B.A. Sem : 3 : Life Skils - III

Unit :  1

Chapter : Critical Thinking

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning."  — Albert Einstein

"What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence."  — Samuel Johnson

10.1 Critical Thinking – Concept

Critical thinking is a rich idea. People have been developing and talking about it for the last 2500 years.

•     The words "critical thinking" became common in the mid-to-late 20th century. Many thinkers have described it in their own way. When we put all these ideas together, we get a full picture of what critical thinking means across many subjects.

•     Critical thinking is defined as an ability to analyse information and experience in an objective manner.

•     According to Jones (1996), critical thinking mostly means checking how good, correct, or true different ideas are, so that we can reach a decision or know what action to take.

•     Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skilfully 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. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.

In simple words, this means critical thinking is a careful and skilled habit of thinking. We use it to understand, apply, break down, combine, and judge information we get from watching things, from our own experiences, from reflecting, from reasoning, or from talking with others — and we use this thinking to decide what to believe and what to do. When done really well, this thinking follows some universal values, such as being clear, accurate, exact, consistent, relevant, backed by good evidence and good reasons, and being deep, wide, and fair.

•     Critical thinking is also called critical analysis. It is clear, rational thinking that involves judging things carefully. Different experts describe it a little differently. According to Barry K. Beyer (1995), critical thinking means making clear, well-reasoned judgments. While thinking critically, our ideas should be reasoned out and thought through properly.

•     The National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking defines critical thinking as 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.

•     Critical thinking means examining the basic parts found in all reasoning — the purpose, the problem or question, assumptions, concepts, evidence, the reasoning that leads to conclusions, the results and effects, objections from other points of view, and the frame of reference. Because critical thinking responds to different subjects, issues, and purposes, it is part of a family of connected ways of thinking, such as scientific thinking, mathematical thinking, historical thinking, anthropological thinking, economic thinking, moral thinking, and philosophical thinking.

Critical Thinking Defined by Edward Glaser

In an important study on critical thinking and education in 1941, Edward Glaser explained critical thinking as follows: "The ability to think critically, as conceived in this volume, involves three things:

1.     an attitude of being disposed to consider in a thoughtful way the problems and subjects that come within the range of one's experiences,

2.     knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning, and

3.     some skill in applying those methods."

➤ Critical thinking is not always the same for everyone. If a person thinks with selfish motives, the thinking is usually weak in logic, even if it seems to work in a practical way.

➤ But when critical thinking comes from fairness and honesty, it is usually of a higher, better quality — even though people who are used to selfish thinking may call it "idealistic".

➤ No person thinks critically all the time. Everyone sometimes thinks in an undisciplined or irrational way. So, the quality of a person's critical thinking depends on things like how much experience they have and how deep that experience is in a particular subject or type of question.

Hence, Critical thinking is

➤ "The process of actively and skill fully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and

➤ Evaluating information to reach an answer or conclusion"

➤ "Disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open minded, and informed by evidence"

➤ "Reasonable, reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do"

➤ "Purposeful, self-regulatory judgment which results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well as explanation of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, contextual considerations upon which that judgment is based"

➤ "Includes a commitment to using reason in the formulation of our beliefs" — in critical social theory, this means being committed to social and political practice of participatory democracy; being willing to consider other viewpoints; being willing to bring new or changed views into how we think and act; and being willing to help others become critical thinkers too.

➤ The skill and habit of doing an activity with reflective scepticism (McPeck, 1981)

➤ Disciplined, self-directed thinking that shows the finest form of thinking suited to a particular way or area of thinking (Paul, 1989, p. 214)

➤ Thinking about one's own thinking, in a way that organises and clears it up, makes it work better, and helps notice mistakes and biases in our own thinking. Critical thinking is not simply "hard" thinking, and it is not aimed only at solving outside problems (other than the problem of improving one's own thinking). Critical thinking is directed inward, with the goal of making the thinker more rational. We do not use critical thinking just to solve problems — we use it to make our own way of thinking better.

Critical thinking calls for the ability to

➤ Recognise problems and find workable ways to solve them. Understand how to prioritise and decide what to do first when solving problems. Collect and organise the information that matters. Notice assumptions and values that have not been openly stated.

