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Part Two: You are the President and CEO of You

Thinking Critically and Creatively

Dr. andrew robert baker.

Critical and creative thinking skills are perhaps the most fundamental skills involved in making judgments and solving problems. They are some of the most important skills I have ever developed. I use them everyday and continue to work to improve them both.

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

The academic setting demands more of us in terms of critical thinking than everyday life. It demands that we evaluate information and analyze a myriad of issues. It is the environment where our critical thinking skills can be the difference between success and failure. In this environment we must consider information in an analytical, critical manner. We must ask questions—What is the source of this information? Is this source an expert one and what makes it so? Are there multiple perspectives to consider on an issue? Do multiple sources agree or disagree on an issue? Does quality research substantiate information or opinion? Do I have any personal biases that may affect my consideration of this information? It is only through purposeful, frequent, intentional questioning such as this that we can sharpen our critical thinking skills and improve as students, learners, and researchers. Developing my critical thinking skills over a twenty year period as a student in higher education enabled me to complete a quantitative dissertation, including analyzing research and completing statistical analysis, and earning my Ph.D. in 2014.

While critical thinking analyzes information and roots out the true nature and facets of problems, it is creative thinking that drives progress forward when it comes to solving these problems. Exceptional creative thinkers are people that invent new solutions to existing problems that do not rely on past or current solutions. They are the ones who invent solution C when everyone else is still arguing between A and B. Creative thinking skills involve using strategies to clear the mind so that our thoughts and ideas can transcend the current limitations of a problem and allow us to see beyond barriers that prevent new solutions from being found.

Brainstorming is the simplest example of intentional creative thinking that most people have tried at least once. With the quick generation of many ideas at once we can block-out our brain’s natural tendency to limit our solution-generating abilities so we can access and combine many possible solutions/thoughts and invent new ones. It is sort of like sprinting through a race’s finish line only to find there is new track on the other side and we can keep going, if we choose. As with critical thinking, higher education both demands creative thinking from us and is the perfect place to practice and develop the skill. Everything from word problems in a math class, to opinion or persuasive speeches and papers, call upon our creative thinking skills to generate new solutions and perspectives in response to our professor’s demands. Creative thinking skills ask questions such as—What if? Why not? What else is out there? Can I combine perspectives/solutions? What is something no one else has brought-up? What is being forgotten/ignored? What about ______? It is the opening of doors and options that follows problem-identification.

Consider an assignment that required you to compare two different authors on the topic of education and select and defend one as better. Now add to this scenario that your professor clearly prefers one author over the other. While critical thinking can get you as far as identifying the similarities and differences between these authors and evaluating their merits, it is creative thinking that you must use if you wish to challenge your professor’s opinion and invent new perspectives on the authors that have not previously been considered.

So, what can we do to develop our critical and creative thinking skills? Although many students may dislike it, group work is an excellent way to develop our thinking skills. Many times I have heard from students their disdain for working in groups based on scheduling, varied levels of commitment to the group or project, and personality conflicts too, of course. True—it’s not always easy, but that is why it is so effective. When we work collaboratively on a project or problem we bring many brains to bear on a subject. These different brains will naturally develop varied ways of solving or explaining problems and examining information. To the observant individual we see that this places us in a constant state of back and forth critical/creative thinking modes.

For example, in group work we are simultaneously analyzing information and generating solutions on our own, while challenging other’s analyses/ideas and responding to challenges to our own analyses/ideas. This is part of why students tend to avoid group work—it challenges us as thinkers and forces us to analyze others while defending ourselves, which is not something we are used to or comfortable with as most of our educational experiences involve solo work. Your professors know this—that’s why we assign it—to help you grow as students, learners, and thinkers!

Foundations of Academic Success: Words of Wisdom Copyright © 2015 by Thomas Priester is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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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 .

critical thinking creativity

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Critical Thinking

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

2.1 Dewey’s Three Main Examples

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. Examples and Non-Examples

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8. Critical Thinking Dispositions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

12. Controversies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Enhancing Creativity and Critical Thinking Skills: A Comprehensive Guide

Introduction.

In today’s rapidly evolving world, creativity and critical thinking have become invaluable skills for navigating the complexities of life. Whether you’re a student, professional, or simply someone seeking personal growth, developing these skills can greatly enhance your problem-solving abilities, decision-making processes, and overall mental agility. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore various strategies and techniques to foster creativity and critical thinking, empowering you to approach challenges with a fresh perspective and uncover innovative solutions.

Table of Contents

Table of Content

Understanding creativity and critical thinking, the importance of creativity and critical thinking, embracing curiosity and open-mindedness, engaging in diverse perspectives, practicing reflective thinking, encouraging brainstorming and idea generation, seeking feedback and constructive criticism, education and learning, problem solving in the workplace, everyday life challenges, fear of failure, narrow-mindedness and biases, lack of exposure to diverse ideas, external pressures and time constraints, embracing a growth mindset, developing a habit of continuous learning, engaging in creative and intellectual pursuits, online courses and workshops, books and reading materials, collaborative platforms and idea-sharing communities.

Creativity refers to the ability to generate original ideas, approaches, and solutions. It involves thinking beyond conventional boundaries, connecting seemingly unrelated concepts, and exploring new perspectives. On the other hand, critical thinking is the process of analyzing and evaluating information, arguments, and situations in a logical and systematic manner. It involves questioning assumptions, considering multiple viewpoints, and making informed judgments based on evidence and reasoning.

Creativity and critical thinking are vital skills that have a profound impact on various aspects of our lives. In academic settings, they promote deeper understanding, encourage independent thinking, and foster innovative problem-solving abilities. In professional environments, they enable individuals to adapt to changing circumstances, identify opportunities, and make sound decisions. Moreover, in everyday life, these skills empower us to navigate complex challenges, effectively communicate our ideas, and lead fulfilling lives.

Strategies for Enhancing Creativity and Critical Thinking

Curiosity is the driving force behind creativity and critical thinking. Cultivating a sense of wonder and actively seeking knowledge about diverse subjects expands our mental horizons and stimulates new ideas. By maintaining an open mind, we become receptive to different perspectives and are more likely to challenge assumptions, explore alternatives, and arrive at novel solutions.

Exposing ourselves to a range of viewpoints and experiences broadens our understanding and nurtures creativity and critical thinking. Actively seeking out diverse sources of information, engaging in discussions with people from different backgrounds, and embracing multicultural experiences can significantly enhance our ability to think critically and generate innovative ideas.

Reflective thinking involves examining our thoughts, actions, and experiences with a critical lens. By intentionally reflecting on our successes, failures, and the lessons learned, we gain valuable insights that shape our future endeavors. Journaling, meditation, and engaging in meaningful conversations with mentors or peers are effective ways to cultivate reflective thinking.

Brainstorming is a powerful technique for stimulating creativity and critical thinking. By creating a supportive environment that encourages free-flowing idea generation, we can unlock our imaginative potential. This process involves suspending judgment, allowing for unconventional ideas, and building upon the contributions of others. Collaboration and team-based brainstorming sessions can yield remarkable results by harnessing collective intelligence.

Seeking feedback from trusted sources can provide valuable insights and help refine our creative and critical thinking skills. Constructive criticism enables us to identify blind spots, overcome biases, and enhance the quality of our ideas and arguments. By actively seeking diverse feedback, we open ourselves to continuous improvement and personal growth.

Applying Creativity and Critical Thinking in Different Domains

Creativity and critical thinking are essential for effective learning. Students who actively engage in these skills are better equipped to analyze information, develop logical arguments, and apply knowledge in real-world scenarios. Educators can facilitate creativity and critical thinking by designing interactive lessons, encouraging active participation, and providing opportunities for independent exploration.

In today’s competitive job market, creativity and critical thinking are highly sought-after skills. Employers value individuals who can approach problems from different angles, propose innovative solutions, and adapt to rapidly changing circumstances. By leveraging creativity and critical thinking, employees can navigate complex challenges, improve efficiency, and contribute to the overall growth of their organizations.

Creativity and critical thinking extend beyond academic and professional contexts. They empower us to approach everyday life challenges with resilience and resourcefulness. Whether it’s finding alternative routes during a traffic jam, coming up with unique gift ideas, or making informed decisions about personal finances, these skills enhance our ability to navigate various situations and seize opportunities.

Overcoming Barriers to Creativity and Critical Thinking

Fear of failure often hinders creative and critical thinking processes. To overcome this barrier, it’s important to reframe failure as a valuable learning experience. Embracing a growth mindset allows us to view setbacks as opportunities for growth and improvement. By acknowledging that failures are stepping stones to success, we become more open to taking risks and exploring new ideas.

Narrow-mindedness and biases limit our ability to think critically and inhibit creativity. Recognizing our own biases and actively seeking diverse perspectives can help overcome this barrier. Engaging in empathy-building exercises, exploring opposing viewpoints, and fostering inclusive environments enable us to challenge our assumptions and broaden our perspectives.

Exposure to diverse ideas is crucial for stimulating creativity and critical thinking. Actively seeking out new experiences, exploring different cultures, and engaging with a variety of disciplines can break the monotony and expand our knowledge base. By embracing diversity in all its forms, we foster a rich environment for creative and critical exploration.

External pressures and time constraints can stifle creativity and critical thinking. Prioritizing self-care, setting aside dedicated time for reflection, and establishing a supportive network can alleviate these challenges. Creating a conducive environment that allows for uninterrupted focus and creative expression is essential for nurturing these skills.

Cultivating a Creative and Critical Mindset

A growth mindset is the belief that intelligence and abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. By adopting a growth mindset, we embrace challenges, persist in the face of obstacles, and see failures as opportunities for growth. This mindset fosters a sense of curiosity, resilience, and a willingness to experiment, ultimately enhancing creativity and critical thinking.

Continuous learning is the cornerstone of creativity and critical thinking. Cultivating a habit of seeking knowledge, exploring new fields, and staying updated with emerging trends nurtures our intellectual curiosity and broadens our perspectives. Embracing lifelong learning not only enhances our skills but also keeps us adaptable and open to new ideas and possibilities.

Engaging in creative and intellectual pursuits is an excellent way to exercise and enhance our creativity and critical thinking skills. Activities such as writing, painting, playing musical instruments, solving puzzles, or participating in debates and discussions provide avenues for self-expression, problem-solving, and exploring new ideas. By actively engaging in these pursuits, we unlock our creative potential and sharpen our critical thinking abilities.

