managed reasoning critical thinking

Advanced practice: critical thinking and clinical reasoning

Affiliations.

• 1 Advanced Critical Care Practitioner, Newcastle upon Tyne NHS Foundation Trust / Senior Lecturer in Advanced Critical Care Practice, Department of Nursing, Midwifery and Health, Northumbria University.
• 2 Advanced Critical Care Practitioner, South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
• PMID: 33983801
• DOI: 10.12968/bjon.2021.30.9.526

Clinical reasoning is a multi-faceted and complex construct, the understanding of which has emerged from multiple fields outside of healthcare literature, primarily the psychological and behavioural sciences. The application of clinical reasoning is central to the advanced non-medical practitioner (ANMP) role, as complex patient caseloads with undifferentiated and undiagnosed diseases are now a regular feature in healthcare practice. This article explores some of the key concepts and terminology that have evolved over the last four decades and have led to our modern day understanding of this topic. It also considers how clinical reasoning is vital for improving evidence-based diagnosis and subsequent effective care planning. A comprehensive guide to applying diagnostic reasoning on a body systems basis will be explored later in this series.

Keywords: Advanced practice; Clinical reasoning; Consultation; Critical thinking; Diagnostic accuracy.

• Advanced Practice Nursing*
• Clinical Reasoning*
• Nurse Practitioners* / psychology

How it works

For Business

Join Mind Tools

Article • 8 min read

Critical Thinking

Developing the right mindset and skills.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

We make hundreds of decisions every day and, whether we realize it or not, we're all critical thinkers.

We use critical thinking each time we weigh up our options, prioritize our responsibilities, or think about the likely effects of our actions. It's a crucial skill that helps us to cut out misinformation and make wise decisions. The trouble is, we're not always very good at it!

In this article, we'll explore the key skills that you need to develop your critical thinking skills, and how to adopt a critical thinking mindset, so that you can make well-informed decisions.

What Is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is the discipline of rigorously and skillfully using information, experience, observation, and reasoning to guide your decisions, actions, and beliefs. You'll need to actively question every step of your thinking process to do it well.

Collecting, analyzing and evaluating information is an important skill in life, and a highly valued asset in the workplace. People who score highly in critical thinking assessments are also rated by their managers as having good problem-solving skills, creativity, strong decision-making skills, and good overall performance. [1]

Key Critical Thinking Skills

Critical thinkers possess a set of key characteristics which help them to question information and their own thinking. Focus on the following areas to develop your critical thinking skills:

Being willing and able to explore alternative approaches and experimental ideas is crucial. Can you think through "what if" scenarios, create plausible options, and test out your theories? If not, you'll tend to write off ideas and options too soon, so you may miss the best answer to your situation.

To nurture your curiosity, stay up to date with facts and trends. You'll overlook important information if you allow yourself to become "blinkered," so always be open to new information.

But don't stop there! Look for opposing views or evidence to challenge your information, and seek clarification when things are unclear. This will help you to reassess your beliefs and make a well-informed decision later. Read our article, Opening Closed Minds , for more ways to stay receptive.

Logical Thinking

You must be skilled at reasoning and extending logic to come up with plausible options or outcomes.

It's also important to emphasize logic over emotion. Emotion can be motivating but it can also lead you to take hasty and unwise action, so control your emotions and be cautious in your judgments. Know when a conclusion is "fact" and when it is not. "Could-be-true" conclusions are based on assumptions and must be tested further. Read our article, Logical Fallacies , for help with this.

Use creative problem solving to balance cold logic. By thinking outside of the box you can identify new possible outcomes by using pieces of information that you already have.

Self-Awareness

Many of the decisions we make in life are subtly informed by our values and beliefs. These influences are called cognitive biases and it can be difficult to identify them in ourselves because they're often subconscious.

Practicing self-awareness will allow you to reflect on the beliefs you have and the choices you make. You'll then be better equipped to challenge your own thinking and make improved, unbiased decisions.

One particularly useful tool for critical thinking is the Ladder of Inference . It allows you to test and validate your thinking process, rather than jumping to poorly supported conclusions.

Developing a Critical Thinking Mindset

Combine the above skills with the right mindset so that you can make better decisions and adopt more effective courses of action. You can develop your critical thinking mindset by following this process:

Gather Information

First, collect data, opinions and facts on the issue that you need to solve. Draw on what you already know, and turn to new sources of information to help inform your understanding. Consider what gaps there are in your knowledge and seek to fill them. And look for information that challenges your assumptions and beliefs.

Be sure to verify the authority and authenticity of your sources. Not everything you read is true! Use this checklist to ensure that your information is valid:

• Are your information sources trustworthy ? (For example, well-respected authors, trusted colleagues or peers, recognized industry publications, websites, blogs, etc.)
• Is the information you have gathered up to date ?
• Has the information received any direct criticism ?
• Does the information have any errors or inaccuracies ?
• Is there any evidence to support or corroborate the information you have gathered?
• Is the information you have gathered subjective or biased in any way? (For example, is it based on opinion, rather than fact? Is any of the information you have gathered designed to promote a particular service or organization?)

If any information appears to be irrelevant or invalid, don't include it in your decision making. But don't omit information just because you disagree with it, or your final decision will be flawed and bias.

Now observe the information you have gathered, and interpret it. What are the key findings and main takeaways? What does the evidence point to? Start to build one or two possible arguments based on what you have found.

You'll need to look for the details within the mass of information, so use your powers of observation to identify any patterns or similarities. You can then analyze and extend these trends to make sensible predictions about the future.

To help you to sift through the multiple ideas and theories, it can be useful to group and order items according to their characteristics. From here, you can compare and contrast the different items. And once you've determined how similar or different things are from one another, Paired Comparison Analysis can help you to analyze them.

The final step involves challenging the information and rationalizing its arguments.

Apply the laws of reason (induction, deduction, analogy) to judge an argument and determine its merits. To do this, it's essential that you can determine the significance and validity of an argument to put it in the correct perspective. Take a look at our article, Rational Thinking , for more information about how to do this.

Once you have considered all of the arguments and options rationally, you can finally make an informed decision.

Afterward, take time to reflect on what you have learned and what you found challenging. Step back from the detail of your decision or problem, and look at the bigger picture. Record what you've learned from your observations and experience.

Critical thinking involves rigorously and skilfully using information, experience, observation, and reasoning to guide your decisions, actions and beliefs. It's a useful skill in the workplace and in life.

You'll need to be curious and creative to explore alternative possibilities, but rational to apply logic, and self-aware to identify when your beliefs could affect your decisions or actions.

You can demonstrate a high level of critical thinking by validating your information, analyzing its meaning, and finally evaluating the argument.

Critical Thinking Infographic

See Critical Thinking represented in our infographic: An Elementary Guide to Critical Thinking .

You've accessed 1 of your 2 free resources.

Get unlimited access

Discover more content

Book Insights

Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It

James Kouzes and Barry Posner

Project Team Development

Understanding Phases of Team Development Can Help Them Attain Peak Performance Quickly

Add comment

Comments (1)

priyanka ghogare

Get 30% off your first year of Mind Tools

Great teams begin with empowered leaders. Our tools and resources offer the support to let you flourish into leadership. Join today!

Sign-up to our newsletter

Subscribing to the Mind Tools newsletter will keep you up-to-date with our latest updates and newest resources.

Subscribe now

Business Skills

Personal Development

Leadership and Management

Member Extras

Most Popular

Latest Updates

Starting a New Job

The Role of a Facilitator

Mind Tools Store

About Mind Tools Content

Discover something new today

Decision-making mistakes and how to avoid them.

Explore some common decision-making mistakes and how to avoid them with this Skillbook

Using Decision Trees

What decision trees are, and how to use them to weigh up your options

How Emotionally Intelligent Are You?

Boosting Your People Skills

Self-Assessment

What's Your Leadership Style?

Learn About the Strengths and Weaknesses of the Way You Like to Lead

Recommended for you

The program management team.

How a Program Management Organization is Formed and What is Involved in the Key Roles

Business Operations and Process Management

Strategy Tools

Customer Service

Business Ethics and Values

Handling Information and Data

Project Management

Knowledge Management

Self-Development and Goal Setting

Time Management

Presentation Skills

Learning Skills

Career Skills

Communication Skills

Negotiation, Persuasion and Influence

Working With Others

Difficult Conversations

Creativity Tools

Self-Management

Work-Life Balance

Stress Management and Wellbeing

Coaching and Mentoring

Change Management

Team Management

Managing Conflict

Delegation and Empowerment

Performance Management

Leadership Skills

Developing Your Team

Talent Management

Problem Solving

Decision Making

Member Podcast

• Table of Contents
• Random Entry
• Chronological
• Editorial Information
• About the SEP
• Editorial Board
• How to Cite the SEP
• Special Characters
• Advanced Tools
• Support the SEP
• PDFs for SEP Friends
• Make a Donation
• SEPIA for Libraries
• Entry Contents

Bibliography

Academic tools.

• Friends PDF Preview
• Author and Citation Info
• Back to Top

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.