➤ Understand and use language correctly, clearly, and carefully. Read and understand data, judge evidence, and evaluate arguments. Notice whether or not there is a logical connection between different statements. Draw conclusions and general ideas that are properly supported.

➤ Test the conclusions and general ideas we arrive at. Rebuild our beliefs based on wider experience. Make accurate judgments about specific things and situations in everyday life.

Critical thinking involves

•     being able to question and evaluate information

•     solving problems

•     thinking beyond the immediate situation

•     looking at the big picture and the context of a topic

•     asking questions about different aspects of the topic — What? How? When? Who? Why? What if?

•     looking at theory and asking how it relates to practice

•     reading different viewpoints about issues and forming your own conclusions

•     reflecting on your work and deciding how to improve it in the future

10.2 Qualities of a Well-cultivated Critical Thinker

The following are qualities of a well cultivated thinker.

Raises vital questions and problem, stating them clearly and exactly. Collects and checks information that matters, uses ideas to understand it well, and reaches conclusions and solutions that are well thought out, testing them against suitable standards.

Thinks open mindedly within different systems of thought, noticing and judging their assumptions, results, and practical effects when needed. Also communicates well with others while working out solutions to difficult problems.

Critical thinking is, in short, self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It requires agreeing to high standards and using them carefully. It involves good communication and problem-solving skills, along with a commitment to overcome our natural tendency to think only about ourselves or our own group.

No one is a critical thinker completely and perfectly. Each person is a critical thinker only to a certain degree, with their own strengths and blind spots, and their own tendency to fool themselves sometimes. This is why building critical thinking skills and habits is something we keep working on throughout our life.

10.3 Characteristics of Critical Thinking

Critical thinking uses a kind of thinking called reasoning, where we build and/or judge reasons that support our beliefs. Its main features are:

Critical thinking also involves reflection — checking and judging our own thoughts and ideas, as well as those of others. In the end, critical thinking is practical. Our actions become more sensible when they are based on beliefs we can justify. So, critical thinking is really the careful and thoughtful process of deciding whether to accept, reject, or hold back judgement about whether a claim is true, or about a suggested way to act.

Critical thinking involves the use of a group of interconnected skills to analyse, creatively combine, and judge what you read and hear.

Critical thinking involves certain dispositions. A disposition is simply a tendency to act or think in a certain way.

To learn how to think critically, a person must learn skills that build on one another, one after another. Only by focusing on and practising these basic skills can someone truly master critical thinking.

Critical Thinkers are:

➤ Curious about the world.

➤ Creative questioners.

➤ Frequently asking "why?" and looking for reasons to support a position.

➤ Interested only in trustworthy, reliable sources of information.

➤ Able to keep the whole situation and its context in mind while understanding something.

➤ Relevant thinkers who stay focused on the main point.

➤ Always looking for other explanations, arguments, or positions.

➤ Open minded, and genuinely consider viewpoints other than their own.

➤ Willing to change their position when there is enough evidence to do so.

➤ Able to hold back judgement when the evidence is not enough.

➤ Eager to be precise.

➤ Able to understand that knowledge has limits, so they look for probability rather than absolute proof.

➤ Able to recognise how personal bias plays a role in knowing something.

➤ Able to handle the different parts of a complicated whole in an orderly way, and can guess the next step in a process.

➤ Sensitive to the feelings, knowledge levels, and understanding of other people when sharing their findings.

10.4 Virtues of Critical Thinkers

The following are the details.

Open minded nature: A successful critical thinker is never rigid or closed-minded. He or she can look at any issue from many different angles and make a decision without letting emotions get in the way of good decision-making. Being open-minded also means accepting good, valid ideas from others, even when those ideas go against what one believed before. Being open-minded is the biggest virtue of a critical thinker.

Habitually inquisitive-minded: A successful critical thinker is naturally curious and always wants to understand different things, no matter how distantly they are connected to their own life. Such a person stays curious about everything happening around them. This curiosity is indeed a great virtue of a critical thinker.

Truth seeker: A successful critical thinker always wants to find the truth and live according to it. The main goal of all critical thinkers is to seek the truth. They try, as fairly as possible, to check facts using reliable sources. They look for the truth before forming a final opinion about anything. They are people who try to convince others in a conversation, but they can also be convinced easily if someone else has stronger logic and facts. Because of this, dealing with them becomes easy and rewarding. This is perhaps one of the greatest virtues found in any civilised society.