Tools and Resources for Enhancing Creativity and Critical Thinking

Online platforms offer a wealth of courses and workshops designed to enhance creativity and critical thinking. Websites like Coursera, Udemy, and FutureLearn provide a wide range of options, from introductory courses to advanced programs. These resources offer structured learning experiences and opportunities to engage with instructors and fellow learners, facilitating the development of these skills.

Books and reading materials are invaluable sources for enhancing creativity and critical thinking. Authors such as Sir Ken Robinson, Daniel Kahneman, and Steven Johnson provide insights into the creative process, cognitive biases, and innovative thinking. Reading works from different genres, including fiction and non-fiction, exposes us to diverse perspectives and nurtures our intellectual curiosity.

Collaborative platforms and idea-sharing communities foster a supportive environment for creativity and critical thinking. Platforms like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and TED Talks enable individuals to connect with like-minded individuals, share ideas, and collaborate on projects. Engaging with these communities not only provides exposure to diverse perspectives but also allows for valuable feedback and collaborative problem-solving.

Enhancing creativity and critical thinking is a continuous journey that opens doors to innovation, personal growth, and a deeper understanding of the world around us. By embracing curiosity, seeking diverse perspectives, practicing reflective thinking, and engaging in creative pursuits, we can cultivate these skills and apply them in various domains of our lives. Overcoming barriers, adopting a growth mindset, and utilizing available tools and resources further strengthen our creative and critical thinking abilities. Let us embark on this empowering journey of self-discovery, armed with the power of creativity and critical thinking.

Read More: For further insights into creativity and critical thinking, consider exploring the following resources:

  • The Harvard Business Review provides a wealth of articles and research papers on critical thinking, its applications, and its impact on decision-making processes.
  • TED Talks features engaging talks by experts from various fields, sharing their insights and experiences related to critical thinking and its significance in today’s world.

Q: How can creativity and critical thinking benefit me in my professional life? A: Creativity and critical thinking are highly valued in the professional sphere. They enable individuals to adapt to changing circumstances, identify innovative solutions, and make informed decisions. These skills can contribute to professional growth, open up new opportunities, and enhance problem-solving abilities.

Q: Can creativity and critical thinking be developed, or are they innate abilities? A: While some individuals may have a natural inclination towards creativity and critical thinking, these skills can be developed and nurtured through practice, exposure to diverse perspectives, and continuous learning. Adopting a growth mindset and actively engaging in activities that stimulate these skills can significantly enhance them over time.

Q: How can I overcome the fear of failure and embrace creative thinking? A: Overcoming the fear of failure requires a shift in mindset. Viewing failures as learning opportunities and reframing them as stepping stones to success can help mitigate the fear. Embracing a growth mindset and surrounding yourself with a supportive environment that encourages experimentation and risk-taking can also foster creative thinking.

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Education in the 21st Century pp 9–27 Cite as

Creativity and Critical Thinking

  • Peter Ellerton 6 &
  • Robert Kelly 7  
  • First Online: 31 January 2022

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The twenty-first century has seen a rapid growth of curriculum initiatives that consider the development of cross-curriculum competencies as a core issue, and significant for every discipline area. Both because of such cross-curriculum developments and because of the nature of STEM itself, the integration of the particular core competencies of ‘creativity’ and ‘critical thinking’ across the STEM disciplines has also grown rapidly in educational importance. Creativity and critical thinking in education are best viewed from the perspectives of both learner development and teacher expertise, with the attributes specific to each concept appropriately seen as increasing in sophistication or complexity over time. A broad examination of each of the two concepts and their interrelatedness, and the consequent implications for educational practice concerned with developing them, creates a lens through which to view the application of creativity and critical thinking across the complexity and diversity of the STEM disciplines and their integrated forms.

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Critical thinking refers to the ability to analyze information objectively and make a reasoned judgment. It involves the evaluation of sources, such as data, facts, observable phenomena, and research findings.

Good critical thinkers can draw reasonable conclusions from a set of information, and discriminate between useful and less useful details to solve problems or make decisions. Employers prioritize the ability to think critically—find out why, plus see how you can demonstrate that you have this ability throughout the job application process. 

Why Do Employers Value Critical Thinking Skills?

Employers want job candidates who can evaluate a situation using logical thought and offer the best solution.

 Someone with critical thinking skills can be trusted to make decisions independently, and will not need constant handholding.

Hiring a critical thinker means that micromanaging won't be required. Critical thinking abilities are among the most sought-after skills in almost every industry and workplace. You can demonstrate critical thinking by using related keywords in your resume and cover letter, and during your interview.

Examples of Critical Thinking

The circumstances that demand critical thinking vary from industry to industry. Some examples include:

  • A triage nurse analyzes the cases at hand and decides the order by which the patients should be treated.
  • A plumber evaluates the materials that would best suit a particular job.
  • An attorney reviews evidence and devises a strategy to win a case or to decide whether to settle out of court.
  • A manager analyzes customer feedback forms and uses this information to develop a customer service training session for employees.

Promote Your Skills in Your Job Search

If critical thinking is a key phrase in the job listings you are applying for, be sure to emphasize your critical thinking skills throughout your job search.

Add Keywords to Your Resume

You can use critical thinking keywords (analytical, problem solving, creativity, etc.) in your resume. When describing your  work history , include top critical thinking skills that accurately describe you. You can also include them in your  resume summary , if you have one.

For example, your summary might read, “Marketing Associate with five years of experience in project management. Skilled in conducting thorough market research and competitor analysis to assess market trends and client needs, and to develop appropriate acquisition tactics.”

Mention Skills in Your Cover Letter

Include these critical thinking skills in your cover letter. In the body of your letter, mention one or two of these skills, and give specific examples of times when you have demonstrated them at work. Think about times when you had to analyze or evaluate materials to solve a problem.

Show the Interviewer Your Skills

You can use these skill words in an interview. Discuss a time when you were faced with a particular problem or challenge at work and explain how you applied critical thinking to solve it.

Some interviewers will give you a hypothetical scenario or problem, and ask you to use critical thinking skills to solve it. In this case, explain your thought process thoroughly to the interviewer. He or she is typically more focused on how you arrive at your solution rather than the solution itself. The interviewer wants to see you analyze and evaluate (key parts of critical thinking) the given scenario or problem.

Of course, each job will require different skills and experiences, so make sure you read the job description carefully and focus on the skills listed by the employer.

Top Critical Thinking Skills

Keep these in-demand critical thinking skills in mind as you update your resume and write your cover letter. As you've seen, you can also emphasize them at other points throughout the application process, such as your interview. 

Part of critical thinking is the ability to carefully examine something, whether it is a problem, a set of data, or a text. People with  analytical skills  can examine information, understand what it means, and properly explain to others the implications of that information.

  • Asking Thoughtful Questions
  • Data Analysis
  • Interpretation
  • Questioning Evidence
  • Recognizing Patterns

Communication

Often, you will need to share your conclusions with your employers or with a group of colleagues. You need to be able to  communicate with others  to share your ideas effectively. You might also need to engage in critical thinking in a group. In this case, you will need to work with others and communicate effectively to figure out solutions to complex problems.

  • Active Listening
  • Collaboration
  • Explanation
  • Interpersonal
  • Presentation
  • Verbal Communication
  • Written Communication

Critical thinking often involves creativity and innovation. You might need to spot patterns in the information you are looking at or come up with a solution that no one else has thought of before. All of this involves a creative eye that can take a different approach from all other approaches.

  • Flexibility
  • Conceptualization
  • Imagination
  • Drawing Connections
  • Synthesizing

Open-Mindedness

To think critically, you need to be able to put aside any assumptions or judgments and merely analyze the information you receive. You need to be objective, evaluating ideas without bias.

  • Objectivity
  • Observation

Problem Solving

Problem-solving is another critical thinking skill that involves analyzing a problem, generating and implementing a solution, and assessing the success of the plan. Employers don’t simply want employees who can think about information critically. They also need to be able to come up with practical solutions.

  • Attention to Detail
  • Clarification
  • Decision Making
  • Groundedness
  • Identifying Patterns

More Critical Thinking Skills

  • Inductive Reasoning
  • Deductive Reasoning
  • Noticing Outliers
  • Adaptability
  • Emotional Intelligence
  • Brainstorming
  • Optimization
  • Restructuring
  • Integration
  • Strategic Planning
  • Project Management
  • Ongoing Improvement
  • Causal Relationships
  • Case Analysis
  • Diagnostics
  • SWOT Analysis
  • Business Intelligence
  • Quantitative Data Management
  • Qualitative Data Management
  • Risk Management
  • Scientific Method
  • Consumer Behavior

Key Takeaways

  • Demonstrate that you have critical thinking skills by adding relevant keywords to your resume.
  • Mention pertinent critical thinking skills in your cover letter, too, and include an example of a time when you demonstrated them at work.
  • Finally, highlight critical thinking skills during your interview. For instance, you might discuss a time when you were faced with a challenge at work and explain how you applied critical thinking skills to solve it.

University of Louisville. " What is Critical Thinking ."

American Management Association. " AMA Critical Skills Survey: Workers Need Higher Level Skills to Succeed in the 21st Century ."

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Creativity and critical thinking sit atop most lists of skills crucial for success in the 21st century. They represent two of the “Four Cs” in   P21 ’s learning framework (the other two being communication and collaboration), and they rank second and third on the World Economic Forum ’s top ten list of skills workers will need most in the year 2020 (complex problem solving ranks first).

The various lists of 21st-century skills grant creativity and critical thinking such prominence in part because they are human abilities robots and AI are unlikely to usurp anytime soon. The picture of the near future that emerges from these compilations of skills is one in which people must compete against their own inventions by exploiting the most human of their human qualities: empathy, a willingness to work together, adaptability, innovation. As the 21st century unfolds, creativity and critical thinking appear as uniquely human attributes essential for staving off our own obsolescence.