• Abrami, Philip C., Robert M. Bernard, Eugene Borokhovski, David I. Waddington, C. Anne Wade, and Tonje Person, 2015, “Strategies for Teaching Students to Think Critically: A Meta-analysis”, Review of Educational Research , 85(2): 275–314. doi:10.3102/0034654314551063
• Aikin, Wilford M., 1942, The Story of the Eight-year Study, with Conclusions and Recommendations , Volume I of Adventure in American Education , New York and London: Harper & Brothers. [ Aikin 1942 available online ]
• Alston, Kal, 1995, “Begging the Question: Is Critical Thinking Biased?”, Educational Theory , 45(2): 225–233. doi:10.1111/j.1741-5446.1995.00225.x
• –––, 2001, “Re/Thinking Critical Thinking: The Seductions of Everyday Life”, Studies in Philosophy and Education , 20(1): 27–40. doi:10.1023/A:1005247128053
• American Educational Research Association, 2014, Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing / American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, National Council on Measurement in Education , Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.
• Anderson, Lorin W., David R. Krathwohl, Peter W. Airiasian, Kathleen A. Cruikshank, Richard E. Mayer, Paul R. Pintrich, James Raths, and Merlin C. Wittrock, 2001, A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives , New York: Longman, complete edition.
• Bailin, Sharon, 1987, “Critical and Creative Thinking”, Informal Logic , 9(1): 23–30. [ Bailin 1987 available online ]
• –––, 1988, Achieving Extraordinary Ends: An Essay on Creativity , Dordrecht: Kluwer. doi:10.1007/978-94-009-2780-3
• –––, 1995, “Is Critical Thinking Biased? Clarifications and Implications”, Educational Theory , 45(2): 191–197. doi:10.1111/j.1741-5446.1995.00191.x
• Bailin, Sharon and Mark Battersby, 2009, “Inquiry: A Dialectical Approach to Teaching Critical Thinking”, in Juho Ritola (ed.), Argument Cultures: Proceedings of OSSA 09 , CD-ROM (pp. 1–10), Windsor, ON: OSSA. [ Bailin & Battersby 2009 available online ]
• –––, 2016a, “Fostering the Virtues of Inquiry”, Topoi , 35(2): 367–374. doi:10.1007/s11245-015-9307-6
• –––, 2016b, Reason in the Balance: An Inquiry Approach to Critical Thinking , Indianapolis: Hackett, 2nd edition.
• –––, 2021, “Inquiry: Teaching for Reasoned Judgment”, in Daniel Fasko, Jr. and Frank Fair (eds.), Critical Thinking and Reasoning: Theory, Development, Instruction, and Assessment , Leiden: Brill, pp. 31–46. doi: 10.1163/9789004444591_003
• Bailin, Sharon, Roland Case, Jerrold R. Coombs, and Leroi B. Daniels, 1999a, “Common Misconceptions of Critical Thinking”, Journal of Curriculum Studies , 31(3): 269–283. doi:10.1080/002202799183124
• –––, 1999b, “Conceptualizing Critical Thinking”, Journal of Curriculum Studies , 31(3): 285–302. doi:10.1080/002202799183133
• Blair, J. Anthony, 2021, Studies in Critical Thinking , Windsor, ON: Windsor Studies in Argumentation, 2nd edition. [Available online at https://windsor.scholarsportal.info/omp/index.php/wsia/catalog/book/106]
• Berman, Alan M., Seth J. Schwartz, William M. Kurtines, and Steven L. Berman, 2001, “The Process of Exploration in Identity Formation: The Role of Style and Competence”, Journal of Adolescence , 24(4): 513–528. doi:10.1006/jado.2001.0386
• Black, Beth (ed.), 2012, An A to Z of Critical Thinking , London: Continuum International Publishing Group.
• Bloom, Benjamin Samuel, Max D. Engelhart, Edward J. Furst, Walter H. Hill, and David R. Krathwohl, 1956, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Handbook I: Cognitive Domain , New York: David McKay.
• Boardman, Frank, Nancy M. Cavender, and Howard Kahane, 2018, Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life , Boston: Cengage, 13th edition.
• Browne, M. Neil and Stuart M. Keeley, 2018, Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking , Hoboken, NJ: Pearson, 12th edition.
• Center for Assessment & Improvement of Learning, 2017, Critical Thinking Assessment Test , Cookeville, TN: Tennessee Technological University.
• Cleghorn, Paul. 2021. “Critical Thinking in the Elementary School: Practical Guidance for Building a Culture of Thinking”, in Daniel Fasko, Jr. and Frank Fair (eds.), Critical Thinking and Reasoning: Theory, Development, Instruction, and Assessmen t, Leiden: Brill, pp. 150–167. doi: 10.1163/9789004444591_010
• Cohen, Jacob, 1988, Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences , Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2nd edition.
• College Board, 1983, Academic Preparation for College. What Students Need to Know and Be Able to Do , New York: College Entrance Examination Board, ERIC document ED232517.
• Commission on the Relation of School and College of the Progressive Education Association, 1943, Thirty Schools Tell Their Story , Volume V of Adventure in American Education , New York and London: Harper & Brothers.
• Council for Aid to Education, 2017, CLA+ Student Guide . Available at http://cae.org/images/uploads/pdf/CLA_Student_Guide_Institution.pdf ; last accessed 2022 07 16.
• Dalgleish, Adam, Patrick Girard, and Maree Davies, 2017, “Critical Thinking, Bias and Feminist Philosophy: Building a Better Framework through Collaboration”, Informal Logic , 37(4): 351–369. [ Dalgleish et al. available online ]
• Dewey, John, 1910, How We Think , Boston: D.C. Heath. [ Dewey 1910 available online ]
• –––, 1916, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education , New York: Macmillan.
• –––, 1933, How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to the Educative Process , Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath.
• –––, 1936, “The Theory of the Chicago Experiment”, Appendix II of Mayhew & Edwards 1936: 463–477.
• –––, 1938, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry , New York: Henry Holt and Company.
• Dominguez, Caroline (coord.), 2018a, A European Collection of the Critical Thinking Skills and Dispositions Needed in Different Professional Fields for the 21st Century , Vila Real, Portugal: UTAD. Available at http://bit.ly/CRITHINKEDUO1 ; last accessed 2022 07 16.
• ––– (coord.), 2018b, A European Review on Critical Thinking Educational Practices in Higher Education Institutions , Vila Real: UTAD. Available at http://bit.ly/CRITHINKEDUO2 ; last accessed 2022 07 16.
• ––– (coord.), 2018c, The CRITHINKEDU European Course on Critical Thinking Education for University Teachers: From Conception to Delivery , Vila Real: UTAD. Available at http:/bit.ly/CRITHINKEDU03; last accessed 2022 07 16.
• Dominguez Caroline and Rita Payan-Carreira (eds.), 2019, Promoting Critical Thinking in European Higher Education Institutions: Towards an Educational Protocol , Vila Real: UTAD. Available at http:/bit.ly/CRITHINKEDU04; last accessed 2022 07 16.
• Ennis, Robert H., 1958, “An Appraisal of the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal”, The Journal of Educational Research , 52(4): 155–158. doi:10.1080/00220671.1958.10882558
• –––, 1962, “A Concept of Critical Thinking: A Proposed Basis for Research on the Teaching and Evaluation of Critical Thinking Ability”, Harvard Educational Review , 32(1): 81–111.
• –––, 1981a, “A Conception of Deductive Logical Competence”, Teaching Philosophy , 4(3/4): 337–385. doi:10.5840/teachphil198143/429
• –––, 1981b, “Eight Fallacies in Bloom’s Taxonomy”, in C. J. B. Macmillan (ed.), Philosophy of Education 1980: Proceedings of the Thirty-seventh Annual Meeting of the Philosophy of Education Society , Bloomington, IL: Philosophy of Education Society, pp. 269–273.
• –––, 1984, “Problems in Testing Informal Logic, Critical Thinking, Reasoning Ability”, Informal Logic , 6(1): 3–9. [ Ennis 1984 available online ]
• –––, 1987, “A Taxonomy of Critical Thinking Dispositions and Abilities”, in Joan Boykoff Baron and Robert J. Sternberg (eds.), Teaching Thinking Skills: Theory and Practice , New York: W. H. Freeman, pp. 9–26.
• –––, 1989, “Critical Thinking and Subject Specificity: Clarification and Needed Research”, Educational Researcher , 18(3): 4–10. doi:10.3102/0013189X018003004
• –––, 1991, “Critical Thinking: A Streamlined Conception”, Teaching Philosophy , 14(1): 5–24. doi:10.5840/teachphil19911412
• –––, 1996, “Critical Thinking Dispositions: Their Nature and Assessability”, Informal Logic , 18(2–3): 165–182. [ Ennis 1996 available online ]
• –––, 1998, “Is Critical Thinking Culturally Biased?”, Teaching Philosophy , 21(1): 15–33. doi:10.5840/teachphil19982113
• –––, 2011, “Critical Thinking: Reflection and Perspective Part I”, Inquiry: Critical Thinking across the Disciplines , 26(1): 4–18. doi:10.5840/inquiryctnews20112613
• –––, 2013, “Critical Thinking across the Curriculum: The Wisdom CTAC Program”, Inquiry: Critical Thinking across the Disciplines , 28(2): 25–45. doi:10.5840/inquiryct20132828
• –––, 2016, “Definition: A Three-Dimensional Analysis with Bearing on Key Concepts”, in Patrick Bondy and Laura Benacquista (eds.), Argumentation, Objectivity, and Bias: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation (OSSA), 18–21 May 2016 , Windsor, ON: OSSA, pp. 1–19. Available at http://scholar.uwindsor.ca/ossaarchive/OSSA11/papersandcommentaries/105 ; last accessed 2022 07 16.
• –––, 2018, “Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum: A Vision”, Topoi , 37(1): 165–184. doi:10.1007/s11245-016-9401-4
• Ennis, Robert H., and Jason Millman, 1971, Manual for Cornell Critical Thinking Test, Level X, and Cornell Critical Thinking Test, Level Z , Urbana, IL: Critical Thinking Project, University of Illinois.
• Ennis, Robert H., Jason Millman, and Thomas Norbert Tomko, 1985, Cornell Critical Thinking Tests Level X & Level Z: Manual , Pacific Grove, CA: Midwest Publication, 3rd edition.
• –––, 2005, Cornell Critical Thinking Tests Level X & Level Z: Manual , Seaside, CA: Critical Thinking Company, 5th edition.
• Ennis, Robert H. and Eric Weir, 1985, The Ennis-Weir Critical Thinking Essay Test: Test, Manual, Criteria, Scoring Sheet: An Instrument for Teaching and Testing , Pacific Grove, CA: Midwest Publications.
• Facione, Peter A., 1990a, Critical Thinking: A Statement of Expert Consensus for Purposes of Educational Assessment and Instruction , Research Findings and Recommendations Prepared for the Committee on Pre-College Philosophy of the American Philosophical Association, ERIC Document ED315423.
• –––, 1990b, California Critical Thinking Skills Test, CCTST – Form A , Millbrae, CA: The California Academic Press.
• –––, 1990c, The California Critical Thinking Skills Test--College Level. Technical Report #3. Gender, Ethnicity, Major, CT Self-Esteem, and the CCTST , ERIC Document ED326584.
• –––, 1992, California Critical Thinking Skills Test: CCTST – Form B, Millbrae, CA: The California Academic Press.
• –––, 2000, “The Disposition Toward Critical Thinking: Its Character, Measurement, and Relationship to Critical Thinking Skill”, Informal Logic , 20(1): 61–84. [ Facione 2000 available online ]
• Facione, Peter A. and Noreen C. Facione, 1992, CCTDI: A Disposition Inventory , Millbrae, CA: The California Academic Press.
• Facione, Peter A., Noreen C. Facione, and Carol Ann F. Giancarlo, 2001, California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory: CCTDI: Inventory Manual , Millbrae, CA: The California Academic Press.
• Facione, Peter A., Carol A. Sánchez, and Noreen C. Facione, 1994, Are College Students Disposed to Think? , Millbrae, CA: The California Academic Press. ERIC Document ED368311.
• Fisher, Alec, and Michael Scriven, 1997, Critical Thinking: Its Definition and Assessment , Norwich: Centre for Research in Critical Thinking, University of East Anglia.
• Freire, Paulo, 1968 [1970], Pedagogia do Oprimido . Translated as Pedagogy of the Oppressed , Myra Bergman Ramos (trans.), New York: Continuum, 1970.
• Gigerenzer, Gerd, 2001, “The Adaptive Toolbox”, in Gerd Gigerenzer and Reinhard Selten (eds.), Bounded Rationality: The Adaptive Toolbox , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 37–50.
• Glaser, Edward Maynard, 1941, An Experiment in the Development of Critical Thinking , New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University.
• Groarke, Leo A. and Christopher W. Tindale, 2012, Good Reasoning Matters! A Constructive Approach to Critical Thinking , Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press, 5th edition.
• Halpern, Diane F., 1998, “Teaching Critical Thinking for Transfer Across Domains: Disposition, Skills, Structure Training, and Metacognitive Monitoring”, American Psychologist , 53(4): 449–455. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.53.4.449
• –––, 2016, Manual: Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment , Mödling, Austria: Schuhfried. Available at https://pdfcoffee.com/hcta-test-manual-pdf-free.html; last accessed 2022 07 16.
• Hamby, Benjamin, 2014, The Virtues of Critical Thinkers , Doctoral dissertation, Philosophy, McMaster University. [ Hamby 2014 available online ]
• –––, 2015, “Willingness to Inquire: The Cardinal Critical Thinking Virtue”, in Martin Davies and Ronald Barnett (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Thinking in Higher Education , New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 77–87.
• Haran, Uriel, Ilana Ritov, and Barbara A. Mellers, 2013, “The Role of Actively Open-minded Thinking in Information Acquisition, Accuracy, and Calibration”, Judgment and Decision Making , 8(3): 188–201.
• Hatcher, Donald and Kevin Possin, 2021, “Commentary: Thinking Critically about Critical Thinking Assessment”, in Daniel Fasko, Jr. and Frank Fair (eds.), Critical Thinking and Reasoning: Theory, Development, Instruction, and Assessment , Leiden: Brill, pp. 298–322. doi: 10.1163/9789004444591_017
• Haynes, Ada, Elizabeth Lisic, Kevin Harris, Katie Leming, Kyle Shanks, and Barry Stein, 2015, “Using the Critical Thinking Assessment Test (CAT) as a Model for Designing Within-Course Assessments: Changing How Faculty Assess Student Learning”, Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines , 30(3): 38–48. doi:10.5840/inquiryct201530316
• Haynes, Ada and Barry Stein, 2021, “Observations from a Long-Term Effort to Assess and Improve Critical Thinking”, in Daniel Fasko, Jr. and Frank Fair (eds.), Critical Thinking and Reasoning: Theory, Development, Instruction, and Assessment , Leiden: Brill, pp. 231–254. doi: 10.1163/9789004444591_014
• Hiner, Amanda L. 2021. “Equipping Students for Success in College and Beyond: Placing Critical Thinking Instruction at the Heart of a General Education Program”, in Daniel Fasko, Jr. and Frank Fair (eds.), Critical Thinking and Reasoning: Theory, Development, Instruction, and Assessment , Leiden: Brill, pp. 188–208. doi: 10.1163/9789004444591_012
• Hitchcock, David, 2017, “Critical Thinking as an Educational Ideal”, in his On Reasoning and Argument: Essays in Informal Logic and on Critical Thinking , Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 477–497. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-53562-3_30
• –––, 2021, “Seven Philosophical Implications of Critical Thinking: Themes, Variations, Implications”, in Daniel Fasko, Jr. and Frank Fair (eds.), Critical Thinking and Reasoning: Theory, Development, Instruction, and Assessment , Leiden: Brill, pp. 9–30. doi: 10.1163/9789004444591_002
• hooks, bell, 1994, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom , New York and London: Routledge.
• –––, 2010, Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom , New York and London: Routledge.
• Johnson, Ralph H., 1992, “The Problem of Defining Critical Thinking”, in Stephen P, Norris (ed.), The Generalizability of Critical Thinking , New York: Teachers College Press, pp. 38–53.
• Kahane, Howard, 1971, Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life , Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
• Kahneman, Daniel, 2011, Thinking, Fast and Slow , New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• Kahneman, Daniel, Olivier Sibony, & Cass R. Sunstein, 2021, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment , New York: Little, Brown Spark.
• Kenyon, Tim, and Guillaume Beaulac, 2014, “Critical Thinking Education and Debasing”, Informal Logic , 34(4): 341–363. [ Kenyon & Beaulac 2014 available online ]
• Krathwohl, David R., Benjamin S. Bloom, and Bertram B. Masia, 1964, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook II: Affective Domain , New York: David McKay.
• Kuhn, Deanna, 1991, The Skills of Argument , New York: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511571350
• –––, 2019, “Critical Thinking as Discourse”, Human Development, 62 (3): 146–164. doi:10.1159/000500171
• Lipman, Matthew, 1987, “Critical Thinking–What Can It Be?”, Analytic Teaching , 8(1): 5–12. [ Lipman 1987 available online ]
• –––, 2003, Thinking in Education , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition.
• Loftus, Elizabeth F., 2017, “Eavesdropping on Memory”, Annual Review of Psychology , 68: 1–18. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010416-044138
• Makaiau, Amber Strong, 2021, “The Good Thinker’s Tool Kit: How to Engage Critical Thinking and Reasoning in Secondary Education”, in Daniel Fasko, Jr. and Frank Fair (eds.), Critical Thinking and Reasoning: Theory, Development, Instruction, and Assessment , Leiden: Brill, pp. 168–187. doi: 10.1163/9789004444591_011
• Martin, Jane Roland, 1992, “Critical Thinking for a Humane World”, in Stephen P. Norris (ed.), The Generalizability of Critical Thinking , New York: Teachers College Press, pp. 163–180.
• Mayhew, Katherine Camp, and Anna Camp Edwards, 1936, The Dewey School: The Laboratory School of the University of Chicago, 1896–1903 , New York: Appleton-Century. [ Mayhew & Edwards 1936 available online ]
• McPeck, John E., 1981, Critical Thinking and Education , New York: St. Martin’s Press.
• Moore, Brooke Noel and Richard Parker, 2020, Critical Thinking , New York: McGraw-Hill, 13th edition.
• Nickerson, Raymond S., 1998, “Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises”, Review of General Psychology , 2(2): 175–220. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.2.2.175
• Nieto, Ana Maria, and Jorge Valenzuela, 2012, “A Study of the Internal Structure of Critical Thinking Dispositions”, Inquiry: Critical Thinking across the Disciplines , 27(1): 31–38. doi:10.5840/inquiryct20122713
• Norris, Stephen P., 1985, “Controlling for Background Beliefs When Developing Multiple-choice Critical Thinking Tests”, Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice , 7(3): 5–11. doi:10.1111/j.1745-3992.1988.tb00437.x
• Norris, Stephen P. and Robert H. Ennis, 1989, Evaluating Critical Thinking (The Practitioners’ Guide to Teaching Thinking Series), Pacific Grove, CA: Midwest Publications.
• Norris, Stephen P. and Ruth Elizabeth King, 1983, Test on Appraising Observations , St. John’s, NL: Institute for Educational Research and Development, Memorial University of Newfoundland.
• –––, 1984, The Design of a Critical Thinking Test on Appraising Observations , St. John’s, NL: Institute for Educational Research and Development, Memorial University of Newfoundland. ERIC Document ED260083.
• –––, 1985, Test on Appraising Observations: Manual , St. John’s, NL: Institute for Educational Research and Development, Memorial University of Newfoundland.
• –––, 1990a, Test on Appraising Observations , St. John’s, NL: Institute for Educational Research and Development, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2nd edition.
• –––, 1990b, Test on Appraising Observations: Manual , St. John’s, NL: Institute for Educational Research and Development, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2nd edition.
• OCR [Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations], 2011, AS/A Level GCE: Critical Thinking – H052, H452 , Cambridge: OCR. Past papers available at https://pastpapers.co/ocr/?dir=A-Level/Critical-Thinking-H052-H452; last accessed 2022 07 16.
• Ontario Ministry of Education, 2013, The Ontario Curriculum Grades 9 to 12: Social Sciences and Humanities . Available at http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/secondary/ssciences9to122013.pdf ; last accessed 2022 07 16.
• Passmore, John Arthur, 1980, The Philosophy of Teaching , London: Duckworth.
• Paul, Richard W., 1981, “Teaching Critical Thinking in the ‘Strong’ Sense: A Focus on Self-Deception, World Views, and a Dialectical Mode of Analysis”, Informal Logic , 4(2): 2–7. [ Paul 1981 available online ]
• –––, 1984, “Critical Thinking: Fundamental to Education for a Free Society”, Educational Leadership , 42(1): 4–14.
• –––, 1985, “McPeck’s Mistakes”, Informal Logic , 7(1): 35–43. [ Paul 1985 available online ]
• Paul, Richard W. and Linda Elder, 2006, The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking: Concepts and Tools , Dillon Beach, CA: Foundation for Critical Thinking, 4th edition.
• Payette, Patricia, and Edna Ross, 2016, “Making a Campus-Wide Commitment to Critical Thinking: Insights and Promising Practices Utilizing the Paul-Elder Approach at the University of Louisville”, Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines , 31(1): 98–110. doi:10.5840/inquiryct20163118
• Possin, Kevin, 2008, “A Field Guide to Critical-Thinking Assessment”, Teaching Philosophy , 31(3): 201–228. doi:10.5840/teachphil200831324
• –––, 2013a, “Some Problems with the Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment (HCTA) Test”, Inquiry: Critical Thinking across the Disciplines , 28(3): 4–12. doi:10.5840/inquiryct201328313
• –––, 2013b, “A Serious Flaw in the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) Test”, Informal Logic , 33(3): 390–405. [ Possin 2013b available online ]
• –––, 2013c, “A Fatal Flaw in the Collegiate Learning Assessment Test”, Assessment Update , 25 (1): 8–12.
• –––, 2014, “Critique of the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Test: The More You Know, the Lower Your Score”, Informal Logic , 34(4): 393–416. [ Possin 2014 available online ]
• –––, 2020, “CAT Scan: A Critical Review of the Critical-Thinking Assessment Test”, Informal Logic , 40 (3): 489–508. [Available online at https://informallogic.ca/index.php/informal_logic/article/view/6243]
• Rawls, John, 1971, A Theory of Justice , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Rear, David, 2019, “One Size Fits All? The Limitations of Standardised Assessment in Critical Thinking”, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education , 44(5): 664–675. doi: 10.1080/02602938.2018.1526255
• Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1762, Émile , Amsterdam: Jean Néaulme.
• Scheffler, Israel, 1960, The Language of Education , Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
• Scriven, Michael, and Richard W. Paul, 1987, Defining Critical Thinking , Draft statement written for the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking Instruction. Available at http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766 ; last accessed 2022 07 16.
• Sheffield, Clarence Burton Jr., 2018, “Promoting Critical Thinking in Higher Education: My Experiences as the Inaugural Eugene H. Fram Chair in Applied Critical Thinking at Rochester Institute of Technology”, Topoi , 37(1): 155–163. doi:10.1007/s11245-016-9392-1
• Siegel, Harvey, 1985, “McPeck, Informal Logic and the Nature of Critical Thinking”, in David Nyberg (ed.), Philosophy of Education 1985: Proceedings of the Forty-First Annual Meeting of the Philosophy of Education Society , Normal, IL: Philosophy of Education Society, pp. 61–72.
• –––, 1988, Educating Reason: Rationality, Critical Thinking, and Education , New York: Routledge.
• –––, 1999, “What (Good) Are Thinking Dispositions?”, Educational Theory , 49(2): 207–221. doi:10.1111/j.1741-5446.1999.00207.x
• Simon, Herbert A., 1956, “Rational Choice and the Structure of the Environment”, Psychological Review , 63(2): 129–138. doi: 10.1037/h0042769
• Simpson, Elizabeth, 1966–67, “The Classification of Educational Objectives: Psychomotor Domain”, Illinois Teacher of Home Economics , 10(4): 110–144, ERIC document ED0103613. [ Simpson 1966–67 available online ]
• Skolverket, 2018, Curriculum for the Compulsory School, Preschool Class and School-age Educare , Stockholm: Skolverket, revised 2018. Available at https://www.skolverket.se/download/18.31c292d516e7445866a218f/1576654682907/pdf3984.pdf; last accessed 2022 07 15.
• Smith, B. Othanel, 1953, “The Improvement of Critical Thinking”, Progressive Education , 30(5): 129–134.
• Smith, Eugene Randolph, Ralph Winfred Tyler, and the Evaluation Staff, 1942, Appraising and Recording Student Progress , Volume III of Adventure in American Education , New York and London: Harper & Brothers.
• Splitter, Laurance J., 1987, “Educational Reform through Philosophy for Children”, Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children , 7(2): 32–39. doi:10.5840/thinking1987729
• Stanovich Keith E., and Paula J. Stanovich, 2010, “A Framework for Critical Thinking, Rational Thinking, and Intelligence”, in David D. Preiss and Robert J. Sternberg (eds), Innovations in Educational Psychology: Perspectives on Learning, Teaching and Human Development , New York: Springer Publishing, pp 195–237.
• Stanovich Keith E., Richard F. West, and Maggie E. Toplak, 2011, “Intelligence and Rationality”, in Robert J. Sternberg and Scott Barry Kaufman (eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 3rd edition, pp. 784–826. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511977244.040
• Tankersley, Karen, 2005, Literacy Strategies for Grades 4–12: Reinforcing the Threads of Reading , Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
• Thayer-Bacon, Barbara J., 1992, “Is Modern Critical Thinking Theory Sexist?”, Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines , 10(1): 3–7. doi:10.5840/inquiryctnews199210123
• –––, 1993, “Caring and Its Relationship to Critical Thinking”, Educational Theory , 43(3): 323–340. doi:10.1111/j.1741-5446.1993.00323.x
• –––, 1995a, “Constructive Thinking: Personal Voice”, Journal of Thought , 30(1): 55–70.
• –––, 1995b, “Doubting and Believing: Both are Important for Critical Thinking”, Inquiry: Critical Thinking across the Disciplines , 15(2): 59–66. doi:10.5840/inquiryctnews199515226
• –––, 2000, Transforming Critical Thinking: Thinking Constructively , New York: Teachers College Press.
• Toulmin, Stephen Edelston, 1958, The Uses of Argument , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Turri, John, Mark Alfano, and John Greco, 2017, “Virtue Epistemology”, in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2017 Edition). URL = < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/epistemology-virtue/ >
• Vincent-Lancrin, Stéphan, Carlos González-Sancho, Mathias Bouckaert, Federico de Luca, Meritxell Fernández-Barrerra, Gwénaël Jacotin, Joaquin Urgel, and Quentin Vidal, 2019, Fostering Students’ Creativity and Critical Thinking: What It Means in School. Educational Research and Innovation , Paris: OECD Publishing.
• Warren, Karen J. 1988. “Critical Thinking and Feminism”, Informal Logic , 10(1): 31–44. [ Warren 1988 available online ]
• Watson, Goodwin, and Edward M. Glaser, 1980a, Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal, Form A , San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.
• –––, 1980b, Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal: Forms A and B; Manual , San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation,
• –––, 1994, Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal, Form B , San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.
• Weinstein, Mark, 1990, “Towards a Research Agenda for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking”, Informal Logic , 12(3): 121–143. [ Weinstein 1990 available online ]
• –––, 2013, Logic, Truth and Inquiry , London: College Publications.
• Willingham, Daniel T., 2019, “How to Teach Critical Thinking”, Education: Future Frontiers , 1: 1–17. [Available online at https://prod65.education.nsw.gov.au/content/dam/main-education/teaching-and-learning/education-for-a-changing-world/media/documents/How-to-teach-critical-thinking-Willingham.pdf.]
• Zagzebski, Linda Trinkaus, 1996, Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139174763

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking (AILACT)
• Critical Thinking Across the European Higher Education Curricula (CRITHINKEDU)
• Critical Thinking Definition, Instruction, and Assessment: A Rigorous Approach
• Critical Thinking Research (RAIL)
• Foundation for Critical Thinking
• Insight Assessment
• Partnership for 21st Century Learning (P21)
• The Critical Thinking Consortium
• The Nature of Critical Thinking: An Outline of Critical Thinking Dispositions and Abilities , by Robert H. Ennis

abilities | bias, implicit | children, philosophy for | civic education | decision-making capacity | Dewey, John | dispositions | education, philosophy of | epistemology: virtue | logic: informal

Copyright © 2022 by David Hitchcock < hitchckd @ mcmaster . ca >

• Accessibility

Support SEP

Mirror sites.

View this site from another server:

• Info about mirror sites

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is copyright © 2024 by The Metaphysics Research Lab , Department of Philosophy, Stanford University

Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054

1 Introduction to Critical Thinking

I. what is c ritical t hinking [1].

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 simply 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. Critical thinkers are able to deduce consequences from what they know, make use of information to solve problems, and to seek relevant sources of information to inform themselves.

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 also use critical thinking to enhance work processes and improve social institutions.

Some people believe that critical thinking hinders creativity because critical thinking requires following the rules of logic and rationality, whereas creativity might require breaking those rules. This is a misconception. Critical thinking is quite compatible with thinking “out-of-the-box,” challenging consensus views, 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.

