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quotations about technical education essay

The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.

I had to gain experience as I did not have a technical education.

quotations about technical education essay

Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know.

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.

We are looking for ways to decrease the dropout rate. I am pretty sure, if we eliminate career and technical education, we are going to increase the dropout rate.

I feel strongly that we have to have an education system that starts with preschool and goes through college. That's why I want more technical education in high schools and in community colleges, real apprenticeships to prepare young people for the jobs of the future.

The antithesis between a technical and a liberal education is fallacious. There can be no adequate technical education which is not liberal, and no liberal education which is not technical.

So outside agriculture, in manufacturing and services, we must create a lot more jobs. But that also means that we must ensure that our systems of general education and technical education are in line with the job requirements that a more modern manufacturing and a more modern services sector would require.

In my own house I rigged up a laboratory and studied chemistry in the evenings, determined that there should be nothing in the manufacture of steel that I would not know. Although I had received no technical education I made myself master of chemistry and of the laboratory, which proved of lasting value.

In my own view, some advice about what should be known, about what technical education should be acquired, about the intense motivation needed to succeed, and about the carelessness and inclination toward bias that must be avoided is far more useful than all the rules and warnings of theoretical logic.

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is an important step forward in ensuring that the United States remains competitive in the global economy. Career technical education (CTE) shares the Initiative s goal that all students must be college and career ready. CTE programs that incorporate the Common Core Standards will ensure students have the academic and technical knowledge and skills to be successful in the 21st century workplace.

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Technical Education Essay

Technical Education Essay | Outlines, Quotations and Good Comprehension

Introduction:.

Education is a key to success.  We do not acquire education only for the purpose of getting information and developing the power of judgments but to be prepared for our professional life.  Education enlightens our minds and widens our thoughts.  In other words, getting an education is not a purpose but a means to a purpose.  There are many kinds of educations which include technical education, liberal or general education, etc.  Both of them train people in their span.  Technical education is quite different from general education.   Technical education can be defined as tutoring skills to make a living out of it.  Technical education can be exampled as carpentry, medical, tailoring, etc. 

Technical education is interlinked with the usage of technology.  People who acquire technical knowledge and become skilled in their departments are called technicians.  Technical education shapes the world according to human needs.  This can be described as manual work or manual labor.  Without this technical education or manual labor, we cannot meet our everyday needs and requirements. 

I had to gain experience as I did not have technical education Mikhail Kalashnikov

Significance of technical education:

This is the modern era in which almost everything is done by machines which reduces time and human efforts.  Machines have become so vital that there is no aspect of life completed without it.   Even the small tasks of our everyday life are done by machines.  Although machines reduced our efforts there is no doubt that machines cannot operate by themselves either they cannot instruct themselves to run.  So, we delicately need technicians and skilled workers to run these machines.  Technicians operating a machine should have proper knowledge and information of all the functions of that machine.  So, the importance of technical laborers cannot be denied.  There is a wide span of technical education in this regard of the endless usage of machines.  All scientific innovations are dependent on technical workers and skilled minds. 

Technical education is significant in raising the rate of literacy in the country.  Not every student of a country is mentally perfect for learning the combination of science and arts or business education.  There are many students who wish to serve their country in a divergent way. 

In this era of the global market, our commercial products and stocks do not assemble to the international market in quality.  This is because of unskilled and unqualified staff in our industry. 

After getting a quality education from schools, colleges and universities our students are still unemployed and even rejected by the other countries for the job.  This is just because of a lack of technical knowledge and skillful expertise.  Therefore, our educated people are more distressed than the uneducated masses of our country. 

The goal of education is understanding; the goal of training is performance

Government Innovations in technical education:

Technical education is vital for the development of the country.  Learning techs and skills is the only way of getting rid of unemployment and surviving in this modern era.  Our government should take notice of plenty of raw materials available but no technical and skilled laborers and modern technology.  So, our economy should be moved from agriculture to industry. 

We need to open vocational and technical centers in small and big cities as well to produce qualified and skilled workers.  Though the government took the initiative of making TEVTA centers for technicians but still there is a lack of institutes in small and rural areas of our country.  We should ensure the economic prosperity of our society that is dependent only on getting technical education.  With general and liberal education technical education should be a key focus of our education system. 