Like many things human, however, creativity and critical thinking are not easily or consistently defined. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s list of “ Deeper Learning Competencies ,” for example, identifies creativity not as its own competency but as a tool for thinking critically. Bloom’s Taxonomy  treats the two as separate educational goals, ranking creativity above critical thinking in the progression of intellectual abilities. Efforts to pin down these skills are so quickly muddled, one is tempted to fall back on the old Justice Stewart remark regarding obscenity: “I know it when I see it.” Unfortunately, that yardstick isn’t much help to teachers or students.

Definitions of creativity tend toward the broad and vague. One of the leading researchers in the area, Robert Sternberg, characterizes creativity  as “a decision to buy low and sell high in the world of ideas.” While this is itself a creative approach to the problem of defining creativity, it is not a solution easily translated into a rubric.

Definitions of critical thinking don’t fare much better. According to one group of researchers , “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.” Again, a curiously self-demonstrating definition, but not one ready-made for the classroom.

Generally speaking, creativity is associated with generating ideas, while critical thinking is associated with judging them. In practice, however, the two are not so easy to separate. As parents and teachers know well, creativity without critical judgment tends toward the fanciful, the impractical, the ridiculous. “Creative thinking” becomes a nice way of saying that someone’s ideas have run amok.

At the same time, critical thinking gets short shrift when reduced to making a judgment, since, at its best, critical thinking is also a way of making a contribution. It is fundamentally creative in the sense that its aim is to produce something new: an insight, an argument, a new synthesis of ideas or information, a new level of understanding.

Our grasp of creativity and critical thinking is improved when we see them in symbiotic relationship with one another. Creativity  benefits from our recognizing the role of critical thinking in ensuring the value of novel ideas. In turn, critical thinking  comes into clearer focus when we recognize it as a creative act that enriches understanding by giving rise to something that wasn’t there before.

What does this symbiotic relationship look like in the classroom? Here are a few educational contexts in which creativity is disciplined by critical thinking and critical thinking is expanded through recognition of its creative function:

  • Writing.  Creative writing only works when the writer’s critical judgment is brought to bear on the product of their imagination. However richly imagined, a story’s success depends on the skill with which its author corrals and controls their ideas, crafting them into something coherent and cohesive. Storycraft is accomplished by writers who discipline their own creative work by thinking critically about it.Successful academic writing — argumentative, expository — requires not just critical analysis but also creative invention. Academic writers enter into conversation with their readers, their instructors, fellow students, other writers and scholars, anyone affected by or invested in their topic. As in any conversation, a successful participant doesn’t simply repeat back what others have already said, but builds upon it, asking critical questions, fine-tuning points, proposing solutions — in short, creating and contributing something original that extends and enriches the conversation.
  • History.  History classes lend themselves readily to creative exercises like imagining the experiences of people in the past, or envisioning what the present might look like if this or that historical event had played out differently. These exercises succeed only when imagination is disciplined by critical thinking; conjectures must be plausible, connections must be logical, and the use of evidence must be reasonable.At the same time, critical analysis of historical problems often employs invention and is (or should be) rewarded for its creativity. For example, a student analyzing the US mission to the moon in terms of the theme of the frontier in American mythology is engaged in an intellectual activity that is at least as creative as it is evaluative.
  • Math.  Creative projects can generate engagement and enthusiasm in students, prompting them to learn things they might otherwise resist. In this example , a middle school math class learned about circuitry on their way to creating a keyboard made of bananas. Projects like this one demonstrate that creativity and critical thinking are reciprocal. A banana keyboard is unquestionably creative, but of little utility except insofar as it teaches something valuable about electronics. Yet, that lesson was made possible only by virtue of the creative impulse the project inspired in students.

The skills today’s students will need for success are, at a most basic level, the skills that humans have always relied on for success — the very things that make us human, including our creativity and our capacity for thinking critically. The fact that our defining qualities so often defy definition, that our distinctive traits are so frustratingly indistinct, is just another gloriously untidy part of us that robots will never understand.

For more, see:

  • How Dialogue Teaches Critical Thinking and Empathy
  • Creating Change-Agents: The Intersection of Critical Thinking and Student Agency
  • Philadelphia is Reimagining Arts & Creativity Education Programming

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  • What Is Critical Thinking? | Definition & Examples

What Is Critical Thinking? | Definition & Examples

Published on May 30, 2022 by Eoghan Ryan . Revised on May 31, 2023.

Critical thinking is the ability to effectively analyze information and form a judgment .

To think critically, you must be aware of your own biases and assumptions when encountering information, and apply consistent standards when evaluating sources .

Critical thinking skills help you to:

  • Identify credible sources
  • Evaluate and respond to arguments
  • Assess alternative viewpoints
  • Test hypotheses against relevant criteria

Table of contents

Why is critical thinking important, critical thinking examples, how to think critically, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about critical thinking.

Critical thinking is important for making judgments about sources of information and forming your own arguments. It emphasizes a rational, objective, and self-aware approach that can help you to identify credible sources and strengthen your conclusions.

Critical thinking is important in all disciplines and throughout all stages of the research process . The types of evidence used in the sciences and in the humanities may differ, but critical thinking skills are relevant to both.

In academic writing , critical thinking can help you to determine whether a source:

  • Is free from research bias
  • Provides evidence to support its research findings
  • Considers alternative viewpoints

Outside of academia, critical thinking goes hand in hand with information literacy to help you form opinions rationally and engage independently and critically with popular media.

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Critical thinking can help you to identify reliable sources of information that you can cite in your research paper . It can also guide your own research methods and inform your own arguments.

Outside of academia, critical thinking can help you to be aware of both your own and others’ biases and assumptions.

Academic examples

However, when you compare the findings of the study with other current research, you determine that the results seem improbable. You analyze the paper again, consulting the sources it cites.

You notice that the research was funded by the pharmaceutical company that created the treatment. Because of this, you view its results skeptically and determine that more independent research is necessary to confirm or refute them. Example: Poor critical thinking in an academic context You’re researching a paper on the impact wireless technology has had on developing countries that previously did not have large-scale communications infrastructure. You read an article that seems to confirm your hypothesis: the impact is mainly positive. Rather than evaluating the research methodology, you accept the findings uncritically.

Nonacademic examples

However, you decide to compare this review article with consumer reviews on a different site. You find that these reviews are not as positive. Some customers have had problems installing the alarm, and some have noted that it activates for no apparent reason.

You revisit the original review article. You notice that the words “sponsored content” appear in small print under the article title. Based on this, you conclude that the review is advertising and is therefore not an unbiased source. Example: Poor critical thinking in a nonacademic context You support a candidate in an upcoming election. You visit an online news site affiliated with their political party and read an article that criticizes their opponent. The article claims that the opponent is inexperienced in politics. You accept this without evidence, because it fits your preconceptions about the opponent.

There is no single way to think critically. How you engage with information will depend on the type of source you’re using and the information you need.

However, you can engage with sources in a systematic and critical way by asking certain questions when you encounter information. Like the CRAAP test , these questions focus on the currency , relevance , authority , accuracy , and purpose of a source of information.

When encountering information, ask:

  • Who is the author? Are they an expert in their field?
  • What do they say? Is their argument clear? Can you summarize it?
  • When did they say this? Is the source current?
  • Where is the information published? Is it an academic article? Is it peer-reviewed ?
  • Why did the author publish it? What is their motivation?
  • How do they make their argument? Is it backed up by evidence? Does it rely on opinion, speculation, or appeals to emotion ? Do they address alternative arguments?

Critical thinking also involves being aware of your own biases, not only those of others. When you make an argument or draw your own conclusions, you can ask similar questions about your own writing:

  • Am I only considering evidence that supports my preconceptions?
  • Is my argument expressed clearly and backed up with credible sources?
  • Would I be convinced by this argument coming from someone else?

If you want to know more about ChatGPT, AI tools , citation , and plagiarism , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

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Critical thinking refers to the ability to evaluate information and to be aware of biases or assumptions, including your own.

Like information literacy , it involves evaluating arguments, identifying and solving problems in an objective and systematic way, and clearly communicating your ideas.

Critical thinking skills include the ability to:

You can assess information and arguments critically by asking certain questions about the source. You can use the CRAAP test , focusing on the currency , relevance , authority , accuracy , and purpose of a source of information.

Ask questions such as:

  • Who is the author? Are they an expert?
  • How do they make their argument? Is it backed up by evidence?

A credible source should pass the CRAAP test  and follow these guidelines:

  • The information should be up to date and current.
  • The author and publication should be a trusted authority on the subject you are researching.
  • The sources the author cited should be easy to find, clear, and unbiased.
  • For a web source, the URL and layout should signify that it is trustworthy.

Information literacy refers to a broad range of skills, including the ability to find, evaluate, and use sources of information effectively.

Being information literate means that you:

  • Know how to find credible sources
  • Use relevant sources to inform your research
  • Understand what constitutes plagiarism
  • Know how to cite your sources correctly

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search, interpret, and recall information in a way that aligns with our pre-existing values, opinions, or beliefs. It refers to the ability to recollect information best when it amplifies what we already believe. Relatedly, we tend to forget information that contradicts our opinions.

Although selective recall is a component of confirmation bias, it should not be confused with recall bias.

On the other hand, recall bias refers to the differences in the ability between study participants to recall past events when self-reporting is used. This difference in accuracy or completeness of recollection is not related to beliefs or opinions. Rather, recall bias relates to other factors, such as the length of the recall period, age, and the characteristics of the disease under investigation.

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Creativity encompasses the ability to discover new and original ideas, connections, and solutions to problems. It’s a part of our drive as humans—fostering resilience , sparking joy, and providing opportunities for self-actualization.

An act of creativity can be grand and inspiring, such as crafting a beautiful painting or designing an innovative company. But an idea need not be artistic or world-changing to count as creative. Life requires daily acts of ingenuity and novel workarounds; in this sense, almost everyone possesses some amount of creativity.

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  • Dark Creativity

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There are many pieces to the puzzle of creativity, including a balance between controlled, deliberate thought and spontaneous play and imagination . Personality plays a role, as well as biology and life experience.

But everyone possesses some measure of creativity, even if they don’t realize it. Life is full of small moments that require new ideas or surprising solutions. A choice that you don’t think twice about—how you cook a fried egg or the route you take to work—someone else might find delightfully original.

Creative people embody complexity; they show tendencies of thought and action that are segregated in others, according to the pioneering creativity researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. They balance intense energy with quiet rest, playfulness with discipline, fantasy with reality, and passion for their work with objectivity.