II. The I mportance of C ritical T hinking

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 analyze 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 analyze 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.

Critical thinking is a   metacognitive skill . What this means is that it is a higher-level cognitive skill that involves thinking about thinking. We have to be aware of the good principles of reasoning, and be reflective about our own reasoning. In addition, we often need to make a conscious effort to improve ourselves, avoid biases, and maintain objectivity. This is notoriously hard to do. We are all able to think but to think well often requires a long period of training. The mastery of critical thinking is similar to the mastery of many other skills. There are three important components: theory, practice, and attitude.

III. Improv ing O ur T hinking S kills

If we want to think correctly, we need to follow the correct rules of reasoning. Knowledge of theory includes knowledge of these rules. These are the basic principles of critical thinking, such as the laws of logic, and the methods of scientific reasoning, etc.

Also, it would be useful to know something about what not to do if we want to reason correctly. This means we should have some basic knowledge of the mistakes that people make. First, this requires some knowledge of typical fallacies. Second, psychologists have discovered persistent biases and limitations in human reasoning. An awareness of these empirical findings will alert us to potential problems.

However, merely knowing the principles that distinguish good and bad reasoning is not enough. We might study in the classroom about how to swim, and learn about the basic theory, such as the fact that one should not breathe underwater. But unless we can apply such theoretical knowledge through constant practice, we might not actually be able to swim.

Similarly, to be good at critical thinking skills it is necessary to internalize the theoretical principles so that we can actually apply them in daily life. There are at least two ways to do this. One is to perform lots of quality exercises. These exercises don’t just include practicing in the classroom or receiving tutorials; they also include engaging in discussions and debates with other people in our daily lives, where the principles of critical thinking can be applied. The second method is to think more deeply about the principles that we have acquired. In the human mind, memory and understanding are acquired through making connections between ideas.

Good critical thinking skills require more than just knowledge and practice. Persistent practice can bring about improvements only if one has the right kind of motivation and attitude. The following attitudes are not uncommon, but they are obstacles to critical thinking:

• I prefer being given the correct answers rather than figuring them out myself.
• I don’t like to think a lot about my decisions as I rely only on gut feelings.
• I don’t usually review the mistakes I have made.
• I don’t like to be criticized.

To improve our thinking we have to recognize the importance of reflecting on the reasons for belief and action. We should also be willing to engage in debate, break old habits, and deal with linguistic complexities and abstract concepts.

The  California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory  is a psychological test that is used to measure whether people are disposed to think critically. It measures the seven different thinking habits listed below, and it is useful to ask ourselves to what extent they describe the way we think:

• Truth-Seeking—Do you try to understand how things really are? Are you interested in finding out the truth?
• Open-Mindedness—How receptive are you to new ideas, even when you do not intuitively agree with them? Do you give new concepts a fair hearing?
• Analyticity—Do you try to understand the reasons behind things? Do you act impulsively or do you evaluate the pros and cons of your decisions?
• Systematicity—Are you systematic in your thinking? Do you break down a complex problem into parts?
• Confidence in Reasoning—Do you always defer to other people? How confident are you in your own judgment? Do you have reasons for your confidence? Do you have a way to evaluate your own thinking?
• Inquisitiveness—Are you curious about unfamiliar topics and resolving complicated problems? Will you chase down an answer until you find it?
• Maturity of Judgment—Do you jump to conclusions? Do you try to see things from different perspectives? Do you take other people’s experiences into account?

Finally, as mentioned earlier, psychologists have discovered over the years that human reasoning can be easily affected by a variety of cognitive biases. For example, people tend to be over-confident of their abilities and focus too much on evidence that supports their pre-existing opinions. We should be alert to these biases in our attitudes towards our own thinking.

IV. Defining Critical Thinking

There are many different definitions of critical thinking. Here we list some of the well-known ones. You might notice that they all emphasize the importance of clarity and rationality. Here we will look at some well-known definitions in chronological order.

1) Many people trace the importance of critical thinking in education to the early twentieth-century American philosopher John Dewey. But Dewey did not make very extensive use of the term “critical thinking.” Instead, in his book  How We Think (1910), he argued for the importance of what he called “reflective thinking”:

…[when] the ground or basis for a belief is deliberately sought and its adequacy to support the belief examined. This process is called reflective thought; it alone is truly educative in value…

Active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends, constitutes reflective thought.

There is however one passage from How We Think where Dewey explicitly uses the term “critical thinking”:

The essence of critical thinking is suspended judgment; and the essence of this suspense is inquiry to determine the nature of the problem before proceeding to attempts at its solution. This, more than any other thing, transforms mere inference into tested inference, suggested conclusions into proof.

2) The  Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal  (1980) is a well-known psychological test of critical thinking ability. The authors of this test define critical thinking as:

…a composite of attitudes, knowledge and skills. This composite includes: (1) attitudes of inquiry that involve an ability to recognize the existence of problems and an acceptance of the general need for evidence in support of what is asserted to be true; (2) knowledge of the nature of valid inferences, abstractions, and generalizations in which the weight or accuracy of different kinds of evidence are logically determined; and (3) skills in employing and applying the above attitudes and knowledge.

3) A very well-known and influential definition of critical thinking comes from philosopher and professor Robert Ennis in his work “A Taxonomy of Critical Thinking Dispositions and Abilities” (1987):

Critical thinking is reasonable reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do.

4) The following definition comes from a statement written in 1987 by the philosophers Michael Scriven and Richard Paul for the  National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking (link), an organization promoting critical thinking in the US:

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. 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. It entails the examination of those structures or elements of thought implicit in all reasoning: purpose, problem, or question-at-issue, assumptions, concepts, empirical grounding; reasoning leading to conclusions, implications and consequences, objections from alternative viewpoints, and frame of reference.

The following excerpt from Peter A. Facione’s “Critical Thinking: A Statement of Expert Consensus for Purposes of Educational Assessment and Instruction” (1990) is quoted from a report written for the American Philosophical Association:

We understand critical thinking to be purposeful, self-regulatory judgment which results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well as explanation of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations upon which that judgment is based. CT is essential as a tool of inquiry. As such, CT is a liberating force in education and a powerful resource in one’s personal and civic life. While not synonymous with good thinking, CT is a pervasive and self-rectifying human phenomenon. The ideal critical thinker is habitually inquisitive, well-informed, trustful of reason, open-minded, flexible, fairminded in evaluation, honest in facing personal biases, prudent in making judgments, willing to reconsider, clear about issues, orderly in complex matters, diligent in seeking relevant information, reasonable in the selection of criteria, focused in inquiry, and persistent in seeking results which are as precise as the subject and the circumstances of inquiry permit. Thus, educating good critical thinkers means working toward this ideal. It combines developing CT skills with nurturing those dispositions which consistently yield useful insights and which are the basis of a rational and democratic society.

V. Two F eatures of C ritical T hinking

A. how not what .

Critical thinking is concerned not with what you believe, but rather how or why you believe it. Most classes, such as those on biology or chemistry, teach you what to believe about a subject matter. In contrast, critical thinking is not particularly interested in what the world is, in fact, like. Rather, critical thinking will teach you how to form beliefs and how to think. It is interested in the type of reasoning you use when you form your beliefs, and concerns itself with whether you have good reasons to believe what you believe. Therefore, this class isn’t a class on the psychology of reasoning, which brings us to the second important feature of critical thinking.

B. Ought N ot Is ( or Normative N ot Descriptive )

There is a difference between normative and descriptive theories. Descriptive theories, such as those provided by physics, provide a picture of how the world factually behaves and operates. In contrast, normative theories, such as those provided by ethics or political philosophy, provide a picture of how the world should be. Rather than ask question such as why something is the way it is, normative theories ask how something should be. In this course, we will be interested in normative theories that govern our thinking and reasoning. Therefore, we will not be interested in how we actually reason, but rather focus on how we ought to reason.

In the introduction to this course we considered a selection task with cards that must be flipped in order to check the validity of a rule. We noted that many people fail to identify all the cards required to check the rule. This is how people do in fact reason (descriptive). We then noted that you must flip over two cards. This is how people ought to reason (normative).

• Section I-IV are taken from http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/ and are in use under the creative commons license. Some modifications have been made to the original content. ↵

Critical Thinking Copyright © 2019 by Brian Kim is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

Reason Better: An Interdisciplinary Guide to Critical Thinking

David Manley

It’s time the standard critical thinking curriculum was rethought. Reason Better: An Interdisciplinary Guide to Critical Thinking does exactly this by combining the most recent findings about reasoning from philosophy, cognitive science, social psychology and behavioral economics in a way that’s practical yet rigorous. The text emphasizes developing a mindset that avoids systematic errors, while also presenting a unified picture of evidence that covers statistical, causal, and best-explanation inferences. Students will come away with a sense of how to assess the strength of evidence for claims, adjust their beliefs accordingly, and recognize the errors they're most prone to making. Reason Better is rich with instructor resources to support delivering a course that will have lasting effects on students’ lives.

Top Hat with Interactive eText

requires a join code from instructor

of students say Top Hat helped them understand the course better.

Source: Top Hat Student Survey Spring 2023; n = 4,146

Table of Contents for Reason Better: An Interdisciplinary Guide to Critical Thinking

• Preliminaries
• Chapter 1: Reasoning
• Chapter 2: Mindset
• Chapter 3: Clarity
• Chapter 4: Entailment
• Chapter 5: Evidence
• Chapter 6: Generalizations
• Chapter 7: Causes
• Chapter 8: Updating
• Chapter 9: Decisions
• Chapter 10: Co-thinking
• Instructor's Resources
• Advanced Chapter Materials

The development of the reasoning brain and how to foster logical reasoning skills

Early childhood development / Effective lifelong learning / Learning mathematics

Executive summary

Learning to reason logically is necessary for the growth of critical and scientific thinking in children. Yet, both psychological and neural evidence indicates that logical reasoning is hard even for educated adults. Here, we examine the factors that scaffold the emergence of logical reasoning in children. Evidence suggests that the development of reasoning with concrete information can be accounted for by the development of both world knowledge and self-regulation. The transition from concrete to abstract reasoning, however, is a challenge for children. Children’s development of reasoning may be supported by encouraging both divergent thinking and reasoning at levels of abstraction that are just above reasoners’ current levels, alongside activities in which children reason with others.

Introduction

It is often argued that one of the most fundamental goals of education is to nurture critical thinking, that is, to teach children to employ good reasoning skills when developing their beliefs. Therefore, fostering logical reasoning should be an important goal for education: Children should learn to provide logical reasons for their opinions and should be able to distinguish between good and bad arguments. This is likely to be important for their effective exercise of citizenship as adults. For example, logical reasoning could tell you that it is unwarranted to conclude “All Muslims are terrorists” from the assertions “All the 9/11 perpetrators are Muslims” and “All the 9/11 perpetrators are terrorists.” Yet, many educated adults still draw such a conclusion, most likely because fear and bias can overcome rational thinking. This suggests that logical reasoning is hard even for educated adults, a conclusion that is supported by a wealth of psychological studies. Perhaps the most striking demonstration of the difficulty of logical reasoning was discovered by the psychologist Peter Wason in 1966 1 . Wason designed a task in which he presented participants with four playing cards, each with a letter on one side and a number on the other side. For example, the cards could be as follow:

A         B         2          3

Participants were then shown the conditional rule “If a card has the letter A on one side, then it has the number 2 on the other side.” The task consisted of selecting those cards that had to be turned over to discover whether the rule was true or false. Since Wason’s study, that task has been performed many times, and the results are always the same. Most people select either the A card alone or sometimes both the cards A and 2. However, very few adults, even highly educated, typically choose the 3 card. This is despite the fact that discovering what is on the other side of the 3 card is necessary to evaluate whether the rule is true or false (i.e., if there is an A on the other side of the 3, the rule is false). This reasoning failure has puzzled psychologists for decades because it questions the long-standing assumption that human beings are inherently rational. Why is it so hard for participants to select the 3 card? Neuroscience research suggests that it is because it is much more difficult for the brain to focus on the elements that are absent from the rule (e.g., 3) than on the elements that are present (e.g., A) 2 . Thus, selecting the 3 card requires much more extensive brain activation in several brain regions (primarily involved in attention and concentration) to overcome that tendency (see Figure 1). So, how can we get people to activate more of their reasoning brain and act more rationally on this task? One of the first ideas that comes to mind would be to teach them logic. Cheng and colleagues 3 have tested this. The researchers presented the Wason selection task to college students before and after they took a whole-semester introductory class in logic (about 40 hours of lectures). Surprisingly, they found no difference in the students’ poor performance between the beginning and the end of the semester. In other words, a whole semester of learning about logic did not help students make any less error on the task! What, then, can train the reasoning brain? To answer that question, it is interesting to turn to what we know about the development of logical reasoning in children.

Figure 1. The reasoning brain. Location of the brain regions (in red, blue, and white) that are activated when participants reason with elements that are not present in the rule in the Wason card task. Activations are displayed on pictures of the brain taken using a magnetic resonance imaging scanner. (Reproduced from Ref. 2 )

The development of concrete logical reasoning in children

It is clear that even young children can use some logical reasoning when concrete information is involved. For instance, most 6-year-olds can draw the conclusion “The person is hurt” from the statements “If the person breaks his arm, the person will be hurt” and “The person breaks his arm.” However, the reasoning abilities of young children are limited. For example, many 6-year-olds would also draw the conclusion “The person broke his arm” from the statements “If the person breaks his arm, the person will be hurt” and “The person is hurt.” This, however, is an invalid conclusion because there may be many other reasons why a person could be hurt. Children will progressively understand this and will make this type of reasoning error less and less as they get older. By the time they reach the end of elementary school, most children are able to refrain from concluding “The person broke his arm” from the statements “If the person breaks his arm, the person will be hurt” and “The person is hurt” 4 . Critically, this increased reasoning ability is mirrored by an increase in the ability to think about alternate causes for a given consequence. For example, older children are much more able than younger children to think about the many other reasons why someone would be hurt, like getting sick, breaking a leg, cutting a finger, etc. In other words, better reasoning ability with age is associated with a better ability to consider alternatives from stored knowledge. Clearly, however, children differ in terms of what they know about the world. This predicts that those who have better world knowledge and can think about more alternatives should be better reasoners than the others. And this is exactly what has been shown in several studies 4 .

Interestingly, the importance of world knowledge for reasoning has a paradoxical effect: It can make children poorer reasoners on some occasions. For example, children who can think about a lot of alternatives would be less inclined to draw the logically valid conclusion “The person will be tired” from the statements “If a person goes to sleep late, then he will be tired” and “The person goes to sleep late.” This is because a child with significant world knowledge can think of several circumstances that would make the conclusion unwarranted, such as waking up later the next day. Thus, more world knowledge needs to be associated with more ability to suppress the alternatives that might come to mind if the task requires it. This self-regulation ability relies on a part of the brain that also massively develops during childhood, i.e., the prefrontal cortex (see Figure 2). Overall, then, the development of concrete logical reasoning in children can be largely accounted for by the development of both world knowledge and self-regulation skills that are associated with the frontal cortex.

Figure 2. The prefrontal cortex. Location of the prefrontal cortex on a 3D rendering of the human brain. Polygon data were generated by Database Center for Life Science(DBCLS),  distributed under a CC-BY-SA-2.1-jp license.

From concrete to abstract reasoning

There is, however, an important difference between the reasoning skills described above and the task developed by Peter Wason about the four cards. What we just described relates to reasoning with very concrete information, whereas the card task involves reasoning with purely abstract information. Abstract reasoning is difficult because it requires one to manipulate information without any referent in the real world. Knowledge is of no help. In fact, neuroscience research indicates that abstract and concrete reasoning rely on two different parts of the brain 5 (see Figure 3). The ability to reason logically with an abstract premise is generally only found during late adolescence 4 . Transitioning from concrete to abstract reasoning may require extensive practice with concrete reasoning. With mastery, children may extract from the reasoning process abstract strategies that could be applied to abstract information. A recent study, however, suggests a trick to help facilitate this transition in children 6 . The researchers discovered that abstract reasoning in 12- to 15-year-olds is much improved when these adolescents are previously engaged in a task in which they have to reason with information that is concrete but empirically false, such as “If a shirt is rubbed with mud, then the shirt will be clean.” No such effect was observed when adolescents are asked to reason with concrete information that is empirically true, such as “If a shirt is washed with detergent, then the shirt will be clean.” Therefore, reasoning with information that contradicts what we know about the world might constitute an intermediary step in transitioning from concrete to abstract reasoning.

Figure 3. Brain regions activated when reasoning with concrete (left) and abstract (right) information. Activations are displayed on pictures of the brain taken using a magnetic resonance imaging scanner. (Reproduced from Ref. 5 )

What can we do to foster logical reasoning skills?

What, then, can we do to help foster the development of logical reasoning skills in children? The research described above suggests several potentially fruitful ways. First, it is clear that the development of concrete reasoning—the very first type of reasoning children can engage in—relies on an increased ability to think about counter-examples for a given statement. This implies that knowledge about the world is critical to the emergence of logical reasoning in children, at least when concrete information is involved. Therefore, all activities that would expand such world knowledge (e.g., reading informational books, learning new vocabulary, exploring new environments and places) are likely to be beneficial to the development of children’s reasoning skills. Second, it is important to consider that the more world knowledge a child possesses, the more he/she will need to juggle with this knowledge. For example, generating counter-examples when solving a reasoning problem will require maintaining pieces of information in memory for a short period of time, a type of memory called working memory . World knowledge can also sometimes be detrimental to reasoning and needs to be inhibited , such as when recognizing that the conclusion “The person will be tired” logically follows from the statements “If a person goes to sleep late, then he will be tired” and “The person goes to sleep late” (even if one might think of several conditions that would make the conclusion untrue based on what we know about the world). Fostering these types of self-regulation skills (working memory and inhibition) should thus be beneficial to the development of logical reasoning. Several studies suggest that these functions could be promoted by targeting children’s emotional and social development, such as in curricula involving social pretend play (requiring children to act out of character and adjusting to improvisation of others), self-discipline, orderliness, and meditation exercises 7 . Studies also indicate positive effects of various physical activities emphasizing self-control and mindfulness, such as yoga or traditional martial arts 7 . Third, studies indicate that the transition from concrete to abstract reasoning occurring around adolescence is challenging. Although more research is needed in this domain, one promising way to help this transition is by encouraging children’s thinking about alternatives with content that contradicts what they know about the world (e.g., “If a shirt is rubbed with mud, then the shirt will be clean”). In sum, as stated by Henry Markovits, “the best way to encourage the development of more abstract ways of logical reasoning is to gradually encourage both divergent thinking and reasoning at levels of abstraction that are just above reasoners’ current levels” 4 .

Fostering the development of logical reasoning should be an important goal of education. Yet, studies indicate that logical reasoning is hard even for educated adults and relies on the activation of an extensive network of brain regions. Neuroscience studies also demonstrate that reasoning with concrete information involves brain regions that qualitatively differ from those involved in reasoning with more abstract information, explaining why transitioning from concrete to abstract reasoning is challenging for children. We nonetheless reviewed here the more recent research on the development of reasoning skills and suggest several important factors that scaffold children’s reasoning abilities, such as world knowledge and self-regulation functions. On a final note, it is important to consider that logical reasoning is not something that we always do on our own, isolated from our peers. In fact, some have argued that the very function of reasoning is to argue with our peers (i.e., to find the best arguments to convince others and to evaluate arguments made by others) 8 . This idea is interesting from an educational point of view because it suggests that reasoning with others might be easier than reasoning in isolation—a hypothesis validated by several studies. For example, performance on the card task developed by Peter Wason is much higher when participants solve it as a group rather than alone 8 . Therefore, encouraging activities in which children reason with others might also be a fruitful avenue for stimulating the reasoning brain.

