What is Critical Thinking, and Why Do We Need It?

According to Harvard Business School's Stever Robbins in his article The Path to Critical Thinking only one in seven of us ever reaches the top 10 percent of quality thinkers. Critical thinking starts with logic and unfortunately the natural decision process is not one where decisions are made logically, they are made emotionally, and then we apply logic to our emotional decisions. To compound this even further we incorrectly assume if two things happen together then one causes the other.

For instance, early studies suggested that increased light levels in a factory would increase productivity and therefore, more light meant higher productivity. Unfortunately, the Hawthorne effect took over, the workers were aware of the fact a study was being done and any change would have increased production. There was an assumption made and this assumption was wrong and wrong assumptions can cripple us. For instance, if we let people work less hours, then we need to pay them less. This assumption may be true of assembly line jobs but not knowledge based jobs as research has shown it is not the amount of hours you work, but the quality of the work time that drives results. Work hours do not count as much as results. Using statistics can help you with your decisions to go against the grain. Some of our 'absolute truths' can be found to be absolutely wrong if we try and back them up with solid statistical data.

When we do prove some of these truths to be myths, this is when, not only others will think we are crazy, but more importantly, real fortunes can be made. The way we frame or look at a problem will lead to the way we look at the outcome. When we look at problems from one perspective without question we usually end up with the same solution without question. When a manager is presented some data "This course of action has a 20 percent failure rate" most managers will avoid it, instead of re-framing it as having an 80 percent success rate and giving it further consideration. We should always look at problems from as many 'frames' as we can and explore each one. In a nutshell, understand the logic behind your decisions, identify assumptions, analyze data, look at all angles of a situation, bring in other people's viewpoints and think about short and long term ramifications of your decisions (Robbins, 2005).

According to educational experts, critical thinking skills require predicting, hypothesizing, data gathering, decision making, problem solving, comparing and contrasting, organizing, inferring, and evaluating. But won't students gain these skills; do we have to teach them? Research evidence suggests most students will not learn them without explicit attention to helping them do so. Rarely do we look at both or all sides of a situation and as well, we make look for solutions before fully exploring the problem. Studies have shown that "elements of thinking are clearly teachable." Students' performance in math, science and English improved and persisted when re-evaluated two years later. Even though questions remain about the best ways to teach thinking and how this thinking process is transferred into everyday life, having better critical thinkers will lead to better solutions to problems we all face today (Grotzer, 1996).

At the Special Libraries Association 2009 Annual meeting held in Washington, D.C., Mary Lee Kennedy, Rebecca Jones and Deb Wallace presented a seminar titled Critical Thinking wherethey offered the formal definition of Critical thinking as "the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action." Some of the key points they focused on are:

• critical thinking raises the right questions,

• focuses on the real problem or decision to be taken,

• gathers and assesses relevant information,

• develops well-reasoned conclusions and solutions,

• relies on open-mindedness

• communicates effectively with others to solve complex issues

To understand why we need critical thinking a few test cases were offered and decision approaches prepared. In the first case, your budget was cut 10% next year, 80% of your current budget is staff, 15% is content and 5% is various admin costs. Your task was to put together an approach for making the decisions of how to work within this budget. In the second case you have an idea for a new service you want to offer to your customers. You know there isn't any more funding available but you think it is really important to make a case for it. Your task was to put together a plan for making the case to proceed with the service. As you can see, these are real-world situations that the outcome can potentially affect thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people. The seminar went on to describe critical characteristics and what's critical (Kennedy & Jones, 2009).

On the website, Foundation for Critical Thinking, an interview from Richard Paul's book How to Prepare Students for a rapidly Changing World, is published. Mr. Paul ascertains that the apparent lack of ability of teachers to understand the nature of evaluative reasoning or the basic notions of criteria, evidence and reasoning has misled the 150,000 or so teachers which read the national ASCD's Developing Minds by awarding a mis-graded student's essay top prize in the California State-wide writing assessment competition. Mr. Paul went on to state that this is not a rare situation. Our world and each of our lives are riddled with problems just waiting to have effective solutions developed so we can go on, progress and continue with our race. There is no way to solve problems effectively unless one thinks critically about the nature of the problems and of how to go about solving them. Critical thinking is what will allow us to face the largest most serious of problems and create a new and better world (Paul, 1992).