Neuroscience research seems to support this idea. Creative people may better engage the three brain systems —the default mode network , the salience network, and the executive control network—that collectively produce creative thought.

The trait of Openness to Experience correlates with creativity, encompassing a receptivity to new ideas and experiences. People who are low in openness prefer routines and familiarity, while those who are high in openness revel in novelty, whether that is meeting new people, processing different emotions, or traveling to exotic destinations. Accumulating these experiences and perspectives can help the brain forge creative new connections. Other characteristics that are linked to creativity include curiosity, positivity, energy, persistence, and intrinsic motivation.

When we think of creativity, we often think of Mozart, Picasso, Einstein—people with a seemingly fated convergence of talent and opportunity. It's too narrow a set of references, because all sorts of people, possessing various levels of intelligence and natural ability, are capable of engaging in fulfilling creative processes. And buying into a limited definition of creativity prevents many from appreciating their own potential.

Everyday creativity is a framework originally developed by Ruth Richards, Dennis Kinney, and colleagues at Harvard Medical School defined as expressions of originality and meaningfulness. This could encompass daily errands, personal hobbies, or work. Making wacky recipes or dying your hair an unusual color would qualify, as would working on a scrapbook of memories for a friend.

People sometimes refer to “little-c” or “Big-C” to discuss different degrees of creativity. This framework was expanded into a theory called The Four C Model of Creativity by researchers James Kaufman, Ronald Beghetto. Mini-c refers to creativity that arises in any learning process and little-c refers to consistent everyday creativity. Pro-c is the progression to professional expertise in a given domain, while Big-C is reserved for monumental and historic contributions to society.

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Many people feel that they have no or very limited creative ability—even some who work in creative fields—and it's true that certain individuals are more creative than others. Fortunately, however, creativity can be acquired and honed at any age or experience level.

Innovation is not some divine gift; it’s actually the skilled application of knowledge in new and exciting ways. It requires changing up your normal routine, stepping outside of typical comfort zones, and paying attention to the present moment.

When learning new information, taking a break—either by sleeping or simply enjoying a distraction—is another way of allowing the unconscious mind to process the data in novel and surprising ways. This often lays the groundwork for a creative insight or breakthrough.

Various lines of research have converged around common insights that provide steps to be more creative:

1. Aim for output: Creative geniuses often produce their best works at their times of greatest output. Some pieces may miss the mark, but the quantity of output makes it likely that other pieces will yield great creativity.

2. Be willing to go deep: In the realm of artistic creativity, pioneers often spend time in solitude, feel emotions and sensations deeply, and aren’t afraid to self-reflect.

3. Be open and playful: The personality trait most tied to creativity is Openness to Experience—whether that be intellectual, aesthetic, or emotional.

4. Capture your ideas: Remember to record thoughts as they arise so they aren't forgotten.

5. Adopt or hire outside perspectives: It can be difficult to innovate if you become trapped in the rules and language of your domain of expertise.

6. Feel free to procrastinate : If you are motivated to solve a problem, procrastinating, exercising, or sleeping on it can lead to divergent thinking and more possibilities.

Most of the time, ideas develop from the steady percolation and evaluation of thoughts and feelings. But every so often, a blockbuster notion breaks through in a flash of insight that’s as unexpected as it is blazingly clear. So-called “aha moments” can generate the brilliant idea for a tech startup, the theme of a musical composition, or the answer to an engineering quandary.

Improving the odds of having a “eureka moment” involves toggling between two modes of thinking: conscious, methodological, concerted problem solving and the restful, spontaneous, unplanned connections of the default mode network, the brain’s resting state. In this way, the default mode network can inspire new solutions when all of the puzzle pieces are in place.

Studies show that training can lead both children and adults to hone creative skills. Sessions may focus on identifying problems to solve, exploring different possibilities, and enhancing emotional intelligence . In one training, for example, instead of making art immediately, children were asked to play with materials—feel their textures, try them out, arrange and rearrange them. Children were encouraged to use emotion -laden memories to explore ideas for art portraying different emotional themes—what colors or textures could be associated with anger?

Several strategies can help build your creative muscle. One is to find a problem that needs solving, and another is to be open to new opportunities, such as trying new foods or using a new approach to complete a task at work. Another is to change your perspective, such as by imagining what somebody else or somebody in a different time period might think. Yet another is to simply create—creativity requires risk-taking and critical feedback, but persisting through discomfort can lead to an innovative and daring outcome.

Creativity may offer some surprising psychological benefits. It can contribute to the ability to make meaning—such as finding ways to successfully cope with past experiences such as trauma , regret, or nostalgia , helping to manage moods, relationships, and problem-solving, and establishing one’s professional and personal legacy for the future. Well-being, in turn, may facilitate creative thinking, such as by practicing mindfulness , research suggests.

critical thinking creativity

Creative thinking involves making new connections between different ideas, which is accomplished by cultivating divergent thinking skills and deliberately exposing yourself to new experiences and to learning. While research psychologists are interested in tapping innovative thinking, clinical psychologists sometimes encourage patients to use artistic expression as a way to confront difficult feelings.

Three key networks operate as a team to spark creativity in the brain, research suggests. The default mode network helps generate ideas, the executive control network evaluates them and propels them forward, and the salience network identifies which ideas are relevant and important. These networks may also influence one another via other feedback loops; for instance, the executive control network might tune the way the salience network scans internally, depending on the task at hand.

The default mode network is the pattern of brain activity that occurs when people are not focused on the outside world. It’s the network that becomes active when the mind turns inward, as people daydream, rest, and reflect on the past or imagine the future. The default mode network can spark connections between different ideas, contributing to creative thought.

The salience network is a large system within the brain that helps to detect and filter important information from the environment , and then determine how to respond to that information. It scans for relevant signals, whether they contain sensory, cognitive, or emotional information. The salience network is rooted in the anterior insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, but it contains nodes in other regions as well.

The executive control network, or executive function, refers to the systems and processes that allow people to plan, monitor, and execute their goals . In the context of creativity, executive functioning monitors the observations, connections, and ideas that are generated, directs attention to particular ideas, and oversees decision-making in the context of a larger goal.

A hallmark of creativity, divergent thinking involves generating multiple ideas or solutions to a problem. It’s original and imaginative, exploring as many different connections as possible. By contrast, convergent thinking is converging onto a single, correct answer or solution, by analyzing the information available and judging which answer is best.

The belief that the left hemisphere completely controls logic and the right brain governs creativity is largely a myth. Creativity and imagination involve communication between networks throughout both hemispheres, research shows. Those networks work together and collectively manipulate ideas, images, and symbols.

critical thinking creativity

From Vincent van Gogh to Sylvia Plath and Winston Churchill, individuals with mental illness have unleashed intellectual and artistic genius throughout history. The connection has fascinated psychologists and everyday individuals alike. What biological theories might explain the overlap? And what evolutionary advantages might these individuals possess?

Psychotic spectrum disorders, including bipolar disorder , schizotypy, and schizophrenia, are disproportionately diagnosed in highly creative individuals (they've been most often measured in artists, musicians, and writers) or in their first-degree relatives. 

But this connection can be confounded by the degree of giftedness at play. While creative types are more mentally stable than are non-creatives, the correlation reverses in the presence of exceptional creativity. Extraordinarily creative individuals are more likely to exhibit psychopathology than are noncreative people, according to University of California at Davis psychologist Dean Keith Simonton. He dubs this concept the "Mad Genius Paradox."

An inability to filter out seemingly irrelevant information is a hallmark of both creative ideation and disordered thought. The state, known as reduced latent inhibition, allows more information to reach awareness, which can in turn foster associations between unrelated concepts. The barrage accounts for both the nonsensical ideas seen in psychosis and for novel thinking.

One hypothesis for the mystery between genius and mental illness is rooted in the diametric theory, an idea put forth by sociologist Christopher Badcock and evolutionary biologist Bernard Crespi to explain how autism and schizophrenia are poles on one cognitive continuum. (In this theory, paternal gene expression pushes towards mechanistic thinking—autism at its most extreme—and maternal genes produce mentalizing traits—psychosis at its most extreme.)

The theory makes a key prediction—that epoch-making minds, likely including John Nash's and Isaac Newton's, exhibit both hypermechanistic and hypermentalizing extremes. These men were both autistic and schizophrenic—double outliers. True genius in some realms, especially mathematics and science, could represent that unique overlap.

Some research has found that genetic variants that are more common in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are also more common in certain creative professions. However, it’s difficult to conduct reliable studies of the link between genetics and a broad trait like creativity. What we do know, however, is that many mental health conditions, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, have a genetic component, so the condition and potentially related traits are passed down from one generation to the next.

Bipolar disorder and schizophrenia can be debilitating illnesses, so scientists have wondered why these conditions have persisted over time. Some believe that schizophrenia and  bipolar disorder offer an evolutionary advantage, in that they predispose individuals to greater creativity, achievement, and success that can benefit both individuals and societies.

People with bipolar disorder can be deeply concerned that medication will strip away the creativity and productivity that accompany manic episodes . Therefore it’s important to address the topic in therapy .

Therapists should explain that manic energy can be confused for creative skill; mania often deludes individuals into believing they are greater than their skills. The pair can discuss the patient’s innate talents and skills to develop, and then devise a strategy to do so following mood stabilization, continuing to adapt to new circumstances or challenges as they arise.

critical thinking creativity

Creativity is typically seen as a socially beneficial trait. But some people use their imagination in pursuit of antisocial ends—what's sometimes termed “dark creativity” or “malevolent creativity.”

A scam artist who devises a novel or foolproof scheme for luring his victims is exercising creativity. But as it’s being deployed to harm others and enrich himself, most observers would find his scheme objectionable, no matter how imaginative.

In recent years, researchers have sought a greater understanding of how darkness and creativity interrelate. Some studies have found that creativity is associated with narcissism ; others have identified a link between higher creativity and reduced honesty and humility. In one study, dispositional creativity was found to predict unethical behavior.

Ultimately, creativity may be better conceived as neither inherently positive nor inherently negative. Instead, it may be best to assess motivations and outcomes when judging the value of any creative act.