• Wason, P. C. Reasoning. In New Horizons in Psychology (ed. Foss, B. M.). (Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1966).
• Prado, J., & Noveck, I. A. Overcoming perceptual features in logical reasoning: A parametric functional magnetic resonance imaging study. J Cogn Neurosci . 19(4): 642-57 (2007).
• Cheng, P. W. et al. Pragmatic versus syntactic approaches to training deductive reasoning. Cogn Psychol . 18(3): 293-328 (1986).
• Markovits, H. How to develop a logical reasoner. In The Developmental Psychology of Reasoning and Decision-Making (ed. Markovits, H.) 148-164. (Psychology Press: Hove, UK, 2014).
• Goel, V. Anatomy of deductive reasoning. Trends Cogn. Sci. (Reg. Ed.) 11(10): 435-41 (2007).
• Markovits, H., & Lortie-Forgues, H. Conditional reasoning with false premises facilitates the transition between familiar and abstract reasoning. Child Development 82(2): 646-660 (2011).
• Diamond, A., & Lee, K. Interventions shown to aid executive function development in children 4 to 12 years old. Science 333(6045): 959-964 (2011).
• Mercier, H., & Sperber, D. Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory. Behav Brain Sci . 34(2): 57-74; discussion 74-111 (2011).

Advertisement

Scientific Thinking and Critical Thinking in Science Education 

Two Distinct but Symbiotically Related Intellectual Processes

• Open access
• Published: 05 September 2023

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Antonio García-Carmona   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5952-0340 1  

5118 Accesses

Explore all metrics

Scientific thinking and critical thinking are two intellectual processes that are considered keys in the basic and comprehensive education of citizens. For this reason, their development is also contemplated as among the main objectives of science education. However, in the literature about the two types of thinking in the context of science education, there are quite frequent allusions to one or the other indistinctly to refer to the same cognitive and metacognitive skills, usually leaving unclear what are their differences and what are their common aspects. The present work therefore was aimed at elucidating what the differences and relationships between these two types of thinking are. The conclusion reached was that, while they differ in regard to the purposes of their application and some skills or processes, they also share others and are related symbiotically in a metaphorical sense; i.e., each one makes sense or develops appropriately when it is nourished or enriched by the other. Finally, an orientative proposal is presented for an integrated development of the two types of thinking in science classes.

Similar content being viewed by others

Philosophical Inquiry and Critical Thinking in Primary and Secondary Science Education

Fostering scientific literacy and critical thinking in elementary science education.

Enhancing Scientific Thinking Through the Development of Critical Thinking in Higher Education

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think. Albert Einstein

1 Introduction

In consulting technical reports, theoretical frameworks, research, and curricular reforms related to science education, one commonly finds appeals to scientific thinking and critical thinking as essential educational processes or objectives. This is confirmed in some studies that include exhaustive reviews of the literature in this regard such as those of Bailin ( 2002 ), Costa et al. ( 2020 ), and Santos ( 2017 ) on critical thinking, and of Klarh et al. ( 2019 ) and Lehrer and Schauble ( 2006 ) on scientific thinking. However, conceptualizing and differentiating between both types of thinking based on the above-mentioned documents of science education are generally difficult. In many cases, they are referred to without defining them, or they are used interchangeably to represent virtually the same thing. Thus, for example, the document A Framework for K-12 Science Education points out that “Critical thinking is required, whether in developing and refining an idea (an explanation or design) or in conducting an investigation” (National Research Council (NRC), 2012 , p. 46). The same document also refers to scientific thinking when it suggests that basic scientific education should “provide students with opportunities for a range of scientific activities and scientific thinking , including, but not limited to inquiry and investigation, collection and analysis of evidence, logical reasoning, and communication and application of information” (NRC, 2012 , p. 251).

A few years earlier, the report Science Teaching in Schools in Europe: Policies and Research (European Commission/Eurydice, 2006 ) included the dimension “scientific thinking” as part of standardized national science tests in European countries. This dimension consisted of three basic abilities: (i) to solve problems formulated in theoretical terms , (ii) to frame a problem in scientific terms , and (iii) to formulate scientific hypotheses . In contrast, critical thinking was not even mentioned in such a report. However, in subsequent similar reports by the European Commission/Eurydice ( 2011 , 2022 ), there are some references to the fact that the development of critical thinking should be a basic objective of science teaching, although these reports do not define it at any point.

The ENCIENDE report on early-year science education in Spain also includes an explicit allusion to critical thinking among its recommendations: “Providing students with learning tools means helping them to develop critical thinking , to form their own opinions, to distinguish between knowledge founded on the evidence available at a certain moment (evidence which can change) and unfounded beliefs” (Confederation of Scientific Societies in Spain (COSCE), 2011 , p. 62). However, the report makes no explicit mention to scientific thinking. More recently, the document “ Enseñando ciencia con ciencia ” (Teaching science with science) (Couso et al., 2020 ), sponsored by Spain’s Ministry of Education, also addresses critical thinking:

(…) with the teaching approach through guided inquiry students learn scientific content, learn to do science (procedures), learn what science is and how it is built, and this (...) helps to develop critical thinking , that is, to question any statement that is not supported by evidence. (Couso et al., 2020 , p. 54)

On the other hand, in referring to what is practically the same thing, the European report Science Education for Responsible Citizenship speaks of scientific thinking when it establishes that one of the challenges of scientific education should be: “To promote a culture of scientific thinking and inspire citizens to use evidence-based reasoning for decision making” (European Commission, 2015 , p. 14). However, the Pisa 2024 Strategic Vision and Direction for Science report does not mention scientific thinking but does mention critical thinking in noting that “More generally, (students) should be able to recognize the limitations of scientific inquiry and apply critical thinking when engaging with its results” (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2020 , p. 9).

The new Spanish science curriculum for basic education (Royal Decree 217/ 2022 ) does make explicit reference to scientific thinking. For example, one of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) competency descriptors for compulsory secondary education reads:

Use scientific thinking to understand and explain the phenomena that occur around them, trusting in knowledge as a motor for development, asking questions and checking hypotheses through experimentation and inquiry (...) showing a critical attitude about the scope and limitations of science. (p. 41,599)

Furthermore, when developing the curriculum for the subjects of physics and chemistry, the same provision clarifies that “The essence of scientific thinking is to understand what are the reasons for the phenomena that occur in the natural environment to then try to explain them through the appropriate laws of physics and chemistry” (Royal Decree 217/ 2022 , p. 41,659). However, within the science subjects (i.e., Biology and Geology, and Physics and Chemistry), critical thinking is not mentioned as such. Footnote 1 It is only more or less directly alluded to with such expressions as “critical analysis”, “critical assessment”, “critical reflection”, “critical attitude”, and “critical spirit”, with no attempt to conceptualize it as is done with regard to scientific thinking.

The above is just a small sample of the concepts of scientific thinking and critical thinking only being differentiated in some cases, while in others they are presented as interchangeable, using one or the other indistinctly to talk about the same cognitive/metacognitive processes or practices. In fairness, however, it has to be acknowledged—as said at the beginning—that it is far from easy to conceptualize these two types of thinking (Bailin, 2002 ; Dwyer et al., 2014 ; Ennis, 2018 ; Lehrer & Schauble, 2006 ; Kuhn, 1993 , 1999 ) since they feed back on each other, partially overlap, and share certain features (Cáceres et al., 2020 ; Vázquez-Alonso & Manassero-Mas, 2018 ). Neither is there unanimity in the literature on how to characterize each of them, and rarely have they been analyzed comparatively (e.g., Hyytinen et al., 2019 ). For these reasons, I believed it necessary to address this issue with the present work in order to offer some guidelines for science teachers interested in deepening into these two intellectual processes to promote them in their classes.

2 An Attempt to Delimit Scientific Thinking in Science Education

For many years, cognitive science has been interested in studying what scientific thinking is and how it can be taught in order to improve students’ science learning (Klarh et al., 2019 ; Zimmerman & Klarh, 2018 ). To this end, Kuhn et al. propose taking a characterization of science as argument (Kuhn, 1993 ; Kuhn et al., 2008 ). They argue that this is a suitable way of linking the activity of how scientists think with that of the students and of the public in general, since science is a social activity which is subject to ongoing debate, in which the construction of arguments plays a key role. Lehrer and Schauble ( 2006 ) link scientific thinking with scientific literacy, paying especial attention to the different images of science. According to those authors, these images would guide the development of the said literacy in class. The images of science that Leherer and Schauble highlight as characterizing scientific thinking are: (i) science-as-logical reasoning (role of domain-general forms of scientific reasoning, including formal logic, heuristic, and strategies applied in different fields of science), (ii) science-as-theory change (science is subject to permanent revision and change), and (iii) science-as-practice (scientific knowledge and reasoning are components of a larger set of activities that include rules of participation, procedural skills, epistemological knowledge, etc.).

Based on a literature review, Jirout ( 2020 ) defines scientific thinking as an intellectual process whose purpose is the intentional search for information about a phenomenon or facts by formulating questions, checking hypotheses, carrying out observations, recognizing patterns, and making inferences (a detailed description of all these scientific practices or competencies can be found, for example, in NRC, 2012 ; OECD, 2019 ). Therefore, for Jirout, the development of scientific thinking would involve bringing into play the basic science skills/practices common to the inquiry-based approach to learning science (García-Carmona, 2020 ; Harlen, 2014 ). For other authors, scientific thinking would include a whole spectrum of scientific reasoning competencies (Krell et al., 2022 ; Moore, 2019 ; Tytler & Peterson, 2004 ). However, these competences usually cover the same science skills/practices mentioned above. Indeed, a conceptual overlap between scientific thinking, scientific reasoning, and scientific inquiry is often found in science education goals (Krell et al., 2022 ). Although, according to Leherer and Schauble ( 2006 ), scientific thinking is a broader construct that encompasses the other two.

It could be said that scientific thinking is a particular way of searching for information using science practices Footnote 2 (Klarh et al., 2019 ; Zimmerman & Klarh, 2018 ; Vázquez-Alonso & Manassero-Mas, 2018 ). This intellectual process provides the individual with the ability to evaluate the robustness of evidence for or against a certain idea, in order to explain a phenomenon (Clouse, 2017 ). But the development of scientific thinking also requires metacognition processes. According to what Kuhn ( 2022 ) argues, metacognition is fundamental to the permanent control or revision of what an individual thinks and knows, as well as that of the other individuals with whom it interacts, when engaging in scientific practices. In short, scientific thinking demands a good connection between reasoning and metacognition (Kuhn, 2022 ). Footnote 3

From that perspective, Zimmerman and Klarh ( 2018 ) have synthesized a taxonomy categorizing scientific thinking, relating cognitive processes with the corresponding science practices (Table 1 ). It has to be noted that this taxonomy was prepared in line with the categorization of scientific practices proposed in the document A Framework for K-12 Science Education (NRC, 2012 ). This is why one needs to understand that, for example, the cognitive process of elaboration and refinement of hypotheses is not explicitly associated with the scientific practice of hypothesizing but only with the formulation of questions. Indeed, the K-12 Framework document does not establish hypothesis formulation as a basic scientific practice. Lederman et al. ( 2014 ) justify it by arguing that not all scientific research necessarily allows or requires the verification of hypotheses, for example, in cases of exploratory or descriptive research. However, the aforementioned document (NRC, 2012 , p. 50) does refer to hypotheses when describing the practice of developing and using models , appealing to the fact that they facilitate the testing of hypothetical explanations .

In the literature, there are also other interesting taxonomies characterizing scientific thinking for educational purposes. One of them is that of Vázquez-Alonso and Manassero-Mas ( 2018 ) who, instead of science practices, refer to skills associated with scientific thinking . Their characterization basically consists of breaking down into greater detail the content of those science practices that would be related to the different cognitive and metacognitive processes of scientific thinking. Also, unlike Zimmerman and Klarh’s ( 2018 ) proposal, Vázquez-Alonso and Manassero-Mas’s ( 2018 ) proposal explicitly mentions metacognition as one of the aspects of scientific thinking, which they call meta-process . In my opinion, the proposal of the latter authors, which shells out scientific thinking into a broader range of skills/practices, can be more conducive in order to favor its approach in science classes, as teachers would have more options to choose from to address components of this intellectual process depending on their teaching interests, the educational needs of their students and/or the learning objectives pursued. Table 2 presents an adapted characterization of the Vázquez-Alonso and Manassero-Mas’s ( 2018 ) proposal to address scientific thinking in science education.

3 Contextualization of Critical Thinking in Science Education

Theorization and research about critical thinking also has a long tradition in the field of the psychology of learning (Ennis, 2018 ; Kuhn, 1999 ), and its application extends far beyond science education (Dwyer et al., 2014 ). Indeed, the development of critical thinking is commonly accepted as being an essential goal of people’s overall education (Ennis, 2018 ; Hitchcock, 2017 ; Kuhn, 1999 ; Willingham, 2008 ). However, its conceptualization is not simple and there is no unanimous position taken on it in the literature (Costa et al., 2020 ; Dwyer et al., 2014 ); especially when trying to relate it to scientific thinking. Thus, while Tena-Sánchez and León-Medina ( 2022 ) Footnote 4 and McBain et al. ( 2020 ) consider critical thinking to be the basis of or forms part of scientific thinking, Dowd et al. ( 2018 ) understand scientific thinking to be just a subset of critical thinking. However, Vázquez-Alonso and Manassero-Mas ( 2018 ) do not seek to determine whether critical thinking encompasses scientific thinking or vice versa. They consider that both types of knowledge share numerous skills/practices and the progressive development of one fosters the development of the other as a virtuous circle of improvement. Other authors, such as Schafersman ( 1991 ), even go so far as to say that critical thinking and scientific thinking are the same thing. In addition, some views on the relationship between critical thinking and scientific thinking seem to be context-dependent. For example, Hyytine et al. ( 2019 ) point out that in the perspective of scientific thinking as a component of critical thinking, the former is often used to designate evidence-based thinking in the sciences, although this view tends to dominate in Europe but not in the USA context. Perhaps because of this lack of consensus, the two types of thinking are often confused, overlapping, or conceived as interchangeable in education.

Even with such a lack of unanimous or consensus vision, there are some interesting theoretical frameworks and definitions for the development of critical thinking in education. One of the most popular definitions of critical thinking is that proposed by The National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking (1987, cited in Inter-American Teacher Education Network, 2015 , p. 6). This conceives of it 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”. In other words, critical thinking can be regarded as a reflective and reasonable class of thinking that provides people with the ability to evaluate multiple statements or positions that are defensible to then decide which is the most defensible (Clouse, 2017 ; Ennis, 2018 ). It thus requires, in addition to a basic scientific competency, notions about epistemology (Kuhn, 1999 ) to understand how knowledge is constructed. Similarly, it requires skills for metacognition (Hyytine et al., 2019 ; Kuhn, 1999 ; Magno, 2010 ) since critical thinking “entails awareness of one’s own thinking and reflection on the thinking of self and others as objects of cognition” (Dean & Kuhn, 2003 , p. 3).

In science education, one of the most suitable scenarios or resources, but not the only one, Footnote 5 to address all these aspects of critical thinking is through the analysis of socioscientific issues (SSI) (Taylor et al., 2006 ; Zeidler & Nichols, 2009 ). Without wishing to expand on this here, I will only say that interesting works can be found in the literature that have analyzed how the discussion of SSIs can favor the development of critical thinking skills (see, e.g., López-Fernández et al., 2022 ; Solbes et al., 2018 ). For example, López-Fernández et al. ( 2022 ) focused their teaching-learning sequence on the following critical thinking skills: information analysis, argumentation, decision making, and communication of decisions. Even some authors add the nature of science (NOS) to this framework (i.e., SSI-NOS-critical thinking), as, for example, Yacoubian and Khishfe ( 2018 ) in order to develop critical thinking and how this can also favor the understanding of NOS (Yacoubian, 2020 ). In effect, as I argued in another work on the COVID-19 pandemic as an SSI, in which special emphasis was placed on critical thinking, an informed understanding of how science works would have helped the public understand why scientists were changing their criteria to face the pandemic in the light of new data and its reinterpretations, or that it was not possible to go faster to get an effective and secure medical treatment for the disease (García-Carmona, 2021b ).

In the recent literature, there have also been some proposals intended to characterize critical thinking in the context of science education. Table 3 presents two of these by way of example. As can be seen, both proposals share various components for the development of critical thinking (respect for evidence, critically analyzing/assessing the validity/reliability of information, adoption of independent opinions/decisions, participation, etc.), but that of Blanco et al. ( 2017 ) is more clearly contextualized in science education. Likewise, that of these authors includes some more aspects (or at least does so more explicitly), such as developing epistemological Footnote 6 knowledge of science (vision of science…) and on its interactions with technology, society, and environment (STSA relationships), and communication skills. Therefore, it offers a wider range of options for choosing critical thinking skills/processes to promote it in science classes. However, neither proposal refers to metacognitive skills, which are also essential for developing critical thinking (Kuhn, 1999 ).

3.1 Critical thinking vs. scientific thinking in science education: differences and similarities

In accordance with the above, it could be said that scientific thinking is nourished by critical thinking, especially when deciding between several possible interpretations and explanations of the same phenomenon since this generally takes place in a context of debate in the scientific community (Acevedo-Díaz & García-Carmona, 2017 ). Thus, the scientific attitude that is perhaps most clearly linked to critical thinking is the skepticism with which scientists tend to welcome new ideas (Normand, 2008 ; Sagan, 1987 ; Tena-Sánchez and León-Medina, 2022 ), especially if they are contrary to well-established scientific knowledge (Bell, 2009 ). A good example of this was the OPERA experiment (García-Carmona & Acevedo-Díaz, 2016a ), which initially seemed to find that neutrinos could move faster than the speed of light. This finding was supposed to invalidate Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity (the finding was later proved wrong). In response, Nobel laureate in physics Sheldon L. Glashow went so far as to state that:

the result obtained by the OPERA collaboration cannot be correct. If it were, we would have to give up so many things, it would be such a huge sacrifice... But if it is, I am officially announcing it: I will shout to Mother Nature: I’m giving up! And I will give up Physics. (BBVA Foundation, 2011 )

Indeed, scientific thinking is ultimately focused on getting evidence that may support an idea or explanation about a phenomenon, and consequently allow others that are less convincing or precise to be discarded. Therefore when, with the evidence available, science has more than one equally defensible position with respect to a problem, the investigation is considered inconclusive (Clouse, 2017 ). In certain cases, this gives rise to scientific controversies (Acevedo-Díaz & García-Carmona, 2017 ) which are not always resolved based exclusively on epistemic or rational factors (Elliott & McKaughan, 2014 ; Vallverdú, 2005 ). Hence, it is also necessary to integrate non-epistemic practices into the framework of scientific thinking (García-Carmona, 2021a ; García-Carmona & Acevedo-Díaz, 2018 ), practices that transcend the purely rational or cognitive processes, including, for example, those related to emotional or affective issues (Sinatra & Hofer, 2021 ). From an educational point of view, this suggests that for students to become more authentically immersed in the way of working or thinking scientifically, they should also learn to feel as scientists do when they carry out their work (Davidson et al., 2020 ). Davidson et al. ( 2020 ) call it epistemic affect , and they suggest that it could be approach in science classes by teaching students to manage their frustrations when they fail to achieve the expected results; Footnote 7 or, for example, to moderate their enthusiasm with favorable results in a scientific inquiry by activating a certain skepticism that encourages them to do more testing. And, as mentioned above, for some authors, having a skeptical attitude is one of the actions that best visualize the application of critical thinking in the framework of scientific thinking (Normand, 2008 ; Sagan, 1987 ; Tena-Sánchez and León-Medina, 2022 ).