Our country is facing intense suffering in unemployment.  Technical education is the only way of making our country prosperous, developed and resourceful.  General education is also important to be a good citizen but technical education is vital to make living and to survive in this inflation.  So, in this time vocational and technical education centers are important to meet the requirements of this era. 

The principal goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done

Forms of technical education:

Technical education has many forms like agriculture, carpenters, constructor, tailor, etc.  Our ways of living and requirements of life vary according to our lifestyles.  So we need technicians for food, clothing, to meet the limitations of the modernized era.  In the field of medicine, we need technical workers like, nurses to look after the patients.  Nursing also requires proper knowledge about medications and dealing with patients. 

As agriculture is the backbone of our country so we need skilled farmers and qualified young men with innovative new ideas.  Skilled farmers are important if we want to impart in the development of our country.  These qualified workers should have the proper knowledge of newly introduced machinery.  Foreign countries are using new technology to grow crops and if we are still stuck with old conceptions of growing crops we will lose in the long run. 

The great end of life is not knowledge but action T.H Huxley

Span of technical education

Time has changed and we have shifted human efforts to machinery.  Now, we sew clothes with newly invented machines instead of knitting with our hands.  Even mobile phones and other mini-computers are used to stay connected with friends and family.  We do not need a postman to post our messages for friends and loved ones far away.  So we need skilled workers and qualified youngsters who know the usage of this machinery. 

Moreover, in this context technical persons can never be unemployed.  Technical and skilled workers do not need to beg for jobs and request to be hired.  They know what to do and how to make their livings from their skills.  A skillful person never faces unemployment.  There is a wide span of technical education.  Young man and women after completing education face unemployment and difficulties finding a job that meet their educations and learnings.  In this regard, technical education is important to start their own business instead of engaging themselves in petty jobs. Technical education is the only way of choosing a profession according to one’s capability and interest. 

Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.

Conclusion:

Our government has made great innovations in expanding technical education by building TEVTA centers.  TEVTA is the abbreviation of technical education and vocational training authority.  But still, we need to follow the educational system of some developed countries because the development of a country depends on technical, skillful and qualified masses.  Only technical education can solve so many problems of our country which include unemployment, literacy rate, poverty and economy.  So, technical education is highly required in this current era. 

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Importance of technical education essay in English

 Here is another Essay in English for the 2nd year and 10th class, 12 class with outlines and quotations. The essay is best on the topic of Technical education in Pakistan. The context of this essay is technical education in Pakistan. You can download the essay in pdf here.

English essay on Technical Education

Now the essay with outline is given. Class 12 and class 10 students can see this essay topic in their smart syllabus. So, I have written these essays to help the students in 2021 exams in English. The quotations are included at various points in the essay.

Essay on the Importance of Technical education for 2nd year

Essay on the Importance of Technical education for 2nd year

I had to gain experience as I did not have technical education- Mikhail Kalashnikov
The great end of life is not knowledge but action- T.H Huxley
The goal of education is understanding, the goal of training is performance - Frank Bell

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  • Sat. Feb 10th, 2024

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Latest Information, Education, Online Earning and Much More

A Best Comprehensive Essay on Technical Education With Quotations

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By Arbaz Javed

Essay on Technical Education

You’ll find an essay about technical education with interesting quotes in the following article. This essay is for the 10th Class, 12th Class, and graduation-level students. Students can write this essay if the questions are Technical Education Essay with Quotations, Essay on Technical Education with Quotes, and Essay on Importance of Technical Education.

Table of Contents

Technical Education Essay with quotes for Class 10, Class 12, and Graduation

Traditional schooling is no longer sufficient to secure an enjoyable and rewarding future in today’s quickly changing society. Various opportunities and problems have changed, and as a result, there is a greater demand for technical education than ever before. 

“Science is a key which unlocks for mankind a store of nature.” 

Technical education is critical in shaping the modern workforce, giving individuals with practical skills and knowledge that enable them to make meaningful contributions to society and the economy.

At its core, technical education provides individuals with the knowledge and skills required to succeed in specific sectors and fields. Technical education dives into the practical aspects of numerous subjects, as opposed to general education, which largely concentrates on academic knowledge. It helps students prepare for real-world difficulties and professional achievement by eliminating the gap between academics and industry.

One of the most significant benefits of technical education is its potential to address the problem of unemployment. The modern world is characterized by rapid advancements in technology and automation, frequently resulting in a shift in job needs. 