One distinction between light and dark creativity involves who benefits and who stands to be harmed by the creative pursuit. Light creativity is associated with ways to benefit others in society, or at least not detract from their welfare, such as composing a moving symphony or founding a tech start-up. Dark creativity is primarily associated with harming others or helping oneself without caring about the potential for collateral damage—devising an elaborate plot to rob a store, for example.

Malevolent creativity has been linked to childhood experiences, such as neglect, and traits in the dark triad , such as narcissism. Another characteristic linked to dark creativity is aggression . In one study, premeditation (planning ahead of time) controlled an individual’s expression of malevolent creativity more than implicit aggression—in other words, being able to hold off on your impulses can make even those primed to be aggressive and darkly creative less harmful when provoked.

Some argue that creativity exists on a spectrum and creative pursuits can exist in the gray area between light and dark. For example, if someone comes up with a clever white lie to avoid meeting someone, that original and plausible idea might lean toward a darker use of creative thinking. The grayer areas of creativity arise when it’s not completely clear where the eventual benefit of the creative behavior lies. For example, is hacktivism bright creativity or dark?

critical thinking creativity

A Personal Perspective: AI is transforming the landscape of innovation and creativity, breaking down barriers and empowering a new era of creativity.

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critical thinking creativity

Shame is wired into our nervous system for a reason. Learn how to transform toxic shame into healthy shame and reap the surprising benefits.

critical thinking creativity

Our minds wander for almost half of our waking hours every day. But mind wandering can be a productive, creative "waste of time."

critical thinking creativity

What would you do if A.I. created false information about you and put it on the internet?

critical thinking creativity

If the days of bettering oneself through a liberal arts education have transformed into simply “making more money,” then let’s just teach kids to write ransom notes.

critical thinking creativity

Let's make Valentine's Day a stepping-stone to strengthen your relationships beyond the one-day gifts of flowers and candy.

critical thinking creativity

In the scholarly book "Science Fiction and Psychology," Gavin Miller examines psychology's influence on science fiction.

critical thinking creativity

Writing about ourselves can help our well-being.

critical thinking creativity

AI is sparking creativity and user satisfaction—ushering in a new era of personal growth and fulfillment.

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The pursuit of performance excellence, critical thinking vs. creative thinking, critical thinking vs. creative thinking.

Creative thinking is a way of looking at problems or situations from a fresh perspective to conceive of something new or original.

critical thinking is the logical, sequential disciplined process of rationalizing, analyzing, evaluating, and interpreting information to make informed judgments and/or decisions.

Critical Thinking vs. Creative Thinking – Key Differences

  • Creative thinking tries to create something new, while critical thinking seeks to assess worth or validity of something that already exists.
  • Creative thinking is generative, while critical thinking is analytical .
  • Creative thinking is divergent, while critical thinking is convergent.
  • Creative thinking is focused on possibilities, while critical thinking is focused on probability.
  • Creative thinking is accomplished by disregarding accepted principles, while critical thinking is accomplished by applying accepted principles.

critical-thinking-vs-creative-thinking

About Creative Thinking

Creative thinking is a process utilized to generate lists of new, varied and unique ideas or possibilities. Creative thinking brings a fresh perspective and sometimes unconventional solution to solve a problem or address a challenge.  When you are thinking creatively, you are focused on exploring ideas, generating possibilities, and/or developing various theories.

Creative thinking can be performed both by an unstructured process such as brainstorming , or by a structured process such as lateral thinking .

Brainstorming is the process for generating unique ideas and solutions through spontaneous and freewheeling group discussion. Participants are encouraged to think aloud and suggest as many ideas as they can, no matter how outlandish it may seem.

Lateral thinking uses a systematic process that leads to logical conclusions. However, it involves changing a standard thinking sequence and arriving at a solution from completely different angles.

No matter what process you chose, the ultimate goal is to generate ideas that are unique, useful and worthy of further elaboration. Often times, critical thinking is performed after creative thinking has generated various possibilities. Critical thinking is used to vet those ideas to determine if they are practical.

Creative Thinking Skills

  • Open-mindedness
  • flexibility
  • Imagination
  • Adaptability
  • Risk-taking
  • Originality
  • Elaboration
  • Brainstorming

Critical Thinking header

About Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is the process of actively analyzing, interpreting, synthesizing, evaluating information gathered from observation, experience, or communication. It is thinking in a clear, logical, reasoned, and reflective manner to make informed judgments and/or decisions.

Critical thinking involves the ability to:

  • remain objective

In general, critical thinking is used to make logical well-formed decisions after analyzing and evaluating information and/or an array of ideas.

On a daily basis, it can be used for a variety of reasons including:

  • to form an argument
  • to articulate and justify a position or point of view
  • to reduce possibilities to convergent toward a single answer
  • to vet creative ideas to determine if they are practical
  • to judge an assumption
  • to solve a problem
  • to reach a conclusion

Critical Thinking Skills

  • Interpreting
  • Integrating
  • Contrasting
  • Classifying
  • Forecasting
  • Hypothesizing

critical thinking creativity

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Taking critical thinking, creativity and grit online

Miguel nussbaum.

1 School of Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

Camila Barahona

Fernanda rodriguez, victoria guentulle, felipe lopez, enrique vazquez-uscanga, veronica cabezas.

2 School of Education, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

Technology has the potential to facilitate the development of higher-order thinking skills in learning. There has been a rush towards online learning by education systems during COVID-19; this can therefore be seen as an opportunity to develop students’ higher-order thinking skills. In this short report we show how critical thinking and creativity can be developed in an online context, as well as highlighting the importance of grit. We also suggest the importance of heuristic evaluation in the design of online systems to support twenty-first century learning.

Introduction

This paper is in response to the article “Designing for 21st century learning online: a heuristic method to enable educator learning support roles” (Nacu et al. 2018 ). In this paper, the authors outline a framework for heuristic evaluation when designing online experiences to support twenty-first century learning.

Twenty-first century skills can be key to success in a modern knowledge society. Among these skills, critical thinking is important not only at work, where problem solving is essential, but also in any social setting where adequate decision making is required (Dwyer and Walsh 2020 ). Additionally, creativity helps ensure that the outcomes of critical thinking can be both culturally ingenious as well as treasured (Yeh et al. 2019b ). This is achieved by embracing cognitive abilities in order to create new combinations of ideas (Davis 1969 ).

Technology has been shown to facilitate the development of higher-order thinking skills in learning (Engerman et al. 2018 ). However, in general, schools have failed to take advantage of this by incorporating adequate use of technology into their practices (Olszewski and Crompton 2020 ). Therefore, the rush towards online learning by education systems during COVID-19 can also be seen as an opportunity to develop students’ higher-order thinking skills. One potential drawback with online learning is the distance it creates between peers, thus hindering student engagement and the development of higher-order thinking skills (Dwyer and Walsh 2020 ). We show how this barrier can be overcome when developing critical thinking and creativity in an online context.

Critical thinking

Critical thinking includes the ability to identify the main elements and assumptions of an argument and the relationships between them, as well as drawing conclusions based on the information that is available, evaluating evidence, and self-correcting, among others. It is seen as a self-regulated process that comes from developing skills such as interpretation, analysis, evaluation and explanation; going beyond technical skills. It can therefore be considered a metacognitive process (Saxton et al. 2012 ; Facione 1990 ).

By taking learning online, both self-study and teacher-led sessions can be enhanced through a problem-based learning strategy. In the first stage, students build on a question or topic posed by the teacher, e.g. a mathematical problem or an essay writing assignment. In the second stage, students peer-review their classmates’ responses or essays using a rubric provided by the teacher. Students break down their classmates’ responses and see how they relate to the objective of the activity. They then compare this analysis with the rubric in order to provide feedback. In a third stage, the students develop a new response based on their initial response, the experience of giving feedback, and the feedback they received. This process develops self-evaluation as the students compare their own response with their classmates’ and discover any gaps in their knowledge. It can also develop metacognition as they integrate various sources of knowledge (initial response, feedback received and the experience of giving feedback) when developing a new response. In the final stage, the teacher discusses the different responses with the class. The teacher then compares the students’ work with the expected response and provides a general summary, transferring the responses to different domains.

While Stages 1 through 3 are asynchronous and computer-aided, stage 4 can be synchronous and supported by the use of a web-based video conferencing tool. Active student participation and teacher mediation are both key since interactive and instant feedback has been shown to improve critical thinking (Chang et al. 2020 ).

In addition to the problem-based strategy presented here, other active learning strategies can also be used to develop critical thinking, e.g. structured questioning, role playing, and cooperative learning (Cruz and Dominguez 2020 ). How these might be implemented online is still open to discussion, though heuristic evaluations may be a good alternative given the possibilities presented by online learning as a resource provider, learning broker and learning promoter (Nacu et al. 2018 ).

Creativity is an essential element of the problem-solving process. Creative people often find ways of addressing a problem that others cannot see, while also having the ability to overcome barriers where others may otherwise give up (Kaufman 2016 ). There are different techniques for developing creativity. In-depth learning is facilitated when students represent concepts based on their own personal perceptions (Liu et al. 2018 ). In this sense, analogy can be a powerful tool for boosting creativity. Analogical transfer includes the idea of making analogies by analyzing objects, ideas or concepts across domains, i.e. information is transferred from the known (the original domain) to the unknown (the new domain) by searching for similarities (Shen and Lai 2014 ).

We propose an analogical transfer strategy. In the first stage, the teacher identifies a concept with examples from different domains. This might include showing a video that not only introduces the concept but also provides a context that is both familiar and relatable for the students. In the second stage, students reflect on situations from their own lives where they can apply the concept that is being studied. Here, the use of open-ended questions allows the students’ creativity to be explored in greater depth, while adapting to their different backgrounds and levels of prior knowledge. In the third stage, which is mediated by the teacher, the students discuss their responses from stage 2. The teacher should focus on original responses from different domains, or responses where it is not clear whether the solution is correct.

Stages 1 and 2 can be conducted asynchronously and scaffolded using technology through the inclusion of multimedia and student guides. However, stage 3 should be synchronous and supported by the use of a web-based video conferencing tool. In this way, technology facilitates the development of creativity by facilitating the discovery process, the collection of ideas, and the integration of knowledge (Yang et al. 2018 ). Mediation in stage 3 is therefore key (Giacumo and Savenye 2020 ). Effective teacher-student dialogue can improve the teacher-student relationship and enhance the creative process. Heuristic evaluation can therefore help us understand this relationship by looking at these interactions on the online platform (Nacu et al. 2018 ).