On the other hand, critical thinking also draws on many of the skills or practices of scientific thinking, as discussed above. However, in contrast to scientific thinking, the coexistence of two or more defensible ideas is not, in principle, a problem for critical thinking since its purpose is not so much to invalidate some ideas or explanations with respect to others, but rather to provide the individual with the foundations on which to position themself with the idea/argument they find most defensible among several that are possible (Ennis, 2018 ). For example, science with its methods has managed to explain the greenhouse effect, the phenomenon of the tides, or the transmission mechanism of the coronavirus. For this, it had to discard other possible explanations as they were less valid in the investigations carried out. These are therefore issues resolved by the scientific community which create hardly any discussion at the present time. However, taking a position for or against the production of energy in nuclear power plants transcends the scope of scientific thinking since both positions are, in principle, equally defensible. Indeed, within the scientific community itself there are supporters and detractors of the two positions, based on the same scientific knowledge. Consequently, it is critical thinking, which requires the management of knowledge and scientific skills, a basic understanding of epistemic (rational or cognitive) and non-epistemic (social, ethical/moral, economic, psychological, cultural, ...) aspects of the nature of science, as well as metacognitive skills, which helps the individual forge a personal foundation on which to position themself in one place or another, or maintain an uncertain, undecided opinion.

In view of the above, one can summarize that scientific thinking and critical thinking are two different intellectual processes in terms of purpose, but are related symbiotically (i.e., one would make no sense without the other or both feed on each other) and that, in their performance, they share a fair number of features, actions, or mental skills. According to Cáceres et al. ( 2020 ) and Hyytine et al. ( 2019 ), the intellectual skills that are most clearly common to both types of thinking would be searching for relationships between evidence and explanations , as well as investigating and logical thinking to make inferences . To this common space, I would also add skills for metacognition in accordance with what has been discussed about both types of knowledge (Khun, 1999 , 2022 ).

In order to compile in a compact way all that has been argued so far, in Table 4 , I present my overview of the relationship between scientific thinking and critical thinking. I would like to point out that I do not intend to be extremely extensive in the compilation, in the sense that possibly more elements could be added in the different sections, but rather to represent above all the aspects that distinguish and share them, as well as the mutual enrichment (or symbiosis) between them.

4 A Proposal for the Integrated Development of Critical Thinking and Scientific Thinking in Science Classes

Once the differences, common aspects, and relationships between critical thinking and scientific thinking have been discussed, it would be relevant to establish some type of specific proposal to foster them in science classes. Table 5 includes a possible script to address various skills or processes of both types of thinking in an integrated manner. However, before giving guidance on how such skills/processes could be approached, I would like to clarify that while all of them could be dealt within the context of a single school activity, I will not do so in this way. First, because I think that it can give the impression that the proposal is only valid if it is applied all at once in a specific learning situation, which can also discourage science teachers from implementing it in class due to lack of time or training to do so. Second, I think it can be more interesting to conceive the proposal as a set of thinking skills or actions that can be dealt with throughout the different science contents, selecting only (if so decided) some of them, according to educational needs or characteristics of the learning situation posed in each case. Therefore, in the orientations for each point of the script or grouping of these, I will use different examples and/or contexts. Likewise, these orientations in the form of comments, although founded in the literature, should be considered only as possibilities to do so, among many others possible.

Motivation and predisposition to reflect and discuss (point i ) demands, on the one hand, that issues are chosen which are attractive for the students. This can be achieved, for example, by asking the students directly what current issues, related to science and its impact or repercussions, they would like to learn about, and then decide on which issue to focus on (García-Carmona, 2008 ). Or the teacher puts forward the issue directly in class, trying for it be current, to be present in the media, social networks, etc., or what they think may be of interest to their students based on their teaching experience. In this way, each student is encouraged to feel questioned or concerned as a citizen because of the issue that is going to be addressed (García-Carmona, 2008 ). Also of possible interest is the analysis of contemporary, as yet unresolved socioscientific affairs (Solbes et al., 2018 ), such as climate change, science and social justice, transgenic foods, homeopathy, and alcohol and drug use in society. But also, everyday questions can be investigated which demand a decision to be made, such as “What car to buy?” (Moreno-Fontiveros et al., 2022 ), or “How can we prevent the arrival of another pandemic?” (Ushola & Puig, 2023 ).

On the other hand, it is essential that the discussion about the chosen issue is planned through an instructional process that generates an environment conducive to reflection and debate, with a view to engaging the students’ participation in it. This can be achieved, for example, by setting up a role-play game (Blanco-López et al., 2017 ), especially if the issue is socioscientific, or by critical and reflective reading of advertisements with scientific content (Campanario et al., 2001 ) or of science-related news in the daily media (García-Carmona, 2014 , 2021a ; Guerrero-Márquez & García-Carmona, 2020 ; Oliveras et al., 2013 ), etc., for subsequent discussion—all this, in a collaborative learning setting and with a clear democratic spirit.

Respect for scientific evidence (point ii ) should be the indispensable condition in any analysis and discussion from the prisms of scientific and of critical thinking (Erduran, 2021 ). Although scientific knowledge may be impregnated with subjectivity during its construction and is revisable in the light of new evidence ( tentativeness of scientific knowledge), when it is accepted by the scientific community it is as objective as possible (García-Carmona & Acevedo-Díaz, 2016b ). Therefore, promoting trust and respect for scientific evidence should be one of the primary educational challenges to combating pseudoscientists and science deniers (Díaz & Cabrera, 2022 ), whose arguments are based on false beliefs and assumptions, anecdotes, and conspiracy theories (Normand, 2008 ). Nevertheless, it is no simple task to achieve the promotion or respect for scientific evidence (Fackler, 2021 ) since science deniers, for example, consider that science is unreliable because it is imperfect (McIntyre, 2021 ). Hence the need to promote a basic understanding of NOS (point iii ) as a fundamental pillar for the development of both scientific thinking and critical thinking. A good way to do this would be through explicit and reflective discussion about controversies from the history of science (Acevedo-Díaz & García-Carmona, 2017 ) or contemporary controversies (García-Carmona, 2021b ; García-Carmona & Acevedo-Díaz, 2016a ).

Also, with respect to point iii of the proposal, it is necessary to manage basic scientific knowledge in the development of scientific and critical thinking skills (Willingham, 2008 ). Without this, it will be impossible to develop a minimally serious and convincing argument on the issue being analyzed. For example, if one does not know the transmission mechanism of a certain disease, it is likely to be very difficult to understand or justify certain patterns of social behavior when faced with it. In general, possessing appropriate scientific knowledge on the issue in question helps to make the best interpretation of the data and evidence available on this issue (OECD, 2019 ).

The search for information from reliable sources, together with its analysis and interpretation (points iv to vi ), are essential practices both in purely scientific contexts (e.g., learning about the behavior of a given physical phenomenon from literature or through enquiry) and in the application of critical thinking (e.g., when one wishes to take a personal, but informed, position on a particular socio-scientific issue). With regard to determining the credibility of information with scientific content on the Internet, Osborne et al. ( 2022 ) propose, among other strategies, to check whether the source is free of conflicts of interest, i.e., whether or not it is biased by ideological, political or economic motives. Also, it should be checked whether the source and the author(s) of the information are sufficiently reputable.

Regarding the interpretation of data and evidence, several studies have shown the difficulties that students often have with this practice in the context of enquiry activities (e.g., Gobert et al., 2018 ; Kanari & Millar, 2004 ; Pols et al., 2021 ), or when analyzing science news in the press (Norris et al., 2003 ). It is also found that they have significant difficulties in choosing the most appropriate data to support their arguments in causal analyses (Kuhn & Modrek, 2022 ). However, it must be recognized that making interpretations or inferences from data is not a simple task; among other reasons, because their construction is influenced by multiple factors, both epistemic (prior knowledge, experimental designs, etc.) and non-epistemic (personal expectations, ideology, sociopolitical context, etc.), which means that such interpretations are not always the same for all scientists (García-Carmona, 2021a ; García-Carmona & Acevedo-Díaz, 2018 ). For this reason, the performance of this scientific practice constitutes one of the phases or processes that generate the most debate or discussion in a scientific community, as long as no consensus is reached. In order to improve the practice of making inferences among students, Kuhn and Lerman ( 2021 ) propose activities that help them develop their own epistemological norms to connect causally their statements with the available evidence.

Point vii refers, on the one hand, to an essential scientific practice: the elaboration of evidence-based scientific explanations which generally, in a reasoned way, account for the causality, properties, and/or behavior of the phenomena (Brigandt, 2016 ). In addition, point vii concerns the practice of argumentation . Unlike scientific explanations, argumentation tries to justify an idea, explanation, or position with the clear purpose of persuading those who defend other different ones (Osborne & Patterson, 2011 ). As noted above, the complexity of most socioscientific issues implies that they have no unique valid solution or response. Therefore, the content of the arguments used to defend one position or another are not always based solely on purely rational factors such as data and scientific evidence. Some authors defend the need to also deal with non-epistemic aspects of the nature of science when teaching it (García-Carmona, 2021a ; García-Carmona & Acevedo-Díaz, 2018 ) since many scientific and socioscientific controversies are resolved by different factors or go beyond just the epistemic (Vallverdú, 2005 ).

To defend an idea or position taken on an issue, it is not enough to have scientific evidence that supports it. It is also essential to have skills for the communication and discussion of ideas (point viii ). The history of science shows how the difficulties some scientists had in communicating their ideas scientifically led to those ideas not being accepted at the time. A good example for students to become aware of this is the historical case of Semmelweis and puerperal fever (Aragón-Méndez et al., 2019 ). Its reflective reading makes it possible to conclude that the proposal of this doctor that gynecologists disinfect their hands, when passing from one parturient to another to avoid contagions that provoked the fever, was rejected by the medical community not only for epistemic reasons, but also for the difficulties that he had to communicate his idea. The history of science also reveals that some scientific interpretations were imposed on others at certain historical moments due to the rhetorical skills of their proponents although none of the explanations would convincingly explain the phenomenon studied. An example is the case of the controversy between Pasteur and Liebig about the phenomenon of fermentation (García-Carmona & Acevedo-Díaz, 2017 ), whose reading and discussion in science class would also be recommended in this context of this critical and scientific thinking skill. With the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, the arguments of some charlatans in the media and on social networks managed to gain a certain influence in the population, even though scientifically they were muddled nonsense (García-Carmona, 2021b ). Therefore, the reflective reading of news on current SSIs such as this also constitutes a good resource for the same educational purpose. In general, according to Spektor-Levy et al. ( 2009 ), scientific communication skills should be addressed explicitly in class, in a progressive and continuous manner, including tasks of information seeking, reading, scientific writing, representation of information, and representation of the knowledge acquired.

Finally (point ix ), a good scientific/critical thinker must be aware of what they know, of what they have doubts about or do not know, to this end continuously practicing metacognitive exercises (Dean & Kuhn, 2003 ; Hyytine et al., 2019 ; Magno, 2010 ; Willingham, 2008 ). At the same time, they must recognize the weaknesses and strengths of the arguments of their peers in the debate in order to be self-critical if necessary, as well as to revising their own ideas and arguments to improve and reorient them, etc. ( self-regulation ). I see one of the keys of both scientific and critical thinking being the capacity or willingness to change one’s mind, without it being frowned upon. Indeed, quite the opposite since one assumes it to occur thanks to the arguments being enriched and more solidly founded. In other words, scientific and critical thinking and arrogance or haughtiness towards the rectification of ideas or opinions do not stick well together.

5 Final Remarks

For decades, scientific thinking and critical thinking have received particular attention from different disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, pedagogy, and specific areas of this last such as science education. The two types of knowledge represent intellectual processes whose development in students, and in society in general, is considered indispensable for the exercise of responsible citizenship in accord with the demands of today’s society (European Commission, 2006 , 2015 ; NRC, 2012 ; OECD, 2020 ). As has been shown however, the task of their conceptualization is complex, and teaching students to think scientifically and critically is a difficult educational challenge (Willingham, 2008 ).

Aware of this, and after many years dedicated to science education, I felt the need to organize my ideas regarding the aforementioned two types of thinking. In consulting the literature about these, I found that, in many publications, scientific thinking and critical thinking are presented or perceived as being interchangeable or indistinguishable; a conclusion also shared by Hyytine et al. ( 2019 ). Rarely have their differences, relationships, or common features been explicitly studied. So, I considered that it was a matter needing to be addressed because, in science education, the development of scientific thinking is an inherent objective, but, when critical thinking is added to the learning objectives, there arise more than reasonable doubts about when one or the other would be used, or both at the same time. The present work came about motivated by this, with the intention of making a particular contribution, but based on the relevant literature, to advance in the question raised. This converges in conceiving scientific thinking and critical thinking as two intellectual processes that overlap and feed into each other in many aspects but are different with respect to certain cognitive skills and in terms of their purpose. Thus, in the case of scientific thinking, the aim is to choose the best possible explanation of a phenomenon based on the available evidence, and it therefore involves the rejection of alternative explanatory proposals that are shown to be less coherent or convincing. Whereas, from the perspective of critical thinking, the purpose is to choose the most defensible idea/option among others that are also defensible, using both scientific and extra-scientific (i.e., moral, ethical, political, etc.) arguments. With this in mind, I have described a proposal to guide their development in the classroom, integrating them under a conception that I have called, metaphorically, a symbiotic relationship between two modes of thinking.

Critical thinking is mentioned literally in other of the curricular provisions’ subjects such as in Education in Civics and Ethical Values or in Geography and History (Royal Decree 217/2022).

García-Carmona ( 2021a ) conceives of them as activities that require the comprehensive application of procedural skills, cognitive and metacognitive processes, and both scientific knowledge and knowledge of the nature of scientific practice .

Kuhn ( 2021 ) argues that the relationship between scientific reasoning and metacognition is especially fostered by what she calls inhibitory control , which basically consists of breaking down the whole of a thought into parts in such a way that attention is inhibited on some of those parts to allow a focused examination of the intended mental content.

Specifically, Tena-Sánchez and León-Medina (2020) assume that critical thinking is at the basis of rational or scientific skepticism that leads to questioning any claim that does not have empirical support.

As discussed in the introduction, the inquiry-based approach is also considered conducive to addressing critical thinking in science education (Couso et al., 2020 ; NRC, 2012 ).

Epistemic skills should not be confused with epistemological knowledge (García-Carmona, 2021a ). The former refers to skills to construct, evaluate, and use knowledge, and the latter to understanding about the origin, nature, scope, and limits of scientific knowledge.

For this purpose, it can be very useful to address in class, with the help of the history and philosophy of science, that scientists get more wrong than right in their research, and that error is always an opportunity to learn (García-Carmona & Acevedo-Díaz, 2018 ).

Acevedo-Díaz, J. A., & García-Carmona, A. (2017). Controversias en la historia de la ciencia y cultura científica [Controversies in the history of science and scientific culture]. Los Libros de la Catarata.

Aragón-Méndez, M. D. M., Acevedo-Díaz, J. A., & García-Carmona, A. (2019). Prospective biology teachers’ understanding of the nature of science through an analysis of the historical case of Semmelweis and childbed fever. Cultural Studies of Science Education , 14 (3), 525–555. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-018-9868-y

Bailin, S. (2002). Critical thinking and science education. Science & Education, 11 (4), 361–375. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1016042608621

Article   Google Scholar  

BBVA Foundation (2011). El Nobel de Física Sheldon L. Glashow no cree que los neutrinos viajen más rápido que la luz [Physics Nobel laureate Sheldon L. Glashow does not believe neutrinos travel faster than light.]. https://www.fbbva.es/noticias/nobel-fisica-sheldon-l-glashow-no-cree-los-neutrinos-viajen-mas-rapido-la-luz/ . Accessed 5 Februray 2023.

Bell, R. L. (2009). Teaching the nature of science: Three critical questions. In Best Practices in Science Education . National Geographic School Publishing.

Google Scholar  

Blanco-López, A., España-Ramos, E., & Franco-Mariscal, A. J. (2017). Estrategias didácticas para el desarrollo del pensamiento crítico en el aula de ciencias [Teaching strategies for the development of critical thinking in the teaching of science]. Ápice. Revista de Educación Científica, 1 (1), 107–115. https://doi.org/10.17979/arec.2017.1.1.2004

Brigandt, I. (2016). Why the difference between explanation and argument matters to science education. Science & Education, 25 (3-4), 251–275. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-016-9826-6

Cáceres, M., Nussbaum, M., & Ortiz, J. (2020). Integrating critical thinking into the classroom: A teacher’s perspective. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 37 , 100674. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2020.100674

Campanario, J. M., Moya, A., & Otero, J. (2001). Invocaciones y usos inadecuados de la ciencia en la publicidad [Invocations and misuses of science in advertising]. Enseñanza de las Ciencias, 19 (1), 45–56. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/ensciencias.4013

Clouse, S. (2017). Scientific thinking is not critical thinking. https://medium.com/extra-extra/scientific-thinking-is-not-critical-thinking-b1ea9ebd8b31

Confederacion de Sociedades Cientificas de Espana [COSCE]. (2011). Informe ENCIENDE: Enseñanza de las ciencias en la didáctica escolar para edades tempranas en España [ENCIENDE report: Science education for early-year in Spain] . COSCE.

