Critical Thinking

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Critical Thinking

• Dr. John Eigenauer
• Taft College

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Questions to be Answered

• Why should CT be taught?
• What will be accomplished by teaching CT as a
  separate discipline?
• How should CT be taught?
• How will gains be measured?

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Why teach critical thinking?

• Strong correlation between trained critical
  thinking skills and GPA.
• Critical thinking improves with correct training.
• Strong correlation between trained critical
  thinking and reading skills.
• One critical thinking course is roughly
  equivalent to four years of undergraduate
  education.

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CT improves with training.
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What will be accomplished?
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The Parts of Critical Thinking

• Interpretation
• Analysis
• Evaluation
• Inference
• Explanation
• Self-regulation

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The Parts of Critical Thinking

• 1. Interpretation Correctly extracting the
  intended and essential meaning from
  information.2. Analysis To assess the parts and
  relationships of communication.3. Evaluation To
  use intellectual standards to judge the truth,
  credibility, or logical strength of a
  statement.4. Inference To draw reasonable
  meaning, conclusions, or consequences from
  information, knowledge, or evidence.
• 5. Explanation To attempt to show why or how
  something happens (William Hughes).6.
  Self-regulation To consistently apply rules of
  intellectual expertise to one's own arguments.
• http//www.eigenauer.com/criticalthinking

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Research on the State of Student CT Abilities

• Unfortunately, the results of any number of
  national and international studies indicate that
  few high school graduates (or entering college
  students) are able to apply higher-order thinking
  skills to problems faced in everyday life (see
  e.g. NSF, 1996). Controlled studies in psychology
  and education confirm this finding. They indicate
  that most students have difficulty in (a)
  identifying and defining problems from multiple
  perspectives (b) detecting gaps in knowledge and
  information (c) establishing cause-effect
  relationships (d) distinguishing facts from
  opinions or personal values (e) accepting
  unfavorable information and (f) evaluating costs
  and benefits of risky decisions (Arons, 1979
  Baron, 1988 Fiske Taylor, 1991 Gigerenzer,
  1996 Kahneman Tversky, 1996 Leshowitz, 1989
  Leshowitz Yoshikawa, 1996 Nisbett Ross,
  1980 Stanovich West, 1998 Whimbey Lockhead,
  1986). In an exhaustive study evaluating the
  thinking of students in high school, college, and
  graduate school and comparison groups of
  nonstudents, Perkins (1985) has reached similar
  conclusions. Post-primary education appears to
  have little impact on students' reasoning about
  everyday events, and number of years of education
  is only a borderline significant predictor of
  reasoning ability. (Current Issues in Education
  http//cie.asu.edu/volume2/number5/)

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Summary

• Identifying and defining problems from multiple
  perspectives.
• Detecting gaps in knowledge and information.
• Establishing cause-effect relationships.
• Distinguishing facts from opinions or personal
  values.
• Accepting unfavorable information.
• Evaluating costs and benefits of risky decisions.

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From Dartmouth

• Confuse arguments with opinions.
• Do not address complexities of an issue.
• Use first legitimate source for their "opinion."
• Complex issues incapacitate their ability to take
  a stand.
• Will defend personal opinion despite evidence.

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What is the state of critical thinking in
colleges?

• 89 of college instructors said that critical
  thinking was a primary object of their
  instruction.
• 19 could give a clear explanation of what
  critical thinking is.
• 8 could enumerate ANY intellectual criteria or
  standards they required of students or could give
  an intelligible explanation of what those
  criteria and standards were.

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Who teaches critical thinking in colleges?

• 9 of college instructors teach critical thinking
  on a typical class day.
• 77 had little or no conception of how to
  reconcile content coverage with the fostering of
  critical thinking.
• 9 claimed that there is a growing need to teach
  critical thinking.

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Faculty Emphasis on Critical Thinking in
Instruction

• inadvertently confuse the active involvement of
  students in classroom activities with critical
  thinking in those activities.
• are unable to articulate their concept of
  critical thinking.
• cannot provide plausible examples of how they
  foster critical thinking in the classroom.

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Faculty Emphasis on Critical Thinking in
Instruction

• are not able to plausibly explain how to
  reconcile covering content with fostering
  critical thinking.
• do not consider reasoning as a significant focus
  of critical thinking.
• do not think of reasoning within disciplines as a
  major focus of instruction.

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Summary

• People do not learn to think critically without
  targeted instruction.
• There are strong reasons to teach Critical
  Thinking.
• College and university instructors generally do
  not know what CT is.
• College and university instructors generally do
  not know how to do so.

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How should Critical Thinking be taught?
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• Ive been skeptical about claims for various
  approaches to critical thinking, including those
  for argument maps coming from the University of
  Melbourne. Indeed, confident in our skepticism,
  we at Monash Philosophy accepted a challenge to
  compare our methods with theirs on pre- and
  post-test gains on the California Critical
  Thinking Skills Test developed by Peter Facione
  (1990, 1992). The Monash students did a bit
  better than theirs on the pre-test, raising our
  hopes. But when Melbourne Universitys post-test
  results showed far higher performance gains, I
  thought their method worth a closer look.
• Charles Twardy, Monash University
• Published in Teaching Philosophy

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What Works?
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What Works?
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What Works?
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