Well Informed: A successful critical thinker is someone who stays well informed. Staying informed is not just a habit for such a person — it is a way of life. They are interested in understanding different issues connected to their life, and in doing so they gather a lot of information, which makes them well-informed people. They keep collecting more and more information about the things that interest them.

Through this process, they keep adding to their pool of information, updating old information and adding new information. This whole cycle of learning becomes a way of life for them. It is easy for us to understand the good results of living this way.

Trustful of reason: Successful critical thinkers trust any argument that is based on sound reasons. They believe in speaking sensibly, based on reasons and logic. They try to convince others using logic, and they too can be convinced using reason and logic. They are less emotional and more rational and logical while judging a situation. They cannot be convinced by illogical reasons or rumours.

Flexible: Critical thinkers are not rigid in their thinking, and they cannot afford to be rigid either. They try to understand a situation from different possible angles, weigh the strengths and weaknesses of each option, and try to understand the pros and cons of a decision from different points of view. Because of all this, we can agree that everyone needs to stay flexible.

Fair-minded in evaluation: Since they are truth seekers and guided by logic, they naturally have to be fair-minded while judging anything. They cannot afford to be biased or prejudiced while evaluating any situation. Their judgements cannot be based on emotions or gut feelings. This is why they are fair-minded in their evaluation.

Honest in facing personal biases: Since critical thinkers are fair-minded in evaluation, they have no problem accepting and admitting their own shortcomings, and seeking advice from experts whenever needed. This makes it easy for them to be honest about facing their own biases, which is a great virtue of a critical and reflective thinker.

Willing to reconsider: Because they are flexible by nature, critical thinkers are always ready to reconsider their views on any issue. This shows a learner's attitude, and this ability can take them to greater heights. Even after a person has concluded something on an issue, they can revise their thinking and be willing to look at it again from a different point of view, based on new facts and logic.

Therefore, there is no rigidity or stagnation in them. They are always willing to reconsider issues whenever needed.

Clear about issues: Successful critical thinkers are clear about how they handle the different issues around them. They do not stay stuck in conflicts for long, since they are skilled enough to resolve them quickly. In this process too, their conclusions are based only on facts and logic, not on emotions.

Not impulsive: From the virtues explained above, it is clear that critical thinkers cannot afford to be impulsive. In their thinking process, emotions are not allowed to take over logic. They reach conclusions based on sound logic and facts. This is why they are not impulsive by nature, and they are never in a hurry to form their views.

Logical minded and do not lose temper in discussions: As mentioned above, they are logical-minded people, and they do not lose their temper easily during discussions. They try to convince others while staying calm and composed. Because of this, they too can be convinced easily during discussions if the other person is logical. This is a great virtue of a critical thinker.

Orderly in complex matters: The strength of critical thinkers lies in their ability to organise and arrange even complicated issues in a systematic way, so that they can handle them properly. Even in the way they approach things, they remain orderly.

Diligent in seeking relevant information: They are hardworking, careful, and intelligent enough to look for relevant information from genuine sources. They do this whenever they realise they need to check the right source, whether it is books, people, newspapers, or any other source.

Do not hesitate in consulting expert opinions: Successful critical thinkers do not hesitate to consult experts and take their opinions when needed.

Reasonable in selection of criteria: Critical thinkers weigh the pros and cons based on a set of standards, which they build for themselves. While building this set of standards, they stay fair and reasonable.

Focused in inquiry: While exploring and thinking about any issue, they are never casual about it — they stay serious, and to do that, they need to remain focused.

10.5 Components of Critical Thinking

We can understand critical thinking better by understanding its different parts. Some of these parts, as they relate to the skill of critical thinking, are explained below.

Analytic and Synthetic abilities: This is the ability to break down the different parts of a social or personal situation, and to put many other related issues together in a meaningful way, so that we can understand the situation better by weighing its pros and cons.

Objectivity: This is the ability to look at social and personal situations calmly and fairly, based on pros and cons, while keeping personal feelings and bias aside.

Anticipation of consequences: This is the ability to guess ahead of time what the results of a particular line of thinking might be, in social and personal situations.