Costa, S. L. R., Obara, C. E., & Broietti, F. C. D. (2020). Critical thinking in science education publications: the research contexts. International Journal of Development Research, 10 (8), 39438. https://doi.org/10.37118/ijdr.19437.08.2020

Couso, D., Jiménez-Liso, M.R., Refojo, C. & Sacristán, J.A. (coords.) (2020). Enseñando ciencia con ciencia [Teaching science with science]. FECYT & Fundacion Lilly / Penguin Random House

Davidson, S. G., Jaber, L. Z., & Southerland, S. A. (2020). Emotions in the doing of science: Exploring epistemic affect in elementary teachers' science research experiences. Science Education, 104 (6), 1008–1040. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21596

Dean, D., & Kuhn, D. (2003). Metacognition and critical thinking. ERIC document. Reproduction No. ED477930 . https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED477930.pdf

Díaz, C., & Cabrera, C. (2022). Desinformación científica en España . FECYT/IBERIFIER https://www.fecyt.es/es/publicacion/desinformacion-cientifica-en-espana

Dowd, J. E., Thompson, R. J., Jr., Schiff, L. A., & Reynolds, J. A. (2018). Understanding the complex relationship between critical thinking and science reasoning among undergraduate thesis writers. CBE—Life Sciences . Education, 17 (1), ar4. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.17-03-0052

Dwyer, C. P., Hogan, M. J., & Stewart, I. (2014). An integrated critical thinking framework for the 21st century. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 12 , 43–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2013.12.004

Elliott, K. C., & McKaughan, D. J. (2014). Non-epistemic values and the multiple goals of science. Philosophy of Science, 81 (1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1086/674345

Ennis, R. H. (2018). Critical thinking across the curriculum: A vision. Topoi, 37 (1), 165–184. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-016-9401-4

Erduran, S. (2021). Respect for evidence: Can science education deliver it? Science & Education, 30 (3), 441–444. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-021-00245-8

European Commission. (2015). Science education for responsible citizenship . Publications Office https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/a1d14fa0-8dbe-11e5-b8b7-01aa75ed71a1

European Commission / Eurydice. (2011). Science education in Europe: National policies, practices and research . Publications Office. https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/bae53054-c26c-4c9f-8366-5f95e2187634

European Commission / Eurydice. (2022). Increasing achievement and motivation in mathematics and science learning in schools . Publications Office. https://eurydice.eacea.ec.europa.eu/publications/mathematics-and-science-learning-schools-2022

European Commission/Eurydice. (2006). Science teaching in schools in Europe. Policies and research . Publications Office. https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/1dc3df34-acdf-479e-bbbf-c404fa3bee8b

Fackler, A. (2021). When science denial meets epistemic understanding. Science & Education, 30 (3), 445–461. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-021-00198-y

García-Carmona, A. (2008). Relaciones CTS en la educación científica básica. II. Investigando los problemas del mundo [STS relationships in basic science education II. Researching the world problems]. Enseñanza de las Ciencias, 26 (3), 389–402. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/ensciencias.3750

García-Carmona, A. (2014). Naturaleza de la ciencia en noticias científicas de la prensa: Análisis del contenido y potencialidades didácticas [Nature of science in press articles about science: Content analysis and pedagogical potential]. Enseñanza de las Ciencias, 32 (3), 493–509. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/ensciencias.1307

García-Carmona, A., & Acevedo-Díaz, J. A. (2016). Learning about the nature of science using newspaper articles with scientific content. Science & Education, 25 (5–6), 523–546. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-016-9831-9

García-Carmona, A., & Acevedo-Díaz, J. A. (2016b). Concepciones de estudiantes de profesorado de Educación Primaria sobre la naturaleza de la ciencia: Una evaluación diagnóstica a partir de reflexiones en equipo [Preservice elementary teachers' conceptions of the nature of science: a diagnostic evaluation based on team reflections]. Revista Mexicana de Investigación Educativa, 21 (69), 583–610. https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=14045395010

García-Carmona, A., & Acevedo-Díaz, J. A. (2017). Understanding the nature of science through a critical and reflective analysis of the controversy between Pasteur and Liebig on fermentation. Science & Education, 26 (1–2), 65–91. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-017-9876-4

García-Carmona, A., & Acevedo-Díaz, J. A. (2018). The nature of scientific practice and science education. Science & Education, 27 (5–6), 435–455. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-018-9984-9

García-Carmona, A. (2020). From inquiry-based science education to the approach based on scientific practices. Science & Education, 29 (2), 443–463. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-020-00108-8

García-Carmona, A. (2021a). Prácticas no-epistémicas: ampliando la mirada en el enfoque didáctico basado en prácticas científicas [Non-epistemic practices: extending the view in the didactic approach based on scientific practices]. Revista Eureka sobre Enseñanza y Divulgación de las Ciencias, 18 (1), 1108. https://doi.org/10.25267/Rev_Eureka_ensen_divulg_cienc.2021.v18.i1.1108

García-Carmona, A. (2021b). Learning about the nature of science through the critical and reflective reading of news on the COVID-19 pandemic. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 16 (4), 1015–1028. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-021-10092-2

Guerrero-Márquez, I., & García-Carmona, A. (2020). La energía y su impacto socioambiental en la prensa digital: temáticas y potencialidades didácticas para una educación CTS [Energy and its socio-environmental impact in the digital press: issues and didactic potentialities for STS education]. Revista Eureka sobre Enseñanza y Divulgación de las Ciencias, 17(3), 3301. https://doi.org/10.25267/Rev_Eureka_ensen_divulg_cienc.2020.v17.i3.3301

Gobert, J. D., Moussavi, R., Li, H., Sao Pedro, M., & Dickler, R. (2018). Real-time scaffolding of students’ online data interpretation during inquiry with Inq-ITS using educational data mining. In M. E. Auer, A. K. M. Azad, A. Edwards, & T. de Jong (Eds.), Cyber-physical laboratories in engineering and science education (pp. 191–217). Springer.

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Harlen, W. (2014). Helping children’s development of inquiry skills. Inquiry in Primary Science Education, 1 (1), 5–19. https://ipsejournal.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/3-ipse-volume-1-no-1-wynne-harlen-p-5-19.pdf

Hitchcock, D. (2017). Critical thinking as an educational ideal. In On reasoning and argument (pp. 477–497). Springer.

Hyytinen, H., Toom, A., & Shavelson, R. J. (2019). Enhancing scientific thinking through the development of critical thinking in higher education. In M. Murtonen & K. Balloo (Eds.), Redefining scientific thinking for higher education . Palgrave Macmillan.

Jiménez-Aleixandre, M. P., & Puig, B. (2022). Educating critical citizens to face post-truth: the time is now. In B. Puig & M. P. Jiménez-Aleixandre (Eds.), Critical thinking in biology and environmental education, Contributions from biology education research (pp. 3–19). Springer.

Jirout, J. J. (2020). Supporting early scientific thinking through curiosity. Frontiers in Psychology, 11 , 1717. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01717

Kanari, Z., & Millar, R. (2004). Reasoning from data: How students collect and interpret data in science investigations. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 41 (7), 748–769. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.20020

Klahr, D., Zimmerman, C., & Matlen, B. J. (2019). Improving students’ scientific thinking. In J. Dunlosky & K. A. Rawson (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of cognition and education (pp. 67–99). Cambridge University Press.

Krell, M., Vorholzer, A., & Nehring, A. (2022). Scientific reasoning in science education: from global measures to fine-grained descriptions of students’ competencies. Education Sciences, 12 , 97. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12020097

Kuhn, D. (1993). Science as argument: Implications for teaching and learning scientific thinking. Science education, 77 (3), 319–337. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.3730770306

Kuhn, D. (1999). A developmental model of critical thinking. Educational Researcher, 28 (2), 16–46. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X028002016

Kuhn, D. (2022). Metacognition matters in many ways. Educational Psychologist, 57 (2), 73–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2021.1988603

Kuhn, D., Iordanou, K., Pease, M., & Wirkala, C. (2008). Beyond control of variables: What needs to develop to achieve skilled scientific thinking? Cognitive Development, 23 (4), 435–451. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2008.09.006

Kuhn, D., & Lerman, D. (2021). Yes but: Developing a critical stance toward evidence. International Journal of Science Education, 43 (7), 1036–1053. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2021.1897897

Kuhn, D., & Modrek, A. S. (2022). Choose your evidence: Scientific thinking where it may most count. Science & Education, 31 (1), 21–31. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-021-00209-y

Lederman, J. S., Lederman, N. G., Bartos, S. A., Bartels, S. L., Meyer, A. A., & Schwartz, R. S. (2014). Meaningful assessment of learners' understandings about scientific inquiry—The views about scientific inquiry (VASI) questionnaire. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 51 (1), 65–83. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21125

Lehrer, R., & Schauble, L. (2006). Scientific thinking and science literacy. In K. A. Renninger, I. E. Sigel, W. Damon, & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Child psychology in practice (pp. 153–196). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

López-Fernández, M. D. M., González-García, F., & Franco-Mariscal, A. J. (2022). How can socio-scientific issues help develop critical thinking in chemistry education? A reflection on the problem of plastics. Journal of Chemical Education, 99 (10), 3435–3442. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.2c00223

Magno, C. (2010). The role of metacognitive skills in developing critical thinking. Metacognition and Learning, 5 , 137–156. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-010-9054-4

McBain, B., Yardy, A., Martin, F., Phelan, L., van Altena, I., McKeowen, J., Pembertond, C., Tosec, H., Fratuse, L., & Bowyer, M. (2020). Teaching science students how to think. International Journal of Innovation in Science and Mathematics Education, 28 (2), 28–35. https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/CAL/article/view/14809/13480

McIntyre, L. (2021). Talking to science deniers and sceptics is not hopeless. Nature, 596 (7871), 165–165. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02152-y

Moore, C. (2019). Teaching science thinking. Using scientific reasoning in the classroom . Routledge.

Moreno-Fontiveros, G., Cebrián-Robles, D., Blanco-López, A., & y España-Ramos, E. (2022). Decisiones de estudiantes de 14/15 años en una propuesta didáctica sobre la compra de un coche [Fourteen/fifteen-year-old students’ decisions in a teaching proposal on the buying of a car]. Enseñanza de las Ciencias, 40 (1), 199–219. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/ensciencias.3292

National Research Council [NRC]. (2012). A framework for K-12 science education . National Academies Press.

Network, I.-A. T. E. (2015). Critical thinking toolkit . OAS/ITEN.

Normand, M. P. (2008). Science, skepticism, and applied behavior analysis. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 1 (2), 42–49. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03391727

Norris, S. P., Phillips, L. M., & Korpan, C. A. (2003). University students’ interpretation of media reports of science and its relationship to background knowledge, interest, and reading difficulty. Public Understanding of Science, 12 (2), 123–145. https://doi.org/10.1177/09636625030122001

Oliveras, B., Márquez, C., & Sanmartí, N. (2013). The use of newspaper articles as a tool to develop critical thinking in science classes. International Journal of Science Education, 35 (6), 885–905. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2011.586736

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD]. (2019). PISA 2018. Assessment and Analytical Framework . OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/b25efab8-en

Book   Google Scholar  

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD]. (2020). PISA 2024: Strategic Vision and Direction for Science. https://www.oecd.org/pisa/publications/PISA-2024-Science-Strategic-Vision-Proposal.pdf

Osborne, J., Pimentel, D., Alberts, B., Allchin, D., Barzilai, S., Bergstrom, C., Coffey, J., Donovan, B., Kivinen, K., Kozyreva, A., & Wineburg, S. (2022). Science Education in an Age of Misinformation . Stanford University.

Osborne, J. F., & Patterson, A. (2011). Scientific argument and explanation: A necessary distinction? Science Education, 95 (4), 627–638. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.20438

Pols, C. F. J., Dekkers, P. J. J. M., & De Vries, M. J. (2021). What do they know? Investigating students’ ability to analyse experimental data in secondary physics education. International Journal of Science Education, 43 (2), 274–297. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2020.1865588

Royal Decree 217/2022. (2022). of 29 March, which establishes the organisation and minimum teaching of Compulsory Secondary Education (Vol. 76 , pp. 41571–41789). Spanish Official State Gazette. https://www.boe.es/eli/es/rd/2022/03/29/217

Sagan, C. (1987). The burden of skepticism. Skeptical Inquirer, 12 (1), 38–46. https://skepticalinquirer.org/1987/10/the-burden-of-skepticism/

Santos, L. F. (2017). The role of critical thinking in science education. Journal of Education and Practice, 8 (20), 160–173. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED575667

Schafersman, S. D. (1991). An introduction to critical thinking. https://facultycenter.ischool.syr.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Critical-Thinking.pdf . Accessed 10 May 2023.

Sinatra, G. M., & Hofer, B. K. (2021). How do emotions and attitudes influence science understanding? In Science denial: why it happens and what to do about it (pp. 142–180). Oxford Academic.

Solbes, J., Torres, N., & Traver, M. (2018). Use of socio-scientific issues in order to improve critical thinking competences. Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning & Teaching, 19 (1), 1–22. https://www.eduhk.hk/apfslt/

Spektor-Levy, O., Eylon, B. S., & Scherz, Z. (2009). Teaching scientific communication skills in science studies: Does it make a difference? International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 7 (5), 875–903. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-009-9150-6

Taylor, P., Lee, S. H., & Tal, T. (2006). Toward socio-scientific participation: changing culture in the science classroom and much more: Setting the stage. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 1 (4), 645–656. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-006-9028-7

Tena-Sánchez, J., & León-Medina, F. J. (2022). Y aún más al fondo del “bullshit”: El papel de la falsificación de preferencias en la difusión del oscurantismo en la teoría social y en la sociedad [And even deeper into “bullshit”: The role of preference falsification in the difussion of obscurantism in social theory and in society]. Scio, 22 , 209–233. https://doi.org/10.46583/scio_2022.22.949

Tytler, R., & Peterson, S. (2004). From “try it and see” to strategic exploration: Characterizing young children's scientific reasoning. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 41 (1), 94–118. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.10126

Uskola, A., & Puig, B. (2023). Development of systems and futures thinking skills by primary pre-service teachers for addressing epidemics. Research in Science Education , 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-023-10097-7

Vallverdú, J. (2005). ¿Cómo finalizan las controversias? Un nuevo modelo de análisis: la controvertida historia de la sacarina [How does controversies finish? A new model of analysis: the controversial history of saccharin]. Revista Iberoamericana de Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad, 2 (5), 19–50. http://www.revistacts.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/vol2-nro5-art01.pdf

Vázquez-Alonso, A., & Manassero-Mas, M. A. (2018). Más allá de la comprensión científica: educación científica para desarrollar el pensamiento [Beyond understanding of science: science education for teaching fair thinking]. Revista Electrónica de Enseñanza de las Ciencias, 17 (2), 309–336. http://reec.uvigo.es/volumenes/volumen17/REEC_17_2_02_ex1065.pdf

Willingham, D. T. (2008). Critical thinking: Why is it so hard to teach? Arts Education Policy Review, 109 (4), 21–32. https://doi.org/10.3200/AEPR.109.4.21-32

Yacoubian, H. A. (2020). Teaching nature of science through a critical thinking approach. In W. F. McComas (Ed.), Nature of Science in Science Instruction (pp. 199–212). Springer.

Yacoubian, H. A., & Khishfe, R. (2018). Argumentation, critical thinking, nature of science and socioscientific issues: a dialogue between two researchers. International Journal of Science Education, 40 (7), 796–807. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2018.1449986

Zeidler, D. L., & Nichols, B. H. (2009). Socioscientific issues: Theory and practice. Journal of elementary science education, 21 (2), 49–58. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03173684

Zimmerman, C., & Klahr, D. (2018). Development of scientific thinking. In J. T. Wixted (Ed.), Stevens’ handbook of experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience (Vol. 4 , pp. 1–25). John Wiley & Sons, Inc..

Download references

Conflict of Interest

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Funding for open access publishing: Universidad de Sevilla/CBUA

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Departamento de Didáctica de las Ciencias Experimentales y Sociales, Universidad de Sevilla, Seville, Spain

Antonio García-Carmona

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Antonio García-Carmona .

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

García-Carmona, A. Scientific Thinking and Critical Thinking in Science Education . Sci & Educ (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-023-00460-5

Download citation

Accepted : 30 July 2023

Published : 05 September 2023

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-023-00460-5

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Cognitive skills
• Critical thinking
• Metacognitive skills
• Science education
• Scientific thinking
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Saudi Pharm J
• v.29(11); 2021 Nov

Development and evaluation of clinical reasoning using ‘think aloud’ approach in pharmacy undergraduates – A mixed-methods study

Faisal altalhi.

a College of Pharmacy, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia

Abdulrhman Altalhi

Ziad magliah, zaid abushal, anas althaqafi, azzam falemban, ejaz cheema.

c School of Pharmacy, University of Management and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan

Inderpal Dehele

b School of Pharmacy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom

d School of Life and Medical Sciences, University of Hertfordshire (hosted by Global Academic Foundation), New Administrative Capital, Cairo. Egypt

Introduction

Given the widespread use of clinical reasoning (CR) in the healthcare practice, it is essential to inculcate the CR practice in undergraduate pharmacy education which can not only facilitate their clinical education and clinical rotations but can also help them become better clinical pharmacists. There is very limited CR employed in the pharmacy curriculum and practice in the Middle East countries. This study aimed to develop and evaluate CR practice in pharmacy undergraduates in one college of pharmacy in Saudi Arabia.

We employed a mixed-methods methodology that included two phases. In Phase I, students were introduced to CR practice (‘think aloud’ method) and given geriatric clinical cases which they used in two sessions together with a tutor. This was followed by the writing of SOAP notes using the tutor feedback and completion of a survey that included a self-reflection about their experience of using the CR method. Phase II included face-to-face semi-structured interviews involving selected students that were recruited via convenience sampling to further explore the issues identified in Phase I of the study.

Of the 155 students who completed the survey (response rate 94%), the majority of them agreed that CR using the ‘think aloud’ method was useful in gathering (92%) and interpreting (95%) relevant patient information, identifying medication-related problems (95%), exploring therapeutic options for the problem(s) (93%) and formulating a treatment plan for the patient (90%). Qualitative data analysis of the 12 interviews was consistent with these findings. Furthermore, it provided an insight into the challenges faced by the students in applying this CR method.

Conclusions

Students found the practice of CR using the ‘think aloud’ method helpful in working through given cases and taking clinical decisions. This method can be widely employed in pharmacy education and practice.

1. Introduction

Clinical reasoning has been defined as , ‘the set of reasoning strategies that permit us to combine and synthesize diverse data into one or more diagnostic hypotheses, make the complex trade‐offs between the benefits and risks of tests and treatments, and formulate plans for patient management ( Kassirer and Kopelman 1991 ). It is generally based on the individual’s existing knowledge to construct explanations and reach conclusions ( Cooper and Frain 2017 ). Knowledge of basic and clinical sciences provides the foundation for its core elements which include: clinical skills (including communication skills); use and interpretation of patient data; understanding cognitive biases and human factors; critical thinking (metacognition); patient-centered evidence-based medicine and shared decision making ( Cooper and Frain 2017 ). Clinical reasoning can also be defined as ‘the cognitive process involved in arriving at a diagnosis or treatment plan’ ( Durning et al., 2013 , Pinnock et al., 2015 ) . It is a higher-order thinking in which the healthcare provider, guided by the best evidence or theory, observes and relates concepts and phenomena to develop an understanding of their significance. It is now increasingly becoming a core skill in nursing and medical practice, yet remains a challenging concept to grasp for learners ( Hughes 2008 ).

The term clinical reasoning has been associated with critical thinking and clinical judgment in the literature. Victor-Chmil has outlined the association between these two in the context of nursing practice as (a) analyze collected data (critical thinking), (b) apply reasoning to the data obtained (clinical reasoning), and (c) appropriately act based on the specific situation (clinical judgment) ( Victor-Chmil 2013 ), which can be translated to the competencies required by other healthcare professionals including pharmacy. More precisely, critical thinking is defined as thought with the purpose of interpreting, analyzing, explaining, and evaluating a given idea or situation ( Facione 2006 ). Knowledge, skills, and behaviors that are produced through critical thinking then constitute the concepts of clinical judgment ( Barnes 2019 ). Clinical judgment is the process used by the healthcare professionals to obtain and interpret data about a patient and use this data to determine appropriate actions and interventions to implement ( Lasater 2007 ). Clinical reasoning encompasses both these elements and is the process of applying knowledge to the clinical settings that guides responses and the development of a solution ( Banning 2008 ).

