Chapter I: CRITICAL THINKING

This chapter provides a general orientation to critical thinking. It examines what is meant by “critical
thinking”, the attitudes, knowledge and skills associated with it, and the barriers that can hinder effective
development of critical approaches. Many people can find it difficult to order their thoughts in a logical,
consistent, and reasoned way.

Critical thinking is a cognitive activity, associated with using the mind. Learning to think in critically
analytical and evaluative ways means using mental processes suc as attention, categorization, selection
and judgment. However many people who have the potential to develop more effective critical thinking
can be prevented from doing so for a variety of reasons apart from a lack of ability. This chapter also
considers how far the barriers affect our own thinking abilities and how will overcome or offset this.

CRITICAL THINKING, KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDES AND SKILLS

TERMS TO PONDER

• Critical Thinking

 A complex process of deliberation which involves a wide range of skills and attitudes.
 The objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment.
 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.
• Knowledge
 Biblically, the word is a spiritual gift listed in 1 Corinthians 12:8. It has been associated with the
ability to teach the faith, but also with forms or revelation similar to prophecy. It is closely
related to another spiritual gift, the word of wisdom.
 Facts, information and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the
theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.
 Awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation.
 Familiarity, awareness or understanding of someone or something, such as facts, information,
descriptions, or skills, which is acquired through experience or education by perceiving,
discovering, or learning.
• Attitude
 A settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, typically one that is reflected
in a person’s behavior.
 Manner, disposition, feeling, position, etc., with regard to a person or thing; tendency or
orientation, especially of the mind.
 A feeling or opinion about something or someone, or a way of behaving.
• Skills
 The ability to do something
 The ability to use one’s knowledge effectively and readily in execution or performance
 Dexterity or coordination especially in the execution of learned physical tasked.
 Learned power of doing something competently, a developed aptitude or ability language
skills.
Note :*knowledge refers to factual information and theoretical concept while a
*skill refers to the ability to apply knowledge to specific situation

Going Deeper With The Critical Thinking

Basing from the first definition of critical thinking which stated a complex process of deliberation
which involves a wide range of skills and attitudes.
This includes the following:
  Identifying other people’s positions, arguments and conclusions;
 Evaluating evidence for alternative points of view;
 Weighing up opposing arguments and evidence fairly;
 Being able to read between the lines, seeing behind surfaces, and identifying false or
unfair assumptions;
 Recognizing techniques used to make certain positions more appealing than others,
such as false logic and persuasive devices;
 Reflecting on issues in a structured way, bringing logic and insight to bear;
 Drawing conclusions about whether arguments are valid and justifiable, based on good
evidence and sensible assumptions; and
 Presenting a point of view in a structured, clear well- reasoned way that convinces
others.

Take a Close Look

Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally about what to do or what to believe. It
includes the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking. Someone with critical thinking skills is
able to do the following:

• understand the logical connections between ideas

• identify, construct and evaluate arguments detect inconsistencies and common mistakes in
reasoning
• solve problems systematically
• identify the relevance and importance of ideas
• reflect on the justification of one's own beliefs and values

Critical thinking is not a matter of accumulating information. A person with a good memory and who
knows a lot of facts is not necessarily good at critical thinking. A critical thinker is able to deduce
consequences from what he knows, and he knows how to make use of information to solve problems, and
to seek relevant sources of information to inform himself.

Critical thinking should not be confused with being argumentative or being critical of other people.
Although critical thinking skills can be used in exposing fallacies and bad reasoning, critical thinking can
also play an important role in cooperative reasoning and constructive tasks. Critical thinking can help us
acquire knowledge, improve our theories, and strengthen arguments. We can use critical thinking to
enhance work processes and improve social institutions.

Some people believe that critical thinking hinders creativity because it requires following the rules of
logic and rationality, but creativity might require breaking rules. This is a misconception. Critical thinking is
quite compatible with thinking "out-of-the-box", challenging consensus and pursuing less popular
approaches. If anything, critical thinking is an essential part of creativity because we need critical thinking
to evaluate and improve our creative ideas.

The Importance of critical thinking

Critical thinking is a domain-general thinking skill. The ability to think clearly and rationally is important
whatever we choose to do. If you work in education, research, finance, management or the legal
profession, then critical thinking is obviously important. But critical thinking skills are not restricted to a
particular subject area. Being able to think well and solve problems systematically is an asset for any
career.