As with any learning process, critical thinking and creativity require students to be both present and focused, which in turn requires grit (Yeh et al. 2019a ). In other words, the way in which students approach their schooling is just as important as what and how we teach them (Tissenbaum 2020 ). Grit should therefore not only be considered an essential element of academic achievement but also as a mental process that activates and/or directs people’s behavior and actions (Datu et al. 2018 , Lan and Moscardino 2019 ). This is particularly relevant in a COVID-19 context, where the pandemic is affecting the wellbeing and mental health of many students, families & communities (OECD 2020 ).

In order to achieve effective student engagement, the objective must be attainable, interesting and accessible (i.e. in their zone of proximal development). The means used to complete the task must be attractive and feel more like a reward than an assignment. Finally, the teacher should work on the students’ persistence, not just in order to complete the task but as an essential quality for everyday life (Barnes 2019 ).

Teacher grit may also be key. As Haderer ( 2020 ) suggests “Why do some teachers stay when others run from the challenges?” In this sense, reflection has been shown to be relevant for teacher efficacy and grit (Haderer 2020 ). Heuristic evaluation methods may therefore allow the educator to understand the learning system as a whole (Nacu et al. 2018 ).

Ending remarks

As indicated in (Nacu et al. 2018 ) we are “faced with the need to create youth-centered spaces that also provide adult facilitation of learning”. Heuristic evaluation can therefore help connect online platforms with students, teachers and twenty-first century skills needs.

Acknowledgements

The research results informed in this report were supported by ANID/FONDECYT 1180024.

Biographies

is full professor for Computer Science at the School of Engineering of the Universidad Católica de Chile. He was member of the board of the Chilean Agency for the Quality of Education in Chile, and is Co-editor of Computers & Education.

is a teacher who is doing a PhD at the School of Engineering of the Universidad Católica de Chile.

is an engineer who is doing a PhD at the School of Engineering of the Universidad Católica de Chile.

is an Assistant Professor at the School of Education, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, and associate researcher at Millennium Nucleus of Social Development. She is co-founder of Teach for all in Chile (Enseña Chile), and an NGO in Chile to foster high school students to choose the education career (Elige Educar).

Compliance with ethical standards

The different research projects underlying this report received approval from the University’s ethics committee. The participation was voluntary and the students signed an informed consent form.

Publisher's Note

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

Contributor Information

Miguel Nussbaum, Email: lc.cup.gni@nm .

Camila Barahona, Email: lc.cu@oharabec .

Fernanda Rodriguez, Email: lc.cu@3irdorfm .

Victoria Guentulle, Email: lc.cu@utneugav .

Felipe Lopez, Email: lc.cu@1zepolif .

Enrique Vazquez-Uscanga, Email: lc.cu@zeuqzavae .

Veronica Cabezas, Email: [email protected] .

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critical thinking creativity

Assessing Students’ Creative Thinking

Chris Brandt

Principles for Design and Use

My colleagues and I have spent the past several years writing about promising instructional and assessment practices to cultivate 21 st century skills in K-12 schools. We have now built a repository of blog posts and literature reviews on defining, teaching and assessing these skills.

In this blog, I’ll summarize what we’ve learned about one of those skills: creative thinking. I’ll present a working definition of creative thinking and highlight instructional and assessment practices that support the development of creative-thinking strategies. I’ll conclude by discussing implications for the design and use of creative-thinking assessments.

For the full collection of related blog posts and literature reviews, see the Center for Assessment’s toolkit, Assessing 21 st Century Skills .

Why Should Educators Care About Cultivating Creative Thinking?

According to the World Economic Forum , creative thinking ranks as the fastest growing and second-most-important skill employers are seeking. Employers ranked skills-training programs in creative thinking as more important than those in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI) and big data.

Ironically, creative thinking was once thought to be a skill that could not be learned, but decades of research have debunked this idea. Interrelated skills required for creative thinking can develop through instruction, deliberative practice and improved environmental conditions. Educators can be trained to facilitate students’ creative thinking abilities. And they can be trained to assess—and use assessment information to develop—students’ creative thinking abilities.

Defining Creative Thinking

In my recent literature review on creative thinking , I presented the following definition, synthesized from my qualitative analysis of the research:

Creative thinking is an iterative process in which a person generates and manipulates ideas; tests, refines, and modifies those ideas through critical analysis and evaluation; and communicates ideas to solve a problem, improve problem solutions, or advance knowledge in novel ways. 

Definitions of creativity and creative thinking often overlap. But a comparison reveals a few distinct differences.

Definitions of creativity tend to be broader in scope than definitions of creative thinking. Creativity definitions incorporate aspects of the creative person, process, product, and press (the environmental conditions that promote creativity).

Definitions of creative thinking, on the other hand, tend to focus more narrowly on the person and process aspects of creativity; that is, the habits of mind and processes a person uses to develop, iterate, and improve upon products, ideas, and outcomes. Assessments of creative thinking, therefore, tend to focus on a student’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviors as s/he engages in the creative process.

Assessments of creativity, by contrast, incorporate the final product as an additional evidence source to address the extent to which the final product/outcome was novel and useful for achieving a specific purpose.

Instruction For Creative Thinking

Frameworks for the creative-thinking process generally identify four instructionally malleable components:

  • Divergent thinking: Generating a wide range of ideas or solutions
  • Experimenting: Combining and manipulating ideas and idea components; redefining the context through which ideas are developed to generate additional possibilities
  • Reflecting and Evaluating: Considering the merit of each idea and its contribution to addressing the problem or intended outcome
  • Elaborating: Communicating an idea’s potential for meeting a given purpose

Designing Assessments For Creative Thinking

Educators who want to develop (or adopt) and use high-quality assessments of creative thinking and other 21 st century skills should attend to a few key issues.

Develop a clear definition of the construct you intend to measure. A clear definition is the foundation of sound measurement and assessment. Unfortunately, research literature often conflates the concepts of creativity, creative thinking, and specific components of creative thinking. This compromises validity for the test’s intended use. A clear definition makes it easier to (a) clarify the desired inferences that educators expect to make from assessment results, (b) determine what evidence will be collected, and (c) design or select assessment approaches and tools that provide information to elicit the appropriate evidence and support valid inferences .

Account for mediating factors. Assessment of creative-thinking skills is complicated by a range of skills and dispositions. Students’ content knowledge and dispositional skills, their cultural backgrounds, and the contexts in which they’re taking the test are potential confounds of creative-thinking outcomes. Therefore, the design of creative-thinking measures—and especially standardized measures—must account for the potential role these factors play in a student’s creative-thinking development and performance. Doing so will mitigate the likelihood that factors unrelated to creative thinking will affect assessment interpretations.

Use results to promote learning, not summative evaluation. Assessment suppresses creativity when it is used—or perceived to be used—for competition and comparison. High-stakes testing can discourage creative thinking, especially in low-performing schools . The pressure to raise scores on such tests can intensify a focus on drill-and-kill skills, influence more traditional and rigid instruction, detract from activities that encourage exploration and discovery, and discourage teachers and students from focusing on related higher-order skills like critical thinking and problem-solving. In contrast, using creative-thinking assessments for formative purposes can improve students’ creative thinking skills.

Implications of Research for Classroom Assessment Use

Decades of research highlight promising instruction and assessment practices to cultivate creative thinking. The research points to important implications for classroom assessment use. I highlight three of the most salient implications below.

Use a range of assessment information to support creative thinking. Educators should incorporate a variety of summative tools and formative strategies in their practice. They should consider gathering evidence from numerous sources that include self and peer assessment, as well as teacher and expert feedback on student work products.

Prioritize Assessment Practices that Complement Promising Instruction. Although the field is not definitive about which instructional strategies are most effective for promoting creative thinking and other higher-order skills, there are well-established and reliable instructional principles of good instruction. Approaches such project- and problem-based learning are two examples. I include a more in-depth review of promising instructional strategies in my literature review .

Use assessment to improve environmental conditions for creative thinking. The environment in which students learn to be creative is a critically important lever for integrating creative thinking into students’ and teachers’ everyday behaviors. Schools should collect and use information to assess school climate and social-emotional supports (i.e., the creative press ) to promote creative thinking and performance.

Adults in schools play a valuable part in role-modeling creativity. Educators who prioritize the creative process likely will incorporate creative practices into their day-to-day conversations, model behaviors that cultivate creativity, and encourage students to practice creative thinking and value creative behaviors.  

The Road Ahead

Research suggests that measuring creative thinking is not only possible; it can be used in powerful ways to develop and optimize the creative potential of students. Doing so requires gathering data from multiple sources to understand the richness and breadth of creativity, in an appropriate context, and for appropriate purposes. Creative thinking is perhaps best developed through everyday formative instructional strategies that emphasize the development of skills and behaviors associated with the creative process, and in school communities where adults are devoted to developing their own creative potential.

Our research on creative thinking was supported by the International Baccalaureate (IB) Programme. The author would like to acknowledge the thought partnership and feedback from colleagues who contributed to this work, including Jen Merriman and Magda Balica from IB, and Will Lorié and Carla Evans at the Center for Assessment. All errors and omissions are my own.

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Critical and Creative Thinking MA

Develop the knowledge, skills, tools, and experience you need to make effective changes in education, work, social movements, science, or the arts.

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UMass Boston’s Critical and Creative Thinking MA was ranked as one of the Best Online Graduate Education Programs by U.S. News & World Report. This program focuses on learning and applying ideas and tools in critical thinking, creative thinking, and reflective practice. It’s designed for students from a wide array of professions and endeavors looking for personal and professional development to develop clarity and confidence to become constructive, reflective agents of change in education, work, social movements and activism, science, and creative arts. You’ll experiment and take risks as you apply what you’re learning in the classroom to real-world situations, reflect on these outcomes and revise accordingly, and build a set of tools, practices, and perspectives that work in your specific professional and personal endeavors. Apply these skills to virtually any field — from education to policy making to the arts.

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  • This program consists of eleven 3-credit courses, or 33 credits.
  • Online tuition is $575 per credit.
  • Total estimated cost to complete this program is $18,975.
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  • Application deadlines are due July 1 for the fall and December 1 for the spring.