We need critical thinking in all aspects of our lives. If we focus on design, then we need critical thinking for innovation, for production methods, materials, concepts for all disciplines whether it be environmental products, space products transportation, farming or utilitarian products. In order to save our planet, whether from pollution, over population, depletion of natural resources or planetary external threats we need to apply critical thinking. John Barratt espouses "Critical thinking in design, whether from historians, educators, authors or journalists, is largely absent." Products produced in 2007 tend to be produced the same as products produced in 2000. If innovation was around it is not apparent in design. Critical thinking is extremely important as it helps us learn and grow, begs for us to look in the mirror and go on a diet if necessary. The catalyst for change is critical thinking. The current deficiency of critical thinking is a serious problem that needs to be considered (Barratt, 2009).

How do we solve problems of health disparities or even understand them? Why do Asians and Caucasians have lower rates of diabetes than African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans in America? Why do heterosexual men have lower rates of HIV infection than HIV men? Or why do 1000 teen women between the age of 15 and 19 have 93.1 babies a year when Asian women the same age only have 22.8 babies? How will we ever conquer racism if it is institutionalized racism? These are just the tip of the iceberg. How we solve these problems will be either by being lucky and coming up with a good solution or by implementing critical thinking to understand the causes and develop successful, efficient solutions..The Resource Center for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention utilizes the Educational Training Resource center to teach students by applying a critical thinking checklist to understand health disparities (ReCAPP, 2009).

Critical thinking today is ubiquitous, no longer only gracing the halls of the finest academic facilities of the US, but finding its way into the most unobvious of places through managers, employees, customers, suppliers and educators. In Surry Community College in Dobson, North Carolina, educational administrators presuppose the benefits of critical thinking and have implemented it in all aspects of its curriculum. Their philosophy that critical thinking is fundamental to academic success, academic success is fundamental to professional success. Not just getting a job, but retaining a job, succeeding in a job and changing careers when necessary. That professional success spawns civic benefits thus improving communities and creating good citizens. That civic benefits ultimately stimulates personal benefits helping us to make better decisions about our lives, our work, our health, our families, our finances, our emotions and our friendships (Surrey Community College, 2005).

Consider the more specialized questions that will be answered by the use of critical thinking. Questions like what feeding method(s) will work best for infants born with a cleft palate? How do we slow the onslaught of Alzheimer amongst the elderly? Which is the most effective way to teach kindergarteners and first graders not to wander off with someone not authorized to take the child from school? What is the quickest, easiest to administer, least obtrusive, and most accurate assessment tool to see whether a client at a Hospital has an alcohol abuse problem? What environmental and personal characteristics are associated with delinquent behavior of teenage boys? The problems that critical thinking can help us understand far outweigh the solutions, but without understanding the problems in the first place only, solutions would take an even longer amount of time until fruition. The questions that critical thinking can be applied to seem limitless and categories of questions might be more appropriate to discuss; prevention, assessment, description, risk or prognosis and effectiveness categories to just name a few (OXford University Press USA, 2009).

So what is the buzz all about anyway? Doesn't critical thinking come naturally? Isn't common sense and critical thinking one in the same thing? Are you a critical thinker? Experts say that they are not. Critical thinking is the process of holistically understanding as a guide to belief and action. The roots of critical thinking can be traced back to the teachings of Socrates who taught to question everything before you accept the accepted as a belief. Socrates passed this process to his followers, namely, Plato, Aristotle Aquinas, Descartes, Locke and Marx. Two components stand out in this process of critical thinking. They are having the skills to process and generated information and beliefs and the habit of using these skills to guide behavior. Critical thinkers suspend judgment and understanding; they take responsibility for their own thinking which ultimately leads to decisions based on what to belief and what to do. Critical thinkers strive life-long for self improvement and to always consider the rights and needs of relevant others. Even with critical thinking intellectual errors or mistakes occur and critical thinkers need to be cognitively award of their own reflective processes (Barbour, 2009). As stated earlier, Socrates, one of the first documented critical thinkers himself possessed this ability as we can see when he states "the more I learn, the less I know."