“The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you.”

Technical education guarantees that individuals are well-prepared to meet the needs of the job market by providing specialised training and abilities. This proactive strategy not only eliminates unemployment but also promotes economic growth by cultivating a capable and skilled workforce.

General education has long been promoted over technical education in many parts of the world, resulting in a shortage of trained employees and a need for more expertise in critical fields. This imbalance frequently results in individuals being unprepared for the demands of the modern workforce, which contributes to unemployment and poverty. One of the best quotes about technical education is Ralph Waldo Emerson says:

“Skills make dreams happen.”

The lack of technical education is the major factor in Pakistan’s economic crisis.

The country has a wealth of raw material resources, but the lack of technical knowledge and skills makes it difficult to use these resources for economic gain. As a result, while the potential for progress and prosperity, poverty remains.

To overcome these difficulties, it is critical to recognize the importance of technical education and to take action to integrate it into educational systems. Prioritizing technical education has proven beneficial in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, and China. These countries have reaped the rewards of a trained workforce, strong industry, and long-term economic growth.

“Skills are the currency of the future.”

Furthermore, the value of moral education and technical instruction cannot be emphasized. While technical education provides individuals with practical skills, moral education promotes values and ideals that influence how those talents are applied. 

Societies may assure economic prosperity and the holistic development of individuals who contribute constructively to their communities by integrating both forms of education.

2nd Essay on Technical Education and Its Importance & Value in Human Life

Today we’ll talk about something incredibly cool and important: “technical education.” Have you ever thought about how your toys, gadgets, or even large equipment work? Technical education, on the other hand, is all about learning how to manufacture and repair things. It’s like being a mechanical superhero.

Learning Useful Skills

Technical education teaches you a variety of useful skills. You learn to build, fix, and create things in the same way that you learn to ride a bicycle. You learn how to employ tools to make things better, much like a superhero’s toolkit. You’ll get pretty proficient at making and fixing things this way.

Discovering Amazing Machines

Consider yourself a detective exploring how machines work. Technical education teaches you about the inner workings of machines such as computers, television, and even automobiles. You get to look inside and solve the mystery. It’s like being a magician who understands all the tricks.

Building a Bright Future

When you know a lot about technology, you can choose interesting occupations when you grow up. You can work as an engineer, scientist, or inventor. These careers allow you to use your superhero abilities to tackle major problems and make the world a better place. Remember, even superheroes began off as learners!

Fixing Things Like a Pro

Have you ever seen someone fixing a damaged toy or a dripping tap? With technical education, you can become a repair expert! Broken objects can be made to work again. It’s as if you have a magical touch that can bring things back to life.

You may also like : Water Crisis In Pakistan Essay. 

Finally, the essay on technical education serves as a reminder of the importance of this type of education in creating the present and future. It highlights the significance of practical skills, vocational training, and the development of a skilled workforce. As the world grows, adopting technical education is a step towards growth, prosperity, and a brighter future.

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Technical education english essay with quotations for 10th and 12th class.

Technical Education English Essay with Quotations for 10th and 12th Class

Technical Education English Essay

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Hello, I am Maher Afrasiab a founder of Ratta.pk and some other websites. I have created ratta.pk to promote the eductaion in Pakistan. And to help the students in their studies. Find me on Facebook: @Maher Afrasiab

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Essay on Technical Education

Students are often asked to write an essay on Technical Education in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Technical Education

Introduction.

Technical Education is a branch of learning that provides practical knowledge and skills for specific occupations or technologies.

Technical education plays a vital role in the modern age. It helps students gain specialized knowledge and become self-reliant.

Technical education offers practical skills, leading to direct employment. It also promotes innovation and entrepreneurship.

In conclusion, technical education is essential in today’s world. It provides the necessary skills to meet the demands of the evolving job market.

250 Words Essay on Technical Education

Technical education refers to the practical application of scientific knowledge and principles. It is a branch of learning that focuses on imparting skills related to specific trades, professions, or occupations. Unlike traditional forms of education that primarily emphasize theoretical knowledge, technical education is more about practical skills and hands-on learning.

Importance of Technical Education

In today’s rapidly evolving world, technical education holds enormous significance. It is instrumental in fostering the development of a skilled workforce that can meet the demands of various industries. It equips individuals with the necessary skills and knowledge to perform specific tasks, making them more employable and productive.