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  • Official transcripts of all previous undergrad and graduate work
  • Three letters of recommendation from former teachers familiar with your recent academic work, or from employers familiar with your professional ability
  • Your essay should include specific accounts of your past work and current direction.
  • You should provide a detailed discussion of your specific interests and priorities as a student; the projects you have completed in the past; the problems and topics you want to focus on in future study; and how and why you believe the CCT program can help you accomplish your goals.
  • The CCT Admissions Committee will read your essay as a demonstration of how you write and how you think about issues, as well as determine if your interests and goals match those of the Program.
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  • Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL): Required from students from countries where English is not the primary language
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Required Courses:

  • Critical Thinking (CRCRTH601) Explore issues about the nature and techniques of critical thought, viewed as a way to establish a reliable basis for our claims, beliefs, and attitudes about the world. You’ll explore multiple perspectives, placing established facts, theories, and practices in tension with alternatives to see how things could be otherwise. Views about observation and interpretation, reasoning and inference, valuing and judging, and the production of knowledge in its social context are considered. Special attention is given to translating what is learned into strategies, materials, and interventions for use in your own educational and professional settings.
  • Creative Thinking (CRCRTH602) Increase your understanding of creativity to improve your creative problem-solving skills, and to enhance your ability to promote these skills in others in a variety of educational settings. You’ll participate in activities designed to help develop your own creativity and discuss the creative process from various theoretical perspectives. Readings focus on creative individuals, environments that tend to enhance creative functioning, and related educational issues. Discussions with artists, scientists, and others particularly involved in the creative process focus on their techniques and on ways in which creativity can be nurtured.
  • Processes of Research and Engagement (CRCRTH692) Identify issues in educational or other professional settings on which to focus your critical and creative thinking skills. You’ll work through the different stages of research and action — from defining a manageable project to communicating findings and plans for further work. The classes run as workshops, in which you are introduced to and then practice using tools for research, writing, communicating, and supporting the work of others.
  • Action Research for Educational, Professional & Personal Change (CRCRTH693) Explore techniques for critical thinking about the evaluation of changes in educational practices and policies in schools, organizations, and informal contexts. Study various topics, including quantitative and qualitative methods for design and analysis, participatory design of practices and policies in a framework of action research, institutional learning, the wider reception or discounting of evaluations, and selected case studies, including those arising from semester-long student projects.
  • Synthesis of Theory and Practice Seminar (CRCRTH694) Get an opportunity to review and reflect on your work in the program and its impact on your current and future professional and personal lives, through a final project that demonstrates knowledge and integration of critical and creative thinking skills, processes, and strategies. To facilitate the synthesis of ideas and the identification of a final project option, the seminar begins with group experiences. Students choosing the same final project option meet in small groups weekly to present their plans and progress notes for support and critique. A three-page final project description is presented early in the course, and all projects are presented during the last four weeks.
  • Foundations of Philosophical Thought (CRCRTH603L) By discussing four or five traditional substantive problems in philosophy — morality, the nature of knowledge, freedom of the will, the nature of mind, and social organization — we attempt to derive a common approach that philosophers bring to these problems when developing their own solutions or criticizing the solutions of other philosophers. You’ll also consider some of the ways that substantive issues and debates in philosophy relate to contemporary non-philosophical issues in our society and can be introduced into a broad range of educational environments outside standard philosophy courses.
  • Seminar in Critical Thinking (CRCRTH611) Research and discuss important issues of current concern about critical thinking. Issues include critical thinking, logic and knowledge, critical thinking about facts and about values, knowledge in its social context, teaching to be critical, and evaluating critical thinking skills. Throughout the course, you’ll address these issues through cases of topical interest. 
  • Seminar in Creativity (CRCRTH612) Delve deeply into the theory and practice of promoting creativity using a specific theme, such as invention and innovation, humor, realizing creative aspiration, building creative communities, as a focus for the readings, discussions, class activities, and semester-long projects. Course materials are drawn from a variety of sources to match the instructor's specialty, student interests, and evolving trends in the literature, including biographies, intellectual histories, psychological studies, educational research, the popular media, guest speakers, and outside mentors. Details for the specific semester are publicized in advance by the Program.
  • Holistic & Transformative Teaching (CRCRTH615)  Explore approaches to realize teachers' and fellow students' potential for learning, thinking, and creativity. The course’s primary focus is on holistic strategies to engage students in the creative arts and design. You’ll be actively involved in preparing practical applications and demonstrations of concepts emerging from the class.
  • Dialogue Processes (CRCRTH616) Genuine dialogue provides a creative space in which new ways of thinking, acting, and relating to others may emerge. At the heart of such dialogue is holding respect for oneself, for one another, and for a commonly created pool of meaning. You’ll learn and experience approaches to listening and dialogue derived from Buber, Bohm, Isaacs, Jackins, Weissglass, and others, that allow us to become more aware of the underlying beliefs, assumptions, and emotions that limit our thinking and our responses to the world. Discussions explore applications of dialogue processes in educational, organizational, social, and personal change.
  • Creative Thinking, Collaboration, and Organizational Change (CRCRTH618) Through interactive, experiential sessions, and structured assignments, you’ll learn critical and creative approaches to working in organizations. Skills addressed include communication and team building, facilitation of participation and collaboration in groups, promotion of learning from a diversity of perspectives, problem-finding and solving, and reflective practice. You’ll apply these skills to situations that arise in business, schools, social change groups, and other organizations with a view to taking initiative and generating constructive change.
  • Biomedical Ethics (CRCRTH619) Develop critical thinking about dilemmas in medicine and health care policy, such as those that arise around allocation of scarce resources, criteria for organ transplants, informed consent, experimentation on human subjects, AIDS research, embryo research, and selective termination of pregnancy, euthanasia, and physician-assisted suicide. Through such cases the course introduces you to methods in moral reasoning, rights-based reasoning, decision-making under uncertainty, and utilitarianism in classic and contemporary normative reasoning.
  • Issues and Controversies in Antiracist and Multicultural Education (CRCRTH627) Explore two related forms of education — antiracist education and multicultural education — approaching them as issues in moral and value education and exploring controversies in the theories and practices of antiracist and multicultural education. You’ll study both practical and theoretical issues but with more concentration on theory. You’ll cover various topics, including racism, race, and school achievement; ethnic identity and self-esteem; Afrocentrism; religious pluralism; and multiculturalism as a unifying or divisive force.
  • Criticism and Creativity in Literature and the Arts (CRCRTH630) Expression and evaluation, freedom and discipline, creative production and its critique -how do these dualities relate to visual and verbal imagination as they are demonstrated in literature and the arts? Specific strategies for eliciting imaginative work in these areas are demonstrated, as well as specific strategies for evaluating imaginative works. Finally, you’ll focus on ways of helping others, including children, develop these skills and utilize these strategies effectively.
  • Environment, Science, and Society: Critical Thinking (CRCRTH640) Through current and historical cases, you’ll explore the diverse influences that shape environmental science and politics and their pedagogical, professional, social, and moral implications for educators, environmental professionals, and concerned citizens.
  • Biology in Society: Critical Thinking (CRCRTH645L) Study current and historical cases to examine the political, ethical, and other social dimensions of the life sciences. Close examination of developments in the life sciences can lead to questions about the social influences shaping scientists' work or its application. This can lead to new questions and alternative approaches for educators, biologists, health professionals, and concerned citizens. The specific thematic emphasis each semester is publicized by the Program.
  • Scientific & Political Change (CRCRTH649L)  Prior to WWII, the US government played a relatively small role in the support of science, especially outside of its own institutions. That situation changed dramatically with that war and the ensuing Cold War. You’ll explore how these events transformed the role of science in United States life, vastly enhancing the prestige of scientists, and shaping the extent and the nature of federal involvement in science. These and later developments in the USA and internationally, including the proliferation of new forms of citizen participation and the commercialization of academic research, raise important questions about the appropriate role of science and scientists in shaping political change and the changing meanings of democratic control of science.
  • Mathematics Thinking Skills (CRCRTH650) Explore several types of mathematical thinking in the context of number theory, algebra, geometry, and introductory calculus, and relate them to critical and creative thinking skills. Developmental and experiential factors in learning and teaching mathematics are considered, as well as techniques for determining a learner's mathematical abilities and learning styles. Readings, discussion, research, and problem-solving are used to provide a historical context, and to suggest connections with other disciplines. Individual and small-group projects are adapted to student interests. No formal mathematical background beyond high school algebra and geometry is required.
  • Conceptual Change and Learning (formerly: Children and Science) (CRCRTH652) Explore the ways children think about their natural and social world and how this affects their learning of science. We will be particularly concerned with identifying and describing the organized conceptual frameworks children have prior to instruction (which typically are different from the scientists' conceptualizations) and with understanding the general processes by which conceptual frameworks can be changed. You’ll explore the important questions of in what ways children are fundamentally different learners and thinkers than adults and in what ways they are fundamentally similar.
  • Metacognition (CRCRTH655) Consider various aspects of metacognition and how they influence behavior in children and adults. You’ll cover various topics, including the individual's knowledge of his or her own cognition, self-awareness, the monitoring of conscious thought processes, inferences about unconscious thought processes, metacognition as a decision process, metacognitive strategies, the development of metacognition, and metacognition as a source of individual differences in children.
  • Advanced Cognitive Psychology (CRCRTH651L) Gain an understanding of the field of cognitive psychology from an information-processing viewpoint. You’ll consider how people encode, organize, transform, and output information with an emphasis on topics such as concept formation, problem-solving, and creative thinking.
  • Thinking, Learning, and Computers (CRCRTH670)  Explore the consequences of using computers to aid our thinking, learning, communication, and action in classrooms, organizations, and social interactions. Class activities acquaint you with specific computer-based tools, the ideas and research behind them, and themes for critical thinking about these ideas and tools.
  • Reflective Practice (CRCRTH688) Reflective practitioners in any profession pilot new practices, take stock of outcomes and reflect on possible directions, and make plans to revise their practice accordingly. They also make connections with colleagues who model new practices and support the experimenting and practice of others. In this course, you’ll gain experience and up-to-date tools for reflective practice through presentations, interactive and experiential sessions, and, optionally, supervised pilot activities in schools, workplaces, and communities.