How do you become a critical thinker? Most of us feel that we are critical thinkers; however, percentage wise critical thinkers are becoming less and less abundant. Even critical thinkers disagree but they listen to those they disagree with instead of falling in with one side duality. Even the best of us that do choose a duality usually buy into one side more than the other. Globally, there are many different perspectives and people tend to live or socialize with those who validate their beliefs. Being able to travel around inside a country and amongst many countries tends to help fortify this 'parrot' effect of group thinking. To become a critical thinker you have to understand that each person's or group's opinions are based on their own perspective and this creates a different reality for them and to that point, they are correct. To become a critical thinker you need to be secure enough to listen to each side and form your own opinion no matter how unpopular that might be. To become a critical thinker you cannot care what others think about what you think. Critical thinkers find validation from within. The first step is to acquire dualism, the right way and the wrong way. All problems have one correct answer. Unfortunately, this is the highest stage most of us reach. The next stage is relativism, which is opposite to dualism. So this stage there is no black and white but perhaps gray. At this stage there is no right and wrong, but many right answers to the same problem. People at this stage think everything is relative to a person's viewpoint and there is no fixed point of reference. Once an individual reaches this stage they tend to be more 'open minded' to alternative solutions. However, we are not critical thinkers yet. It may seem that relativism is at a higher form of intellect but in reality it is on the same level as dualism, it is dualism's opposite. The alternative that supersedes both dualism and relativism represents critical thinking and that is commitment. Commitment is when you are acutely aware of both but you commit to principles based on consideration of all available information. People at this stage neither commit to black and white nor gray, they have no middle ground but just a commitment to a set of principles based on a careful evaluation of all sides. The respect people at this stage bring to others opinions bring people together and not apart. This stage is very subtle and takes long periods of study and contemplation to make sense. This is not easy and this is why the percentages of critical thinkers amongst the general population seems to be lower and lower as we create more people on earth. As you move to this higher stage, you begin to feel humbled about your past decisions, but be aware that the world needs you to partake in this journey, as it will be these people who will find the real answers and solutions to our problems that matter most (Lee, 2007). I leave you with this quote Tobies George Smollett, "Some people are wise. Some people are otherwise."

Bibliography

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Barratt, J. (2009, August 10). A Plea for More Critical Thinking in Design, Please . Retrieved September 5, 2009, from Fast Company: http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/john-barratt/design-day/plea-more-critical-thinking-design-please

Grotzer, T. A. (1996). Teaching Thinking Skills: Does It Add Up for Math and Science Learning? Retrieved September 7, 2009, from Project Zero Harvard Graduate School of Education: http://pzweb.harvard.edu/Research/MathSciMatters/BK2THKSKRv03.pdf

Kennedy, M. L., & Jones, R. (2009, 6 15). Critical Thinking. Retrieved September 6, 2009, from Special Libraries Association: http://www.sla.org/PDFs/SLA2009/2009_critical-thinking.pdf

Lee, B. (2007, March 30). Become a Critical Thinker. Retrieved September 6, 2009, from Genius Types: http://geniustypes.com/become_a_critical_thinker/

OXford University Press USA. (2009, July 13). Questions That Critical Thinking Will Help You Answer. Retrieved September 6, 2009, from OUPblog: http://blog.oup.com/2009/07/helping-professionals/

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ReCAPP. (2009, September). Skills for Educators: Use of Critical Thinking Skills to Analyze Health Disparities. Retrieved September 7, 2009, from Resource Center for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention: http://www.etr.org/recapp/index.cfm?fuseaction=pages.EducatorSkillsDetail&PageID=98

Robbins, S. (2005, 5 30). The Path to Critical Thinking. Retrieved September 7, 2009, from Harvard Business School Working Knowledge for Business Leaders: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/4828.html#1

Surrey Community College. (2005). Why Critical Thinking? Retrieved September 7, 2009, from Surry Community College: http://www.surry.edu/about/ct/why_ct.html