Benefits of Technical Education

Technical education offers numerous benefits. It provides a direct link between education and the workplace, ensuring that students are job-ready upon graduation. It also promotes innovation and creativity, as students are trained to solve real-world problems using technical skills. Furthermore, it contributes to economic growth by filling the skills gap in various sectors.

Challenges and Solutions

Despite its importance, technical education faces several challenges. These include a lack of awareness, inadequate infrastructure, and outdated curricula. To overcome these challenges, it is crucial to raise awareness about the value of technical education, invest in infrastructure, and update curricula to keep pace with industry trends.

In conclusion, technical education plays a pivotal role in today’s knowledge-driven economy. By equipping individuals with the necessary skills and knowledge, it ensures a competent workforce that can drive economic growth and development. However, for it to reach its full potential, concerted efforts are needed to address existing challenges.

500 Words Essay on Technical Education

Technical education is a branch of vocational education that focuses on practical applications of various concepts. It is a systematic, organized and institutionalized segment of education that equips individuals with practical and professional skills in various sectors of a country’s economy.

The Importance of Technical Education

In the rapidly transforming global landscape, technical education is gaining prominence. It bridges the gap between traditional academic education and the required skill sets in the professional world. It offers hands-on experience and direct job-specific skills, making individuals ready for the job market.

Technical education is vital for national development. It fosters innovation, enhances productivity, and promotes entrepreneurship. It also addresses the skills mismatch in the labor market, reducing unemployment and underemployment rates.

The Current State of Technical Education

Despite its significance, technical education often remains under-prioritized in many countries. Traditional academic education is still considered the primary route to success, leading to an imbalance in the workforce. However, the increasing demand for skilled professionals is gradually altering this perception.

In developed countries, technical education is highly advanced and well integrated into the education system. It is seen as a viable alternative to conventional academic pathways. On the other hand, developing countries still face challenges in implementing effective technical education due to a lack of resources, infrastructure, and trained professionals.

Challenges and Opportunities

The main challenges in technical education include the stigma associated with vocational training, lack of awareness, inadequate infrastructure, outdated curriculum, and the rapid pace of technological change. There is a need for a paradigm shift in societal attitudes towards technical education and a significant investment in infrastructure and curriculum development.

However, there are immense opportunities as well. The advent of Industry 4.0, characterized by automation, data exchange, and the Internet of Things (IoT), is creating a demand for new skill sets. Technical education can play a pivotal role in preparing the workforce for this digital revolution.

In conclusion, technical education is a crucial component of a comprehensive education system. It is instrumental in driving economic growth, fostering innovation, and reducing unemployment. It is high time that policymakers, educators, and society at large recognize the value of technical education and invest in its development. As we move towards a more technologically advanced future, the role of technical education will only become more significant.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

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Technical education essay with quotations.

Technical Education Essay

Technical Education Essay

The goal of education is understanding; the goal of training is performance
I must emphasize that greater attention should be paid to technical and vocational education
Technology is a gift of God after the gift of life, it is perhaps the greatest of God’s gifts. It is the mother of civilizations, of arts, and of sciences

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Anila Ibrahim

An educationist, web content writer, equipped with an LLB and a Master’s degree in English Literature, as well as a Master of Philosophy in Entrepreneurship. I have a comprehensive understanding of both the English language and the educational landscape. This academic background empowers Anila to deliver content that is not only informative but also thoroughly researched.

13 thoughts on “ Technical Education Essay with Quotations ”

Beautiful essay.

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Thank you for sharing such a beautiful essay on technical education

Remarkable! Its genuinely awesome piece of writing, I have got much clear idea about from this piece of writing.

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Essay on Technical Education with Quotes and Kips notes

quotations about technical education essay

  • January 4, 2024

Kainat Shakeel

In the moment’s fleetly evolving world, the pursuit of knowledge has taken different forms, with technical education arising as a crucial player in shaping the future. This composition explores the realms of technical education, its elaboration, challenges, success stories, and the profound impact it has on individualities and society. 

Technical education is a technical form of literacy that focuses on conducting practical chops and knowledge in specific fields such as engineering, information technology, and vocational trades. In a world driven by invention and technological advancements, the significance of technical education can not be exaggerated.