Critical thinking is very important in the new knowledge economy. The global knowledge economy is
driven by information and technology. One has to be able to deal with changes quickly and effectively.
The new economy places increasing demands on flexible intellectual skills, and the ability to analyse
information and integrate diverse sources of knowledge in solving problems. Good critical thinking
promotes such thinking skills, and is very important in the fast-changing workplace.

Critical thinking enhances language and presentation skills. Thinking clearly and systematically can
improve the way we express our ideas. In learning how to analyse the logical structure of texts, critical
thinking also improves comprehension abilities.

Critical thinking promotes creativity. To come up with a creative solution to a problem involves not just
having new ideas. It must also be the case that the new ideas being generated are useful and relevant to
the task at hand. Critical thinking plays a crucial role in evaluating new ideas, selecting the best ones and
modifying them if necessary

Critical thinking is crucial for self-reflection. In order to live a meaningful life and to structure our lives
accordingly, we need to justify and reflect on our values and decisions. Critical thinking provides the tools
for this process of self-evaluation.

Good critical thinking is the foundation of science and democracy. Science requires the critical use of
reason in experimentation and theory confirmation. The proper functioning of a liberal democracy requires
citizens who can think critically about social issues to inform their judgments about proper governance
and to overcome biases and prejudice.

The future of critical thinking

In January 2016, the World Economic Forum issued a report "The Future of Jobs". It says:

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, which includes developments in previously disjointed fields such as
artificial intelligence and machine-learning, robotics, nanotechnology, 3-D printing, and genetics and
biotechnology, will cause widespread disruption not only to business models but also to labour markets
over the next five years, with enormous change predicted in the skill sets needed to thrive in the new
landscape.

The top three skills that supposed to be most relevant are thinking skills related to critical thinking,
creativity, and their practical application. These are the cognitive skills that our website focuses on. (2004-
2020, Joe Lau & Jonathan Chan)

Benefits of Critical Thinking Skills

Good critical thinking skills bring numerous benefits such as:
 improved attention and observation
 more focused reading
 improve ability to identify the key points in a text or other message rather than becoming distracted
by less important material
 knowledge of how to get your own point across more easily
 Skills of analysis that you can choose to apply in a variety of situations.
Some of the different skills developed in Critical thinking are the so called Ancillary skills, which includes
the following:
 Observation
 Reasoning
 Decision- making
 Analysis
 Judgement
 Persuasion

Critical Thinking and Knowledge

What does our knowledge have to do with critical thinking?

The bigger problem is that critical thinking varies so much. “Critical thinking is needed when playing
chess, designing a product, or planning strategy for a field hockey match,” Willingham wrote. “But there
are no routine, reusable solutions for these problems.”

And this is where content knowledge becomes important. In order to compare and contrast, the brain
has to hold ideas in working memory, which can easily be overloaded. The more familiar a student is with
a particular topic, the easier it is for the student to hold those ideas in his working memory and really think.
Willingham uses chess as a good example. Once a student has a played a lot of chess, then he has many
board positions memorized in his brain and can sort through which one is better in each particular
circumstance.

Willingham says that the scientific research shows that it’s very hard to evaluate an author’s claim if
you don’t have background knowledge in the subject. “If you lack background knowledge about the topic,
ample evidence from the last 40 years indicates you will not comprehend the author’s claims in the first
place,” (Willingham, 2017)

Critical Thinking and Skills

What do skills have to do with critical thinking?

Knowledge of logic (good reasoning) is not sufficient to guarantee that we are actually able to reason
well in day to day life. Critical thinking is not thought to be completely divorced from reality. It is thought
that we should not only want to know facts about logic, but also want to be skilled in actually reasoning
well in day to day life. Knowing what it means to reason well can help us actually reason well, but it is not
enough. Practice is needed to help improve our critical thinking skills. Various exercises given in critical
thinking classes (e.g. to interpret arguments and identify unstated premises) give us an opportunity to
apply our knowledge of logic and help us learn how to better apply logic to various unique contexts. We
can continue to do these exercises outside the classroom and continue to become more skilled as a result.

Critical Thinking and Attitude

What does our attitude have to do with critical thinking?