At the end of this two-year program, you’ll be awarded a Master of Arts in Critical and Creative Thinking. The degree will demonstrate your expertise in the field on your résumé, as well as in interviews and workplace evaluations. 

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Cryptopolitan

How Can Creativity and Critical Thinking Thrive in a Tech-Driven World?

I n a rapidly evolving technological landscape, the symbiotic relationship between innovation and introspection stands at the forefront of professional discourse. The amalgamation of Creativity and Critical Thinking in the face of burgeoning technological advancements has become the focal point of contemporary discussions. Amidst the proliferation of AI-powered tools and the democratization of creative resources, concerns arise regarding the preservation of originality and independent thought.

The influence of technology on creative processes

In the contemporary creative landscape, technology serves as both a facilitator and a disruptor. The advent of AI and the proliferation of tech tools have streamlined once laborious processes, rendering tasks such as research, design, and marketing analytics more accessible than ever. However, while these advancements promise efficiency, they also pose challenges to traditional modes of ideation and problem-solving. The ease of generating pre-designed templates and automated solutions may inadvertently stifle individual creativity, leading to homogenized outputs devoid of originality.

As professionals grapple with the implications of technological integration, the need to preserve the human element within creative endeavors becomes increasingly evident. While AI excels in tasks requiring data processing and pattern recognition, it often falls short in replicating the nuanced decision-making and emotional depth inherent in human creativity. Also, reliance on AI-generated outputs may obscure opportunities for serendipitous discovery and unconventional thinking, limiting the potential for truly groundbreaking innovation.

Balancing automation with human ingenuity

Striking a delicate balance between automation and human ingenuity is essential for maintaining the integrity of creative processes. While AI tools offer undeniable advantages in terms of speed and precision, they must complement rather than replace human cognition. By delineating tasks that necessitate human judgment and creativity from those amenable to automation, individuals can preserve the essence of their creative vision. Also, fostering a culture of experimentation and hands-on exploration outside the confines of digital interfaces cultivates adaptability and resilience, traits essential for navigating the complexities of modern creative practice.

As the boundaries between human and machine continue to blur, the role of technology in augmenting human creativity becomes increasingly nuanced. Rather than viewing AI as a threat to creative autonomy, professionals must embrace it as a collaborator, leveraging its capabilities to enhance rather than usurp their creative vision. By integrating technology as a tool for amplifying human ingenuity, individuals can harness its potential to unlock new realms of creative expression while remaining steadfast in their commitment to originality and independent thought.

Nurturing creativity and critical thinking

In the quest to cultivate creativity and critical thinking in a tech-driven world, one must navigate the intricate interplay between innovation and introspection with intentionality and foresight. As we venture into uncharted territory where human intelligence and artificial ingenuity converge, the future of creativity lies not in the hands of technology alone but in the symbiotic relationship between human imagination and technological innovation. 

By embracing a human-centered approach to technology adoption and prioritizing hands-on exploration and experimentation, individuals can transcend the limitations of automation to unlock the boundless potential of human creativity. In an era defined by unprecedented technological advancement, how can individuals harness the power of technology to amplify rather than diminish their capacity for original thought and expression?

How Can Creativity and Critical Thinking Thrive in a Tech-Driven World?

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  1. The benefits of critical thinking for students and how to develop it

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  2. Critical Thinking Definition, Skills, and Examples

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COMMENTS

  1. a guide to creative and critical thinking

    Thinking creatively often requires exploring new possibilities, finding unique angles, and using unconventional solutions. Critical thinking is more focused on a logical and rational process of evaluating that which exists already.

  2. An Introduction to Critical Thinking and Creativity

    An Introduction to Critical Thinking and Creativity: Think More, Think Better Author (s): Joe. Y. F. Lau First published: 4 April 2011 Print ISBN: 9780470195093 | Online ISBN: 9781118033449 | DOI: 10.1002/9781118033449 Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. About this book

  3. What Are Critical Thinking Skills and Why Are They Important?

    Very helpful in promoting creativity Important for self-reflection The basis of science and democracy Critical thinking skills are used every day in a myriad of ways and can be applied to situations such as a CEO approaching a group project or a nurse deciding in which order to treat their patients. Examples of common critical thinking skills

  4. Thinking Critically and Creatively

    Dr. Andrew Robert Baker Critical and creative thinking skills are perhaps the most fundamental skills involved in making judgments and solving problems. They are some of the most important skills I have ever developed. I use them everyday and continue to work to improve them both.

  5. Critical Thinking

    [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: Curiosity Being willing and able to explore alternative approaches and experimental ideas is crucial.

  6. Critical Thinking

    1. History 2. Examples and Non-Examples 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. Critical Thinking Dispositions

  7. Enhancing Creativity and Critical Thinking Skills: A Comprehensive Guide

    The Importance of Creativity and Critical Thinking Strategies for Enhancing Creativity and Critical Thinking Embracing Curiosity and Open-Mindedness Engaging in Diverse Perspectives Practicing Reflective Thinking Encouraging Brainstorming and Idea Generation Seeking Feedback and Constructive Criticism

  8. AN INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL THINKING AND CREATIVITY

    dent of each other. We need creativity in critical thinking to come up with arguments, counterexamples, and alternative explanations. And creativity needs critical thinking in evaluating and improving new ideas. They are both part of the essential thinking toolkit. • Good thinking requires not just knowledge of the principles of good reason-ing.

  9. Creativity and Critical Thinking

    Critical thinking permeates every aspect of creative practice and creative development. Creative practice is catalytic in the acquisition and growth of the skills, dispositions, habits, values and virtues central to growth in complexity of critical thinking.

  10. Fostering Students' Creativity and Critical Thinking

    Creativity and critical thinking are key skills for complex, globalised and increasingly digitalised economies and societies. While teachers and education policy makers consider creativity and critical thinking as important learning goals, it is still unclear to many what it means to develop these skills in a school setting.

  11. Critical Thinking Definition, Skills, and Examples

    Learn how to think critically and use creativity to solve problems or make decisions. Find out why employers value critical thinking skills and how to showcase them in your resume, cover letter, and interview.

  12. Solving Problems with Creative and Critical Thinking

    Solving Problems with Creative and Critical Thinking. Module 1 • 3 hours to complete. This module will help you to develop skills and behaviors required to solve problems and implement solutions more efficiently in an agile manner by using a systematic five-step process that involves both creative and critical thinking.

  13. At The Intersection of Creativity and Critical Thinking

    Generally speaking, creativity is associated with generating ideas, while critical thinking is associated with judging them. In practice, however, the two are not so easy to separate. As parents and teachers know well, creativity without critical judgment tends toward the fanciful, the impractical, the ridiculous.

  14. Full article: Critical thinking, creativity and study results as

    The same holds for good thinking skills: critical thinking and creativity (Lau, Citation 2011). Critical thinking - that is, thinking precisely and systematically, and following the rules of logic and scientifically reasoning - and creativity - that is, coming up with new and useful ideas, generating alternative possibilities - are both ...

  15. Creativity and Critical Thinking

    Creativity and critical thinking are central to effective teaching and learning and have a significant impact on students' attainment, engagement, attendance and behaviour. This book draws on recent research and policy to provide teachers with a clear framework for understanding creativity and critical thinking and practically demonstrates ...

  16. What Is Critical Thinking?

    Critical thinking is the ability to effectively analyze information and form a judgment. To think critically, you must be aware of your own biases and assumptions when encountering information, and apply consistent standards when evaluating sources. Critical thinking skills help you to: Identify credible sources. Evaluate and respond to arguments.

  17. Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication, and Collaboration

    This article addresses some of these challenges and related issues for the future of education and work, by focusing on so-called "21st Century Skills" and key "soft skills" known as the "4Cs" (creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration), more particularly.

  18. Thinking Skills and Creativity

    Aims & Scope. This leading international journal, launched in 2006, uniquely identifies and details critical issues in the future of learning and teaching of creativity, as well as innovations in teaching for thinking. As a peer-reviewed forum for interdisciplinary researchers and communities of researcher-practitioner-educators, the journal ...

  19. Creativity

    Learn how creativity involves the discovery of new and original ideas, connections, and solutions to problems. Find out the sources, steps, and benefits of creativity, as well as the links between creativity and the brain, mental health, and everyday life.

  20. A Critical Review of Assessments of Creativity in Education

    Creativity is generally defined as the ability to produce things that are novel or original and useful or appropriate (Plucker et al., 2004; Runco & Jaeger, 2012).In education, creativity is considered one of the critical 21st Century Skills, along with critical thinking, communication, and collaboration (National Research Council [NRC], 2012).It is essential for deeper learning that focuses ...

  21. Critical Thinking vs. Creative Thinking

    Originality Elaboration Brainstorming Imagery About Critical Thinking Critical thinking is the process of actively analyzing, interpreting, synthesizing, evaluating information gathered from observation, experience, or communication. It is thinking in a clear, logical, reasoned, and reflective manner to make informed judgments and/or decisions.

  22. Taking critical thinking, creativity and grit online

    In this short report we show how critical thinking and creativity can be developed in an online context, as well as highlighting the importance of grit. We also suggest the importance of heuristic evaluation in the design of online systems to support twenty-first century learning. Keywords: Critical thinking, Creativity, Grit, Online learning ...

  23. Assessing Creative Thinking

    Creative thinking is an iterative process in which a person generates and manipulates ideas; tests, refines, and modifies those ideas through critical analysis and evaluation; and communicates ideas to solve a problem, improve problem solutions, or advance knowledge in novel ways.

  24. Critical and Creative Thinking MA

    2 Years. UMass Boston's Critical and Creative Thinking MA was ranked as one of the Best Online Graduate Education Programs by U.S. News & World Report. This program focuses on learning and applying ideas and tools in critical thinking, creative thinking, and reflective practice. It's designed for students from a wide array of professions ...

  25. How Can Creativity and Critical Thinking Thrive in a Tech-Driven ...

    Nurturing creativity and critical thinking. In the quest to cultivate creativity and critical thinking in a tech-driven world, one must navigate the intricate interplay between innovation and ...

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    249 likes, 3 comments - officialicsgh on February 23, 2024: "We are celebrating the triumphant winners of the Business Cup Challenge 2024! Our stud..."