Elaboration of Technical Education

The roots of technical education can be traced back through history, evolving from traditional education systems to meet the changing requirements of society. As diligence became more technical, the demand for individualities with practical skills and moxie grew, leading to the establishment of technical education institutions. 

” Specialized education is the backbone of any nation’s progress. It empowers individualities to contribute meaningfully to society.”( John Doe)

Key components of technical education.

Central to technical education are specialized courses and programs designed to equip students with the skills demanded by diligence. Beyond theoretical knowledge, practical training plays a pivotal part in honing the capacities of individuals entering the pool.

Challenges in Technical Education

Despite its significance, technical education faces challenges, including misconceptions and impulses. Addressing these issues is pivotal in icing that individualities fete the value of vocational training and the different openings it presents. 

” In the word of technical education, every skill learned is a stepping gravestone towards particular and societal advancement.” (Jane Smith)

Advantages of pursuing technical education.

The advantages of pursuing technical education are multifaceted. From economic career openings to particular commissions, individualities gain a competitive edge in the job request while passing particular growth and fulfillment. 

Success Stories in Technical Education

Real-world success stories pullulate, illustrating how individuals who pursued technical education achieved remarkable feats. From starting their businesses to leading groundbreaking systems, these individualities illustrate the impact of specialized skills across colorful diligence.

Inventions in Technical Education

The geography of Technical education continues to evolve with inventions similar to online platforms and immersive technologies. These advancements enhance the literacy experience, making specialized education more accessible and engaging. 

Promoting Inclusivity in Technical Education

Efforts to break gender conceptions and promote inclusivity in specialized fields are essential. Encouraging diversity in registration and fostering an inclusive terrain contribute to a more vibrant and innovative technical community. 

Future of Technical Education

Anticipating the future of technical education involves considering emerging technologies and evolving career paths. As diligence acclimates to technological advancements, the skills demanded from individuals in specialized fields will also evolve.

Government Enterprise in Technical Education

Government programs and programs play a vital part in shaping the geography of technical education. enterprise that enhances the availability and affordability of specialized courses contributes to a professed and competitive pool. Collaboration between educational institutions and diligence is pivotal. Bridging the gap between academia and real-world operations ensures that technical education remains applicable and meets the dynamic requirements of the pool.

Tips for Success in Technical Education

For those embarking on a trip in technical education, guidance is consummated. From time operation to erecting a professional network, these tips offer precious perceptivity for success in a specialized literacy environment. 

Addressing the Stigma Around Technical Professions

Dispelling myths and addressing the smirch girding technical professions is vital. By showcasing the different and poignant nature of technical careers, society can foster a positive perception of these precious professions. 

In conclusion, technical education is a dynamic and essential force driving progress in our world. Its multifaceted nature, coupled with the evolving geography of diligence, makes it a crucial player in shaping the future. individualities are encouraged to explore and embrace the openings presented by technical education, contributing to both particular growth and societal advancement.

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Kainat Shakeel is a versatile Content Writer Head and Digital Marketer with a keen understanding of tech news, digital market trends, fashion, technology, laws, and regulations. As a storyteller in the digital realm, she weaves narratives that bridge the gap between technology and human experiences. With a passion for staying at the forefront of industry trends, her blog is a curated space where the worlds of fashion, tech, and legal landscapes converge.

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Importance of Technical Education

Importance of Technical Education Essay

Pakistan has an excess of literary education. So, the need of the hour is of introducing technical education effectively. In this way Pakistan will be on way to progress and prosperity.

Outlines for Importance of Technical Education

What technical or industrial education means, technical education is needed to run our different industries and to expand them, technical education in necessary for industrial progress, is necessary for agricultural progress, students after the matriculation examination,, can join technical or industrial institutions, highly qualified technical experts needed for our industries, first-rate technical education is needed in the country., importance of technical education (800 words).

Technical education means the practical application of the general principles and methods of Scientific studies to the teaching of some trade, profession or handicraft. The importance such training in a country like Ours is quite obvious. In Pakistan, more than eighty percent of the population is agricultural and another ten percent is industrial. So we cannot afford to overemphasize literary education and ignore technical education.

In view of the modern age of advancement, it is a fact that an independent Pakistan Cannot keep pace with advanced countries unless we direct our attention to technical instruction. We also need to correct the present faulty system of education.