A person can have the knowledge and skill that enables them to reason well, but that doesn’t mean
that she will actually reason well. The person with a critical thinking attitude will actually be willing to
reason well. (Some people have this attitude more than others.) We could generally say that a person with
the critical thinking attitude wants to believe whatever is likely true and is interested in finding out which
beliefs are best supported by the information currently available. A critical thinking attitude is related to the
motivation to try to reason well, but it can also motivate an attempt to use various strategies to overcome
personal limitations. For example, a person with the critical thinking attitude should also realize everyone
suffers from cognitive biases that often make reasoning alone inadequate, so she should sometimes be
willing to make her reasoning publically known to others who can help find errors in her reasoning
process. (See “Cognitive Bias & Informal Fallacies” for more information.) Additionally, a person with the
critical thinking attitude should often rely on the expertise of others rather than to try to assess all
arguments on her own because expertise is often required to properly evaluate an argument. (A snake oil
salesman might persuade many non-experts that her medical product can cure various ills, but it is
unlikely to persuade a medical scientist.)

BARRIERS TO CRITICAL THINKING

Barriers of critical thinking vary from people to people but with right traits this can be overcome. Here
are some of the barriers to critical thinking.

1. Misunderstanding of what is meant by criticism

 Some people assume that criticism means making negative comments. As a result,
they refer only to negative aspects when making an analysis. This is a
misunderstanding of the term. As we saw above, critical evaluation means
identifying positive as well as negative aspects, what works as well as what does
not. Some people will be upset and discourage because they taking it as negative
but actually there are constructive criticism that help people to excel.
2. Over- estimating our own reasoning abilities
 Most of us like to think of ourselves as rational beings and we tend to believe our
own belief systems are the best and that we have good reasons for what we do and
think. Sometimes overestimating own abilities leads to inefficiency, for example
generally you are not good in reasoning but because of too much self- belief you are
keep on making bad decisions.
3. Lack of Methods, Strategies or Practice
 Although willing to be more critical, some people don’t know which steps to take
next in order to improve their critical thinking skills. Others are unaware that
strategies used for study at school and in everyday situations are not sufficiently
rigorous for higher- level academic thinking and professional work. With practice,
most people can develop their skills in critical thinking.
4. Reluctant to Critique Experts
There can be a natural anxiety about critically analysing texts or other works by
people that you respect. It can seem strange for students who know little about their
subject, to be asked to critique works by those who are clearly more experienced. It
may help to bear in mind that this is part of the way teaching works in most English-
speaking universities. Critical analysis is a typical and expected activity. If you are
confident in critical thinking bear in mind that there are others who find this difficult.
5. Affective reasons
 Emotional self- management can play important role in critical thinking. To critique
means being able to acknowledge that there is more than one way of looking at an
issue. When we are distressed by what we are learning, the emotional response
may help to focus our thinking but very often it can also undermine an argument, but
it can also undermine an argument, especially if emotion seems to take place of the
reasoning and evidence that could convince others. Critical thinking does not mean
that you must abandon beliefs that are important to you. It may mean giving more
consideration to the evidence that supports the arguments based on those beliefs,
so that you do justice to your point of view.
6. Mistaking information for understanding
 Learning is a process that develops understanding and insights. Many lecturers set
activities to develop expertise in methods used within the discipline. However
students can misunderstand the purpose of such teaching methods, preferring facts
and answers rather than learning the skills that help them to make well- founded
judgments for themselves.
 Cowell, Keeley, Shemberg and Zinnbauer (1995) write about students natural
resistance to learning to think critically which can mean acquiring new learning
behaviors. Cowell et’al outline the problem through the following dialogue:
 • Student: I want you (Teacher) to give me answers to the questions; I want to
know the right answer.
• Teacher: I want you to become critical thinkers, which means I want you to
challenge experts’ answers and pursue your own answers through active
questioning. This means lots of hard work.
 If you feel that critical thinking is hard work at times, then you are right. There are
lecturers who would agree with you. However, if it wasn’t difficult, you would not be
developing your thinking skills into new areas. In effect, you are developing your
mental muscle when you improve your critical thinking skills.
7. Insufficient focus and attention
 Critical thinking involves precision and accuracy and this, in turn, requires good
attention to detail. Poor criticism can result from making judgments based on too
general an overview of the subject matter. Critical thinking activities require focus on
exact task in hand, rather than becoming distracted by other interesting tangents.
When critically evaluating arguments, it is important to remember that you can find
an argument to be good or effective even if you don’t agree.