Intelligence: This is the general ability to weigh the strengths and weaknesses of any situation while trying to understand it.

Logical thinking: This is the ability to think and reason in a systematic way about all social and personal situations in life, based on objective principles.

10.6 Steps of Critical Thinking

The Six Steps of Critical Thinking are:

Step 1: Remembering → Step 2: Understanding → Step 3: Applying → Step 4: Analysing → Step 5: Evaluating → Step 6: Creating

(This cycle of six steps forms the diagram "Steps of Critical Thinking" shown in the original chapter.)

Step-1: Knowledge/Remembering

➤ In terms of critical thinking, the most basic level of gaining knowledge means being able to identify what is being said.

Step-2: Comprehension/Understanding

➤ Comprehension simply means understanding the material you have read, heard, or seen. While understanding it, you make this new knowledge your own by connecting it to what you already know.

➤ The more involved you are with the information, the better you will understand it. As always, the main way to check whether you have understood something you read or heard is to see if you can explain it in your own words.

Step-3: Applying

➤ Applying means that you know what you have read, heard, or seen, that you understand it, and that you carry out some task using what you understood in a real situation.

Step-4: Analysing

➤ Analysis means breaking down what you read or hear into its different parts, so that you can clearly see how the ideas are arranged, connected, or related to each other. Analysis looks at both the form and the content.

Step-5: Evaluation

➤ Evaluation happens once we have understood and analysed what has been said or written, along with the reasons given to support it. After that, we can judge this information to decide whether we should believe it or not, and whether or not to act on it.

Step-6: Creating

➤ Synthesis (creating) means being able to combine the parts you have analysed with other information, to make something new and original.

10.7 Developing Critical Thinking

•     Critical thinking is a set of skills or abilities that a person can build up over time.

•     It does not have to be negative — it is really about forming your own conclusions based on evidence.

•     It is basically the process of gathering information about something, thinking about it, and then coming up with your own views.

Here are some strategies that can help students learn to think critically:

Classroom Assessment Techniques

✓ In this method, students are allowed to assess the lessons regularly. Asking questions such as "What is the most important thing you learnt from today's lesson?" helps students begin thinking critically.

Case Study / Discussion Method

✓ Another useful method is to start a discussion or share a case study in the classroom. Do not give the conclusion straightaway. Let the students explore the discussion or case on their own and reach a conclusion by thinking it through.

Conference Style Learning

✓ Another way to build critical thinking in students is for the teacher to avoid simply "teaching" in class, and instead act as a facilitator, like in a conference — guiding the class while the students themselves do the reading and explaining. It is important that teachers do not confuse this role with being passive; they should still stay in control of the lesson while letting the students do the thinking.

Writing Assignments

✓ Giving students broad writing assignments allows them to think through an issue properly. Encourage them to reason out and argue both sides of the issue.

Ambiguity

✓ Being a little unclear or open-ended on purpose forces students to think for themselves. But remember that there is a difference between being purposefully ambiguous and simply confusing your students.

10.8 Approaches to Life Characterising Good Critical Thinking

The details are as follows.

◆ Inquisitiveness about wide range of issues

◆ Concern to become and stay well informed

◆ Alertness to opportunities to use critical thinking

◆ Self-confidence in one's abilities to reason

◆ Open-mindedness about divergent world views

◆ Flexibility in considering alternatives and opinions

◆ Understanding the opinions of other people

◆ Fair-mindedness about appraising reasoning

◆ Honesty in facing one's own biases, prejudices, stereotypes, egocentric tendencies

◆ Prudence in suspending, making, altering judgements

◆ Willingness to reconsider and revise views

◆ Clarity in stating question or concern

◆ Orderliness in working with complexity

◆ Diligence in seeking relevant information

◆ Reasonable in selecting and applying criteria

◆ Care in focusing attention on the concern at hand

◆ Persistence through difficulties

◆ Precision to the degree permitted by subject and circumstances (Messina and Messina, 2005)

QUESTIONS

4.     Discuss the concept of critical thinking

5.     What are the characteristics of critical thinking?

6.     How do you develop critical thinking among children?

References : 

Bhatt, Rajeshkumar I. Life Skill Education. Notion Press, 2017.