culture and Education (their research & reviews ) & ERIC Digests & 86 years of Models for the Creative Process and searching the Creative Studies Research Guide of the The International Center for Studies in Creativity and reading students' theses ;  and research references from Visual-Literacy.org

• also in other parts of the page:  ideas from others (with lots of links) about Why teach creativity? and what is it? – Principles & Strategies for Increasing Creativity – Education for Creativity .

• ERIC is Education Resources Information Center , a database { comprehensive   search-able   peer reviewed } offered by the Institute of Education Sciences .  For example,

Multiple Creativities in Young Children – and you can explore, to find many related research studies in ERIC, by clicking one of the "Descriptors" and then "Search collection using this descriptor".    {what are multiple creativities ?}

• reviews of research help you get a “big picture” overview:

    Creativity in Education by Anna Craft for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.     What the Research Tells Us About Team Creativity and Innovation by Roger Schwarz, in Harvard Business Review .     A Brief Review of Creativity (by Johanna Dickhut, with comments by two other students at Rochester Institute of Technology).

    Creativity Research in Music Education: A Review, 1922-1962-1979 (by Carol Peterson Richardson & Michael Saffle, 1983) ( Google Books ).     Creativity Research in Music Education: A Review, 1980-2005 (by Donald Running, 2008).

    Review of Research on Creativity, 1906-1966 (by Marshall Hahn, for Minnesota Research Coordinating Unit, 1968).     Creativity - A Selective Review of Research (by James Freeman, in ERIC , 1968).

• book reviews:   Creativity, Ordinary Thinking, and the Cultures of Creativity Research (a book review by Paul Silvia, of Creativity: Understanding Innovation in Problem Solving, Science, Invention, and the Arts by Robert Weisberg ;   and a book review (by MaryBeth Zacharias) of Creativity: A New Vocabulary and editorial reviews (if you scroll down) .

• research papers:   Sudden Understanding: Aha! Favors The Prepared Mind ("We have begun to understand how the brain prepares for creative insight. [because chance favors the prepared mind ] This will hopefully lead to techniques for facilitating it." -

• Journals about Creativity:   These offer some articles free, and others if you pay or if you have access through a library/institution:

    Creativity Research Journal ( aims & scope ) has partial free access, including their Top-Cited Articles & The Nature of Creativity and more.     Thinking Skills and Creativity has some free content when you click "Open Access Articles" (for info, click "Supports Open Access") and free abstracts for all articles, and others for pay or with library/institution access).     Annual Review of Psychology (abstract free, full text if you pay or have library/institution access) has two years devoted to Creativity, in 2004 by Mark A. Runco, and 2010 by Beth A. Hennessey & Teresa M. Amabile.     ... and The International Center for Studies in Creativity offers a Creative Studies Research Guide that lets you search for articles in 5 journals :  Creativity and Innovation Management - Creativity Research Journal - The Journal of Creative Behavior [the academic journal of Creative Education Foundation ] - Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts [ abstracts - wikipedia ] - Thinking Skills and Creativity .

The area of THINKING SKILLS has sub-areas for Thinking Skills in Education and Life: Effective Problem-Solving Methods Education for Critical Thinking in Life      Education for Creative Thinking in Life

  this links-page – education for creativity: critical thinking for everyday living – (being written by craig rusbult, phd, during life on a road less traveled ) is https://asa3.org/asa/education/ think/creative.htm copyright © 2001-2021 by craig rusbult, all rights reserved. { continuing to be updated/revised in june 2021 }  , all links in this page were checked-and-fixed on july 11, 2018.  ,   sitemap for our education website  .