‘Think aloud’ is one method that facilitates clinical reasoning. It is the approach in which the individuals verbalize their thoughts out loud to ease their cognitive process. It may start with random reasoning but helps in organizing the thinking by generating the links between existing knowledge and available data, and can even identify the gaps in knowledge and available data. It is particularly helpful when clinical reasoning is performed by a team of students or by learners together with the teachers or expert clinicians who can identify whether the individual is thinking in the right direction. 3 It can not only serve as a method to learn clinical reasoning but also used as a means to assess individuals’ clinical reasoning by teachers or expert clinicians ( Pinnock et al. 2016 ).

The pharmacy profession has evolved significantly worldwide over the last two decades with pharmacists moving from the traditional role of dispensing towards a more patient-oriented role ( Ali et al. 2012 ). The pharmacists are now expected to collaborate with the medical staff regarding medication-related problems as well as developing effective treatment plans. With the changing roles of pharmacists, the need to introduce and practice clinical reasoning in the pharmacy profession is becoming more obvious. Moreover, the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) requires this skill to be applied across the pharmacy curriculum ( ACPE, 2015 ). The cognitive ability of pharmacists to recall and synthesize information is a critical aspect of safe and optimal medication use. Given the widespread use of clinical reasoning in the healthcare practice, it is essential to inculcate the clinical reasoning practice in undergraduate pharmacy education which can not only facilitate their clinical education and clinical rotations but can also help them become better clinical pharmacists.

The influence of culture on individuals’ learning cannot be denied as it also affects their critical thinking, clinical reasoning, and/or clinical judgment ( Sommers 2018 ). It is, therefore, imperative to explore clinical reasoning in the cultural context appropriately ( Hwang et al., 2010 , Shin et al., 2014 , Shin et al., 2015 , Yu et al., 2013 ). However, there is very limited conscious clinical reasoning employed in the pharmacy curriculum and practice in the Middle East countries. Likewise, there is limited research regarding the practice and effectiveness of clinical reasoning in the field of pharmacy education and practice in this region. This study aims to develop and evaluate clinical reasoning practice in pharmacy undergraduate students in Saudi Arabia.

2.1. Study design

We employed a mixed-methods methodology for this study that comprised of two phases: Phase I used a quantitative survey approach, while, Phase II involved qualitative semi-structured interviews. The quantitative data was analyzed and used to help guide the semi-structured interviews with selected students for triangulation and further exploration of the issues related to the development of clinical reasoning in undergraduate students. Fig. 1 illustrates the study plan and the link between the two phases of the study.

The study was conducted in the semester I of the academic year of 2019–2020 (September 2019 through February 2020). This study was reviewed and approved by the Intuitional Review Board (IRB) of Umm Al-Qura University (KSA) (Approval number: HAPO-02-K-012–2020-06–406).

2.2. Sample and setting

The study involved Fifth-year Pharm D students enrolled in the College of Pharmacy, Umm Al-Qura University, Saudi Arabia

2.3. Phase I – Quantitative

2.3.1. introduction to clinical topics and clinical reasoning.

In a Therapeutics course (which encompassed geriatric pharmacotherapy), students of 5th-year PharmD, which is a didactic year before the experiential year in the six-year PharmD program, students were given a 2-hour lecture on two geriatric disease areas (urinary incontinence and erectile dysfunction). Following this, the students were introduced to the concept of clinical reasoning, underpinning theory, and method of clinical reasoning using the ‘think aloud’ approach. A tutor then performed the clinical reasoning using the ‘think aloud’ approach as a practice with the students using two clinical cases related to these disease areas. The students were then given an additional geriatric clinical case for self-directed learning in order to practice clinical reasoning using the ‘think aloud’ method on their own. Furthermore, the students were provided with a written model SOAP (Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan) notes related to this additional clinical case to help guide their thought process.

2.3.2. First clinical reasoning session

A week later, in the Therapeutics session, students were given new unseen geriatric cases. They practiced clinical reasoning in small groups on these cases with the tutor. The aim of this session was to identify any clinical issues, and not necessarily answer them. This was due to the limited clinical knowledge and experience of the students at this stage. Students explored the clinical issues in this session with the tutor and made note of all the unanswered questions for further self-directed learning.

2.3.3. Self-study

After the first clinical reasoning session, the students were asked to complete and submit a survey form (Form A) about their experience of using the ‘think aloud’ method for clinical reasoning and feedback on the support provided thus far. The students then had one week to find out the answers to all the unanswered questions on their own and address the clinical issues which were raised in the first session. During this period, drop-in sessions were arranged by the tutor to help students who needed further support.

2.3.4. Second clinical reasoning session

In the second session, the students (in the same groups) were expected to come prepared with answers and resolve any clinical issues which were raised in the first clinical reasoning session. During this session, the students performed the clinical reasoning using the ‘think aloud’ method on the same clinical cases with the tutor. The students were also encouraged to take the lead while performing clinical reasoning while the tutor only facilitated the session. At the end of the session, the students received immediate feedback from the tutor on their performance.

2.3.5. Post-second clinical reasoning session

The students completed SOAP notes on their clinical cases, based on their performance and the tutor feedback from the second session. The students had prior experience of writing SOAP notes in the 4th-year. These SOAP notes were then submitted to the tutor as part of a summative assignment that was graded as per the assessment rubric provided to the students. Besides, the students were also asked to complete another survey form (Form B) with self-reflection about their experience of applying clinical reasoning and the whole process. General feedback on students’ performance during the second session and their SOAP notes was provided by the tutor a week later.

2.3.6. Description of the survey forms

Form A: Students were asked to complete this form after the first clinical reasoning session. This form was comprised of the following sections with most of the questions having a 5-point Likert scale:

• - Pre-assignment task: Student knowledge about clinical reasoning using the ‘think aloud’ approach after the introductory lecture on clinical reasoning.
• - Knowledge gap: Students were asked whether the clinical reasoning approach helped identify clinical issues during the first session for further exploration.
• - General feedback: Students were asked whether the first session was helpful in the application of the concept and the development of their clinical reasoning skills for taking better clinical decisions.
• - Self-reflection: Students’ opinions about what they liked or disliked, what they found easy or difficult, and what they learned thus far. Students also commented on how they would approach differently if they had to do this session again and what next steps they would take after this session.

Form B : Students were asked to complete this form after the second clinical reasoning session. This form was comprised of the following sections with most of the questions having a 5-point Likert scale:

• - Knowledge gap: Students were asked how they addressed the clinical issues which were raised in the first session, which resources they used, and which issues were still left unanswered.
• - Clinical reasoning process: Students were asked whether clinical reasoning is a useful method of gathering and processing patient information, identifying medication-related problems, exploring therapeutic options, and formulating a treatment plan for the patient in a given case; and whether the whole process helped develop their clinical reasoning skills.
• - Value of clinical reasoning method: Students were asked how helpful clinical reasoning was in writing a SOAP notes, whether any other method could be better in reaching clinical decisions and whether clinical reasoning skills can make them better pharmacists in the future.
• - Self-reflection: Students’ opinions about what they liked or disliked, what they found easy or difficult, and what they learned in the whole process. Students also commented on how they would approach differently if they had to do this again and how they would use clinical reasoning skills in the future.

2.3.7. Data analysis

Descriptive results from Form A and Form B were presented as frequencies and percentages.

2.4. Phase II – Qualitative

2.4.1. sampling.

This phase involved face-to-face semi-structured interviews with the students from the same cohort, recruited on a convenience sampling basis. It was planned to recruit the students and conduct the interviews with subsequent qualitative data analysis until the data saturation was achieved.

2.4.2. Development of interview guide

An interview guide was developed to help the authors to explore students’ views and experiences about the clinical reasoning approach. The interview guide was aimed to explore the challenges that students faced in the whole process, their development of clinical decision-making ability, comparison of clinical reasoning with other methods of learning, future use of clinical reasoning, and suggestions to improve learning about clinical reasoning. The interview guide was developed in the English language and validated by two academics with experience in qualitative research from different universities. This was followed by a forward and backward translation of the interview guide to the Arabic language by two bilingual staff members. The interview guide was then piloted with a small number of students (n = 2). No changes in the interview guide were required after piloting.

2.4.3. Interviews

Two authors (research students) (FA and ZM) had a briefing session with the research supervisor (MA) regarding how to conduct face-to-face semi-structured interviews followed by a practice interview with the research supervisor by them separately. Both interviewers were provided with appropriate feedback by the research supervisor followed by discussion/reflection until the research supervisor was satisfied with their interviewing skills. The interviewers then conducted the interviews with the recruited students in the Arabic language since it is the first language of our students and we expected that they can more conveniently express themselves in the Arabic language. Students who agreed to be interviewed were also asked to sign a consent form before being interviewed. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim later. The accuracy of the transcriptions was checked alternatively by the authors.

2.4.4. Data analysis

We employed an inductive approach of thematic analysis to analyze the qualitative data from the interviews. The analysis started with familiarizing the data through reading the transcripts, followed by the generation of initial codes from the data independently by two teams of researchers. The codes generated by the two teams were further verified by the research supervisor. Any discrepancies in the coding process were resolved through discussion. These codes were then categorized into broad themes independently by the same two teams of researchers and then verified again by the research supervisor. A few themes were excluded due to the limited codes related to them. Any further discrepancies, at this stage, were again resolved through discussion. The final themes were then defined and renamed by the authors.

3.1. Phase I – Quantitative results from Form a and Form B

For the convenience of data interpretation and presentation, we condensed the responses of a 5-point Likert scale by combining the response numbers of ‘Strongly agree’ and ‘Agree’ into one category, ‘Agree’. Similarly, we combined the response numbers of ‘Strongly disagree’ and ‘Disagree’ into one category, ‘Disagree’. Out of 165 students in the cohort, 157 students (response rate 95%) completed Form A. Responses are presented in Table 1 . Overall, the majority of the students agreed that the support provided for elaborating the concept of clinical reasoning with the example cases was useful and helped in writing SOAP notes. Notably, at this stage of the process, 86% of the respondents agreed that the ‘think aloud’ method of clinical reasoning helped identify the issues they needed to explore or find out the answers for after the first clinical reasoning session and 90% believed that this method of clinical reasoning can help them take better clinical decisions as pharmacists in the future.

Number (Percentage) of Responses for Each Item in Form A (n = 157).

Of the 165 students in the class, 155 students (response rate 94%) completed Form B. Responses are presented in Table 2 . The majority of the respondents agreed that this method of clinical reasoning was useful in gathering relevant patient information, processing/interpreting the patient information, identifying the medication-related problem(s), exploring therapeutic options for the identified problem(s), and formulating a treatment plan for the patient. A list of the resources used by the respondents for exploring the issues and finding out the answers for unanswered questions was developed (not presented in this manuscript). The majority of the respondents mentioned that no issues were left unaddressed or unanswered after the second session. At this stage of the process, 94% of the respondents agreed that the whole process was helpful in developing their clinical reasoning skills and 65% agreed that they learned more from this method, in comparison with other learning and assessment methods (such as presentations). Similar to the results of Form A, 90% believed that this method of clinical reasoning can help them take better clinical decisions as a pharmacist in the future.

Number (Percentage) of Responses for Each Item in Form B (n = 155).

As for the self-refection by the respondents in Form A and Form B, we attempted to categorize them into positive, suggestions, and negative. Their numbers are presented in Table 3 whereas the detailed reflections are not presented in this manuscript. However, based on these reflections, recommendations have been developed for the curriculum committee and academic staff in our college to restructure the learning and assessment methods and roll this approach out to other years of study.

Number of Categories of Self-reflections by the Respondents.

3.2. Phase II – Thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews

Twelve interviews were conducted with the students recruited on a convenience sampling basis, with the aim of conducting more interviews should the data saturation was not achieved. However, following the thematic analysis of the 12 interviews (six male and six female students), the authors believed that the data saturation was achieved, and no further interviews were required. The average duration of the interviews was 15 min (range: 10–23 min). The thematic analysis generated 210 codes which were categorized into seven overarching themes as shown in Table 4 with specific student comments supporting each of the themes.

Themes with Number of Associated Codes and Student Quotes Supporting the Themes.

CR: Clinical reasoning

3.2.1. Theme 1 – Participants’ background knowledge about clinical reasoning

This theme is related to the basic information regarding clinical reasoning which the participants had before the first session. The participants mentioned clinical reasoning definitions, their perceptions, or previous clinical reasoning experiences. The majority of the participants did not know what the clinical reasoning was before the first session or even before the course. Others, though failed to provide the correct definition of clinical reasoning, had heard about clinical reasoning before and were able to provide some information about the clinical reasoning process.

3.2.2. Theme 2 – Use of 'think aloud' method for clinical reasoning

A wide range of opinions was obtained from the participants regarding the use of the ‘think aloud’ method in the process of clinical reasoning. The majority of the participants found this method useful to “connect the thoughts together”, “organize the priorities”, and “make yourself think more”. Some participants also commented on performing clinical reasoning in a group as compared to performing it alone and found the former a helpful means of knowledge sharing. One participant envisaged the method with a broader perspective of personal development.

3.2.3. Theme 3 – Application of clinical reasoning

The participants identified how to maximize the use and benefit of clinical reasoning by applying it to different fields of healthcare. They also mentioned that the clinical reasoning process will benefit them even more in their internship year (APPE) and on the job as a pharmacist when they would have the opportunity of discussing real-life cases. Some participants recognized that clinical reasoning makes the writing of SOAP notes much easier. However, the majority of the participants were of the opinion that clinical reasoning is a skill that can be developed and further improved by practice.

3.2.4. Theme 4 – Challenges of applying clinical reasoning

The participants highlighted several difficulties and the challenges that they faced while performing clinical reasoning. Some participants did not face any difficulties while performing clinical reasoning except that they found it time-consuming. One participant commented on the challenge of performing clinical reasoning in a group based on his/her experience of working in a “non-cooperative” team. The majority of the participants recognized that “the struggle is in the beginning” when they “do not know what to do”. Some participants recognized that one of the main challenges is not having sufficient clinical information.

3.2.5. Theme 5 – Advantages of clinical reasoning

All the participants acknowledged that clinical reasoning helps in working through the given clinical cases. The participants highlighted several advantages of clinical reasoning. One participant recognized the holistic approach that clinical reasoning offers in viewing the case, “the most beneficial thing in CR is taking different opinions from different sides” and “CR helps to see the bigger picture”. Some participants mentioned that the main advantage of clinical reasoning is that it helps in “gathering relevant information” which then leads to the identification of the alternative approaches to the clinical problem and exclude “irrelevant options”. Several participants found it extremely helpful in “deprescribing harmful” or “deprescribing unnecessary drugs” and reach “appropriate therapeutic plan” for the patient. Some participants viewed the benefits of clinical reasoning in writing SOAP notes. A few participants envisaged the long-term benefits of clinical reasoning, “clinical reasoning improves the self-confidence” and “increases communication skills”.

3.2.6. Theme 6 – Clinical reasoning versus other learning and assessment methods

The participants described clinical reasoning in comparison with other methods of learning and assessment. All the participants were of the view that clinical reasoning is “better than the other learning and assessment methods”. Some of them compared it with oral presentations, “even presentation come after it” and “more important than presentations”. The participants also described the clinical reasoning as an important element in the curriculum to support their educational journey. Some participants found “clinical reasoning more organized and engaging when compared to other methods of assessment”. One participant reflected on how clinical reasoning is different from other methods of learning and assessment, “the presentations only provide ideas from you, but with clinical reasoning … it creates a discussion that produces other perspectives”. One participant, however, commented that “CR cannot be compared with other assessments as it is different”.

3.2.7. Theme 7 – Suggestions for future use of clinical reasoning

We received several suggestions and views from the participants regarding how the benefits of the clinical reasoning process can be leveraged as well as improving the process for the future use. The majority of the participants opinionated that clinical reasoning must be used in the earlier years of the pharmacy degree program. One participant suggested to include clinical reasoning in OSCE stations. The majority of the participants would also like to “practice CR more frequently”.

4. Discussion

Widespread successful application of clinical reasoning in healthcare education programs such as medicine and nursing spurred us on to exploring its application in pharmacy education as the reasoning process differs among various healthcare professions ( Banning, 2008 , Page et al., 2016 ). The students who are exposed to this method of approach towards the clinical problems during their education and should they find it helpful are inclined to continue clinical reasoning in their professional practice. Furthermore, we know that applying clinical reasoning by practicing pharmacists leads to correct and appropriate clinical decisions ( Croft et al. 2017 ). Although the ACPE standards recognize the importance of the development of clinical reasoning in pharmacy students ( ACPE, 2015 ), the pharmacy curriculum, especially in the Middle East countries does not include the development and evaluation of this skill. This may be attributed to the fact that it is currently not the requirement for colleges of pharmacy in this region to be accredited by ACPE or any other local accreditation body. In this study, we attempted to introduce clinical reasoning and its application in approaching clinical problems using the ‘think aloud’ method as this is one of the most convenient models to apply clinical reasoning to novice learners developing this skill ( Weitzel et al. 2012 ). We evaluated its value through the student feedback survey and then conducted face-to-face semi-structured interviews for triangulation and in-depth exploration of some of the issues raised in the feedback survey ( Graham 2005 ; Turner et al., 2017 ).

Abuzour and colleagues conducted a qualitative study to explore the process and influences of clinical reasoning using the ‘think aloud’ method in secondary care pharmacists and nurses in the UK. They concluded that clinical reasoning is a very complex and dynamic process and suggested that healthcare professionals develop these skills to provide better patient care ( Abuzour et al., 2018 ). Our students opinionated that developing this skill will help them make better clinical decisions in the future. Atayee and colleagues evaluated clinical reasoning in palliative care among pharmacy students and concluded that it increased the students’ confidence in palliative care competencies. This can be extrapolated to the application of clinical reasoning in the development of other competencies in pharmacy students ( Atayee et al. 2018 ).

The role of the tutor or preceptor in developing or guiding clinical reasoning in the students is crucial ( Sylvia, 2019 , Weitzel et al., 2012 ). We ensured that the two tutors involved in clinical reasoning sessions with the students had an adequate clinical experience and held several meetings at the start of the semester to ensure consistent execution of these sessions. This contributed to the encouraging feedback received from the students regarding the overall process.

Tietze has described the development and implementation of a structured clinical reasoning course for pharmacy students to guide pharmacy students through the clinical reasoning processes for making patient-specific therapeutic recommendations and integrating standard SOAP writing ( Tietze 2018 ). Our study reiterates this facilitation of SOAP writing using the clinical reasoning process as students recognized that clinical reasoning makes the writing of SOAP notes much easier. Similarly, Nolt and colleagues also described the design and delivery of a similar course and concluded that clinical reasoning can help students evolve their learning strategies and better engage them in the learning process ( Nolt et al. 2018 ). Our students iterated this notion by reflecting that clinical reasoning is more organized and engaging when compared to other learning and assessment methods.