An American thinker has said, There are two obvious kinds of education.

  • One should teach how to live
  • The other how to make a living.

[the_ad id=”17141″]Unfortunately, in our country, we are only taught how to live we do not know how to make a living. We are brought to know and learn literature and history but we lack practical knowledge and training. That is why our student has to face so many problems when he enters the practical world. He runs from pillar to post in search of a job but everywhere finds the same depressing reply, “No Vacancy” . Such disappointments make them commit suicide or if at all life, live a Wretched life full of cares and worries.

It is rightly said that there are only three ways of earning one’s livelihood, working, begging and stealing. If someone fails to earn by the first method that is by working, it is natural that one will certainly adopt begging or stealing. Therefore, a young man who has failed to seek a job and earn by working must inevitably turn out to be either a beggar or a stealer. The question arises who is responsible for this production of beggars and stealers.

The answer is wanted of technical instruction in Our School and colleges. So, if we do not want our educational institutions to produce a generation of beggars and stealers but that of the honest upright gentleman then it is essential to teach the boys and girls in some special branch of industry, mechanism, handicraft, trade or a profession. In this way, at the end of their educational career, they are able to find employment and earn their living easily and respectfully.

Advantages of Technical Education

[the_ad id=”17142″]Technical education has manifold advantages. Technical education Solves the problem Of unemployment. It supplies industries with a large body of trained workers. Technical education will pay for the education of our children and make them studious and self-supporting. Pakistan is a poor country. We do not have adequate means to finance studies so technical education shares the financial burden of the parents.

Disadvantages of Technical Education

Technical education is also subject to some disadvantages. Literary education is quite necessary. Criticizing the excess of technical education, if literary Schools are a training-ground of clerks, the technical Schools would have a large number of children workers. A true form of education is one that aims at the full and harmonious development of all aspects of human personality. Literary education should also be imparted to follow noble ideals and aspirations of life. Otherwise, we will be devoid of the consideration of morality and high virtues. He may indulge in bad habits and waste his money, which he earns by virtue of his technical qualifications.

Importance of Technical Education (400 Words)

“Technical education centres should provide instruction in running machines after labour has had the basic education.”

Technical or industrial education means education in the use of different kinds of machines and techniques of the industry. Those who obtain (get) such education learn the parts or components of machines and the ways of working and repairing them. They also learn about the production and use of their spare parts.[the_ad id=”17144″]

We need industrial education to run our different industries and to expand them. We have the cloth, sugar, iron and other industries. There commodities (things) are produced that we use every day. Technical (or industrial) knowledge is necessary for us to run these industries. We have to make quick industrial progress. We have to set up new industries manufacturing (producing) heavy machines like a car, and airplane engines. It is possible only if we have highly educated industrial and technical experts.

We have to make quick agricultural progress. We can do this if we use machines like tractors, threshers (machines which separate the wheat from the chaff and tube-well engines on, our farms. We shall have to set up industries. We shall need technical experts to work them: So we should provide technical education of the best quality to those who desire to become such experts. Now we have to raise new dams and maintain the old ones in different parts of the country. For this, technical experts of the highest order are urgently needed.

Those students, who pass the matriculation or Intermediate examination, can join industrial or technical institutions. There should be a large number of such institutions all over the country. We should have highly qualified technical experts needed to plan and set up new industries… They are also needed to supervise the work of industrial workers and technicians and to guide them. We have engineering colleges and universities that provide engineers and technical experts. These engineers and technicians should know the latest industrial techniques and methods.

We do have technical or industrial institutions where technicians, foremen (workers directing and supervising other workers), overseers, etc. get educated and trained. We should have more of such institutions. Better facilities for training industrial workers should be made available. We need first-rate technical education in the country. We cannot progress fast without having properly trained industrial experts, technicians, and workers.

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Technical Education Essay

  • Author Writer

                                             Technical Education Essay

Education plays an important role in progressing mankind and societies as a whole. General education has in the past proven to be key in promoting livelihood and increasing any nation’s labor force and productivity. However, the current need for labor has rendered general education insufficient for the labor market in the wake of fierce competition. This insufficiency is evident from a large number of unemployed who can boast of their certificates but are not considered skilled and technical enough to meet the current demand for labor. Furthermore, with the governments striving to provide basic education to all its citizens as a basic human right, its value has decreased over time. This calls for a need to focus on technical education and training in order to expand the expertise of human resources.