A multifaceted approach is required to teach and assess clinical reasoning ( Daniel et al., 2019 , Gonzalez, 2018 ). Since there is limited evidence that short courses alone improve clinical reasoning Daniel et al. 2019 , we recommend that clinical reasoning should be integrated within the entire curriculum with a variety of other active learning activities such as problem-based learning. Linn and colleagues suggested that clinical reasoning is best taught as a skill and should be included in the skill-teaching framework ( Linn et al. 2012 ). Moreover, our students also reflected in their responses that their limited knowledge and experience was one of the hindrances in executing clinical reasoning effectively. To address this issue, Linn and colleagues suggested that the novice learners such as students should approach clinical problems using clinical reasoning in a more structured way ( Croskerry, 2009 , Harasym et al., 2008 , Yazdani et al., 2017 ). This also necessitates the change in the way clinical reasoning is developed in the students. A comprehensive model proposed by Curter and colleagues that encompasses knowledge development, data gathering, data processing and metacognition, can be adopted ( Cutrer et al., 2013 ). We also recommend that clinical reasoning should be introduced to the students in the early years of their pharmacy education as it is a gradual developmental process over time. This was mentioned by the majority of our students and had also been recommended by Furze and colleagues who explored students’ clinical reasoning development in physical education therapy ( Furze et al. 2015 ).

The approach to clinical reasoning is influenced by culture ( Lee et al. 2021 ). The above discussion of our findings provides an insight into the clinical reasoning practice by Saudi students and their perceptions regarding it. Unlike the Western students ( Findyartini et al. 2016 ), our students were found to be tutor-dependent rather than independent thinkers. Our observations regarding employing clinical reasoning with these students revealed that they approach the case scenarios with the aim of checking the accuracies in medicines management based on the medicines information resources only. The students were prompted to think critically that every patient is different and therefore, medicines managenment is required to be optimized according to the patient in the given clinical scenario with reasoning. Moreover, the students' approach to developing pharmaceutical care plans was not holistic and the students had to be prompted by the tutors to think beyond the medicines management while developing pharmaceutical care plans.

Reflection through a debriefing with the tutor or preceptor after a clinical reasoning session has proved to be very useful which allows the students to identify their strengths and areas for improvement as well the gaps in their knowledge ( Vyas et al. 2011 ). One of the limitations of our study is that we could not have a debriefing session after the clinical reasoning sessions due to time constraints with the tutors. However, our students were allowed to provide structured reflection through FORM A and FORM B which we included in the analysis. Moreover, this was a single-institute study conducted with one cohort and, therefore, this may compromise the generalizability of the findings.

5. Conclusion

Students found the practice of clinical reasoning using the ‘think aloud’ method very helpful in working through given cases and taking clinical decisions. The majority of them mentioned that they learned more from it than any other teaching and assessment method and suggested that this should be employed from the early years in the pharmacy curriculum. This method can be feasibly and widely employed in pharmacy education and practice. Further studies should explore how the students propagate the clinical reasoning developed during their pharmacy education program to their professional practice.

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not for-profit sectors.

Authors’ contributions

MA conceived and designed the study. All authors (except EC and ID) were involved in data collection, analysis, and interpretation. EC and ID supervised the project. All authors contributed to the drafting and critical review of the manuscript and have approved the final draft of the manuscript.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the students who participated in this research project.

Peer review under responsibility of King Saud University.

• Abuzour A.S., Lewis P.J., Tully M.P. A qualitative study exploring how pharmacist and nurse independent prescribers make clinical decisions. J Adv Nurs. 2018; 74 (1):65–74. doi: 10.1111/jan.13375. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE). 2015. Accreditation Standards and Key Elements for the Professional Program in Pharmacy Leading to the Doctor of Pharmacy Degree (Standards 2016). Acpe-accredit.org. [accessed 9 March 2021]. https://www.acpe-accredit.org/pdf/Standards2016FINAL.pdf .
• Ali, M., Schifano, F., Robinson, P., et al. Impact of community pharmacy diabetes monitoring and education programme on diabetes management: a randomized controlled study. Diabet Med. 29:e326-e333. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-5491.2012.03725.x. [ PubMed ]
• Atayee, R., Lockman, K., Brock, C., et al. 2018. Multicentered study evaluating pharmacy students’ perception of palliative care and clinical reasoning using script concordance testing. Am J Hosp Palliat Med. 35:1394-1401. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049909118772845. [ PubMed ]
• Barnes, R. 2019. Toward enhancement of clinical judgment and critical thinking: simulation in the classroom. PhD dissertation (Indiana State University). [accessd 15 August 2020]. https://search.proquest.com/openview/7a4d04405751b2ec761c3c90d984e716/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=51922&diss=y .
• Banning, M. 2008. The think aloud approach as an educational tool to develop and assess clinical reasoning in undergraduate students. Nurse Educ Today. 28:8-14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2007.02.001. [ PubMed ]
• Cooper N., Frain J. Wiley Blackwell; West Sussex, UK: 2017. ABC of Clinical Reasoning. [ Google Scholar ]
• Croft H., Gilligan C., Rasiah R., Levett-Jones T., Schneider J. Thinking in pharmacy practice: a study of community pharmacists’ clinical reasoning in medication supply using the think-aloud method. Pharmacy. 2017; 6 :1–14. doi: 10.3390/pharmacy6010001. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Croskerry P. A universal model of diagnostic reasoning. Acad Med. 2009; 84 (8):1022–1028. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0b013e3181ace703. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cutrer W.B., Sullivan W.M., Fleming A.E. Educational strategies for improving clinical reasoning. Curr Probl Pediatr Adolesc Health Care. 2013; 43 (9):248–257. doi: 10.1016/j.cppeds.2013.07.005. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Daniel M., Rencic J., Durning S.J., Holmboe E., Santen S.A., Lang V., Ratcliffe T., Gordon D., Heist B., Lubarsky S., Estrada C.A., Ballard T., Artino A.R., Sergio Da Silva A., Cleary T., Stojan J., Gruppen L.D. Clinical reasoning assessment methods. Acad Med. 2019; 94 (6):902–912. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000002618. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Durning S.J., Artino A.R., Schuwirth L., van der Vleuten C. Clarifying assumptions to enhance our understanding and assessment of clinical reasoning. Acad Med. 2013; 88 (4):442–448. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0b013e3182851b5b. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Facione, P. 2006. Critical Thinking: what it is and why it counts. Insight assessment. [accessd 2 August 2020]. http://faculty.uml.edu/robert_gamache/85.503/Facione2006CriticalThinking.pdf .
• Findyartini A., Hawthorne L., McColl G., Chiavaroli N. How clinical reasoning is taught and learned: Cultural perspectives from the University of Melbourne and Universitas Indonesia. BMC Med Educ. 2016; 16 :185. doi: 10.1186/s12909-016-0709-y. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Furze J., Black L., Hoffman J., Barr J.B., Cochran T.M., Jensen G.M. Exploration of students’ clinical reasoning development in professional physical therapy education. J Phys Ther Educ. 2015; 29 (3):22–33. doi: 10.1097/00001416-201529030-00005. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gonzalez L. Teaching clinical reasoning piece by piece: a clinical reasoning concept-based learning method. J Nurs Educ. 2018; 57 (12):727–735. doi: 10.3928/01484834-20181119-05. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Graham R.W. Illustrating triangulation in mixed-methods nursing research. Nurse Res. 2005; 12 (4):7–18. doi: 10.7748/nr2005.04.12.4.7.c5955. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Harasym P.H., Tsai T.-C., Hemmati P. Current trends in developing medical students' critical thinking abilities. Kaohsiung J Med Sci. 2008; 24 (7):341–355. doi: 10.1016/S1607-551X(08)70131-1. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hughes R. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; Rockville, MD: 2008. Patient Safety And Quality. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hwang S., Yen M., Lee B., Huang M., Tseng H. A critical thinking disposition scale for nurses: short form. J Clin Nurs. 2010; 19 :3171–3176. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2702.2010.03343.x. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kassirer J., Kopelman R. 1st ed. Williams & Wilkins; Baltimore, MD: 1991. Learning Clinical Reasoning. [ Google Scholar ]
• Lasater K. Clinical judgment development: using simulation to create an assessment rubric. J Nurs Educ. 2007; 46 :496–503. doi: 10.3928/01484834-20071101-04. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lee, C.Y., Jenq, C.C., Chandratilake, M., et al. 2021. A scoping review of clinical reasoning research with Asian healthcare professionals. Adv in Health Sci Educ. [Published online]. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-021-10060-z. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ]
• Linn, A., Khaw, C., Kildea, H., Tonkin, A. 2012. Clinical reasoning: A guide to improving teaching and practice. Aust Fam Physician. 41:18-20. [ PubMed ]
• Nolt V., Cain J., Wermeling D. Design and delivery of a new clinical reasoning course. Curr Pharm Teach Learn. 2018; 10 (8):1113–1123. doi: 10.1016/j.cptl.2018.05.012. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Page, G., Matthan, J., Silva, A., McLaughlin, D. 2016. Mapping the delivery of ‘Clinical Reasoning’ in UK undergraduate medical curricula. Unpublished. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.19976.93444.
• Pinnock R., Fisher T.-L., Astley J. Think aloud to learn and assess clinical reasoning. Med Educ. 2016; 50 (5):585–586. doi: 10.1111/medu.2016.50.issue-510.1111/medu.13006. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pinnock R., Young L., Spence F., Henning M., Hazell W. Can think aloud be used to teach and assess clinical reasoning in graduate medical education? J Grad Med Educ. 2015; 7 :334–337. doi: 10.4300/jgme-d-14-00601.1. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shin H., Gi Park C., Shim K. The korean version of the lasater clinical judgment rubric: a validation study. Nurse Educ Today. 2015; 35 (1):68–72. doi: 10.1016/j.nedt.2014.06.009. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shin H., Shim K., Lee Y., Quinn L. Validation of a new assessment tool for a pediatric nursing simulation module. J Nurs Educ. 2014; 53 (11):623–629. doi: 10.3928/01484834-20141023-04. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sommers C. Measurement of critical thinking, clinical reasoning, and clinical judgment in culturally diverse nursing students – A literature review. Nurse Educ Pract. 2018; 30 :91–100. doi: 10.1016/j.nepr.2018.04.002. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sylvia L. A lesson in clinical reasoning for the pharmacy preceptor. Am J Health Syst Pharm. 2019; 76 :944–951. doi: 10.1093/ajhp/zxz083. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Tietze K.J. Clinical reasoning model for pharmacy students. Clin Teach. 2018; 16 (3):253–257. doi: 10.1111/tct.2019.16.issue-310.1111/tct.12944. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Turner S.F., Cardinal L.B., Burton R.M. Research design for mixed methods. Organ Res Methods. 2017; 20 (2):243–267. doi: 10.1177/1094428115610808. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Victor-Chmil J. Critical thinking versus clinical reasoning versus clinical judgment. Nurse Educ. 2013; 38 :34–36. doi: 10.1097/nne.0b013e318276dfbe. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Vyas D., Ottis E.J., Caligiuri F.J. Teaching clinical reasoning and problem-solving skills using human patient simulation. Am J Pharm Educ. 2011; 75 (9):189. doi: 10.5688/ajpe759189. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Weitzel K., Walters E., Taylor J. Teaching clinical problem solving: A preceptor’s guide. Am J Health Syst Pharm. 2012; 69 :1588–1599. doi: 10.2146/ajhp110521. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Yazdani S., Hoseinzadeh M., Hosseini F. Models of clinical reasoning with a focus on general practice: a critical review. J Adv Med Educ Prof. 2017; 5 :177–184. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Yu D., Zhang Y., Xu Y., Wu J., Wang C. Improvement in critical thinking dispositions of undergraduate nursing students through problem-based learning: a crossover-experimental study. J Nurs Educ. 2013; 52 :574–581. doi: 10.3928/01484834-20130. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

Everything You Need to Know About Emotional Reasoning

Helen Lee Bouygues

Emotions can be one of the most serious barriers to critical thinking. When people are engaged in emotional reasoning, they often fall for weak logic, engage in ad hominem attacks, or plainly ignore evidence contrary to their point of view.

Lately, there’s been ample evidence of this kind of emotional reasoning online, including people at the top of their professions in politics, business, and elsewhere. Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe recently retweeted a manufactured “news” story about Trump and Haiti. Or take Elon Musk. His Twitter gaffes include one tweet that cost him and his company $40 million.

Emotions can heighten our ability to reason well, if we channel them in the right ways. Indeed, what’s often called “emotional intelligence” is a crucial and necessary component of critical thinking.

But let’s be honest. We’re all guilty. Blame work, blame life, but it’s easy to be too emotionally clouded. And just about everyone has suffered from overly emotional reasoning at some point. Ask anyone who jumps from one lane to the next during a traffic jam. They don’t get to their location any faster — they’re just trying to manage their frustration by switching lanes. 

But it’s perhaps less obvious that emotions can also heighten our ability to reason well, if we channel them in the right ways. Indeed, what’s often called “ emotional intelligence ” is a crucial and necessary component of critical thinking.

In this column, I’ll discuss the dangers of emotional reasoning and the cognitive benefits that well-managed emotions can provide. The bottom line is that better thinking requires managing emotions and learning to channel them in productive ways. 

How Emotions Can Elevate Thinking

Everyone has emotions. They are central to nearly every aspect of our lives. Indeed, emotions often make life worth living, from feelings of love and affection to the bliss of happiness to the excitement of playing a game. 

Yet people tend to think that emotion is a problem for clear thinking. They believe that the best thinking is done bloodlessly, without emotion and from a purely rational point of view. But the truth is more complicated. Emotions can cloud our judgment, but they are also absolutely essential to good thinking. 

Take snap judgments, for instance. As a long body of research has shown, experts often rely on intuitive hunches. Those hunches can be highly effective, allowing the experts to quickly reason through problems. As Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow , argues, most of the time intuition works pretty well.

Good critical thinking requires not just abilities — for example, in analyzing arguments or researching information — but also the right motivation. The anger people feel at an injustice, for example, can spark a critical investigation and help them put together a compelling argument to help remedy the situation.

What’s more, emotions are a central part of many social structures. They give us our moral compass and help society function. As the economist Robert Frank showed in his influential 1988 book, Passions Within Reason , behaving in a purely rational way has clear limits. 

For example, it may be “more rational” to cheat in a card game to maximize gain, but the emotion of guilt prevents most of us from doing so. As Frank argues, the guilt that stops us from cheating actually creates a sense of commitment that makes us more trustworthy to others. This trust can ultimately lead to benefits greater than those gained by cheating.

Finally, emotion provides motivation. Good critical thinking requires not just abilities —  in analyzing arguments or researching information — but also the right motivation. The anger people feel at an injustice, for example, can spark a critical investigation and help them put together a compelling argument to help remedy the situation. 

In short, we shouldn’t always avoid emotional reactions. Rather, people should be encouraged to manage their emotions and channel them in productive ways. 

How Emotions Can Hinder Thinking

Despite the power of emotions, they can be a flawed guide when it comes to interpreting our environment, making judgments, and sorting out truth from falsehood. 

Part of the reason is that our emotional system evolved to prepare us for things like running away from saber-tooth tigers. Thankfully, today, most of us no longer have to worry about fleeing wild animals. 

For evolutionary purposes, however, our bodies still engage in  certain fight-or-flight emotional responses. People experience these reactions even when they aren’t necessarily helpful — in the office, for example, or talking politics with friends and family.

Clickbait works because it plays on our emotions. Our attention naturally goes to content that exercises our feelings rather than our rational faculties.

Children are particularly liable to engage in emotional reasoning . This is a normal part of their development. Toddlers, as we all know, throw frequent tantrums, often about insignificant things, like where everyone is sitting at the dinner table. 

But even as adults, emotions get in the way of clear thinking. Like everyone, I experience the urge to click on superficial headlines like “ You won’t believe why police arrested this 102-year-old woman .” 

Why does this happen? Why do I want to read more? Well, clickbait works because it plays on our emotions . Our attention is naturally drawn to content that exercises our feelings rather than our rational faculties. 

This goes back to the idea that our emotional reactions are often the product of evolutionary adaptations that helped our earliest ancestors survive. For early ancestors, being drawn to something loud and flashy or just curious could be the difference between life and death. For us today, these loud, flashy things are often a waste of time. 

How Can We Overcome Emotional Reasoning?

Fortunately, there is a great deal that can we can do to resist unproductive emotional reasoning and to harness our emotions to the benefit of our thinking.

The key is to recognize emotional reasoning when it happens and to take time to reevaluate and come to a more rational interpretation of what’s going on.

This is among the techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy , or CBT— which has been successful in treating a variety of mental health problems. For example, experts in the approach argue that some of our worst thinking is the result of all-or-nothing thinking. So people think: If I don’t get this job interview, my life will be over. Instead, CBT counsels people to think in shades of gray instead of black and white. So a better and more accurate form of thinking would be: If I don’t get this job interview, I’ll probably find another opportunity. 

Other CBT techniques include decentering. Ask yourself how you might interpret a situation differently if it were happening to a friend rather than yourself. This can help us become more objective. The approach pushes us to be more rational. 

The goal, again, is not to eliminate or suppress emotions. It is to prevent emotions from overwhelming us and to give them the proper weight as we consider evidence, make decisions, and discuss issues with others. 

In the end, emotional reasoning is a problem. Emotions can at times overwhelm our rational minds and lead to poor decisions or judgments. But emotions are also not the enemy of reason. In general, they are a positive force that motivates and deepens rational thought. 

The most important thing is recognizing when emotions are helping or hurting, and developing strategies for managing them. Doing so can help make you not just a better thinker, but also a better person.

Helen Lee Bouygues is the president of the Reboot Foundation.

Privacy Overview

• school Campus Bookshelves
• menu_book Bookshelves
• perm_media Learning Objects
• login Login
• how_to_reg Request Instructor Account
• hub Instructor Commons

Margin Size

• Download Page (PDF)
• Download Full Book (PDF)
• Periodic Table
• Physics Constants
• Scientific Calculator
• Reference & Cite
• Tools expand_more
• Readability

selected template will load here

This action is not available.

Critical Reasoning and Writing (Levin et al.)

• Last updated
• Save as PDF
• Page ID 29575

• Golden West College via NGE Far Press

\( \newcommand{\vecs}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \)

\( \newcommand{\vecd}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash {#1}}} \)

\( \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)

( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\)

\( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\)

\( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\)

\( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\)

\( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)

\( \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\)

\( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\)

\( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\)

\( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\)

\( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\)

\( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\)

\( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\)

\( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\AA}{\unicode[.8,0]{x212B}}\)

\( \newcommand{\vectorA}[1]{\vec{#1}}      % arrow\)

\( \newcommand{\vectorAt}[1]{\vec{\text{#1}}}      % arrow\)

\( \newcommand{\vectorB}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \)

\( \newcommand{\vectorC}[1]{\textbf{#1}} \)

\( \newcommand{\vectorD}[1]{\overrightarrow{#1}} \)

\( \newcommand{\vectorDt}[1]{\overrightarrow{\text{#1}}} \)

\( \newcommand{\vectE}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash{\mathbf {#1}}}} \)

Thumbnail: Jigsaw puzzle (Pixabay License; PIRO4D via Pixabay )