What is Technical Education?

Technical education is a type of education providing specialized skills and practical knowledge and is concerned with technology. Its difference from general education is that it makes learners focus on special fields and increase their expertise on the same. These special fields may include carpentry, agriculture, engineering, medicine among others. Learners who go through this education are referred to as technicians in the fields they focused on.

What is the importance of technical education in a country?

Technical education is important for the progress of any economy. People with specialized skills are needed for the construction of companies, development of real estate, to build a road that improves the infrastructure of the country. Having adequate numbers of technicians in each field increases the rate of development in a country.

This type of education solves unemployment issues that are prevalent in most countries. The skills that one acquires from technical education are mostly in high demand in the labor market. In cases where one is unable to find a job, he or she can start and run a business based on skills and practical knowledge. With this, the unemployment rate reduces.

When it comes to promoting the livelihood and the economic status of a country, technical education might just be the key. A large pool of technical labor means that a country is capable of producing more. By producing more, a country may benefit by exporting the surplus. The money realized from these arrangements increases the Gross Domestic product hence the economic status of a nation. In another perspective, a country having a large pool of technical labor may save the resources required to hire technical services from other countries.

Technical education in the Kenyan context

Kenya being a developing country, it is evident that we still don’t have the required technical labor force. The focus has always been on general education and this has resulted in the country having to hire experts from other countries to construct the road and other construction works. The unemployment rate in Kenya is high because many do not have the skills and practical knowledge in specific fields. However, the current government has come up with various programs to promote technical education. Technical and training institutions have been built. Programs such as Kazi Mitaani have promoted the youth to gain and apply their skills in specific areas. If the country continues on this trajectory, then there is hope in our economic systems.

                                                         Works Cited

Abbot. A.                    ‘Education for Industry and Commerce in England.’ OUP.  1933.

Aldcroft. D. H.            ‘Education, Training and Economic Performance.’ MUP. 1992.

Education and Training. ‘State Intervention in Technical Education in the UK.’ P. D. McBride. 

                                         Education & Training.  Vol.36. Issue 1. 1994.

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Essay on Technical Education in English with Outline Quotations

Education plays an important role in the success of any country. Education makes an ordinary man to successful man. Through education nations are able to face challenges with comfort and ease. Education sector is divided into three major categories. Technical education is one of them. It is something else than the general education. In this education system people are taught about the technical skills or make you expert in the field of “technical know-how”. It means learning and teaching about the usage of machinery from schools, college, universities and Technical institutions. The purpose of technical education is to create an interest for constructive and creative work, to create expertise and skills among the students, as career option students should consider self-employment first, to build up positive attitude towards technical and science education and most of all enhancing the situation about the man-power information.

We are living in the 21 st century where technology is commonly used in every field. Technology has made our life very smooth and easy. To adapt or to use the technology is not so difficult but to develop the technology is not smooth and easy. Pakistan is very good at adopting a technology but it lacks in developing a technology due to a number of reasons because it need very expert team, a large number of capital and most of all it requires thorough knowledge to create any sort of technology. Therefore in our education, it is essential that there must be shift of emphasis. Large number of people should gain technical education. The greatest benefit of technical education is that the employment scope is unlimited.

education

At present there is need of technical education in Pakistan. In the educational system of Pakistan, technical education sector is not much considered which is now becoming the biggest mistake. Less number of technical people means less development. Technical education should be given to the students of all grades so that in future they are able to set their own aims and have ability to analyze and create their goals and missions. Our country is successfully moving towards the industrialization, setting bigger factories and big plants. Huge projects are being setup.

The success of a country is largely depend on the automated agriculture and industry, without which a country not able to stand in the list of economic successful countries. In fact in each department there is a need of technical persons. So it is necessary that good and quality technical education should be offered to the people so that they work better in their professional life. In addition, effective and good technician schools are needed and the government should take radical steps to promote such school so that the people of Pakistan take full benefit from these institutes.

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Bsc ba adp english essay technical education with outline & quotations, bsc ba adp fsc ics fa icom english essay technical education with outline & quotations essay notes online taleem ilmi hub.

BSc BA FSc ICS FA ICom English Essay Technical Education

To view Quotations for Essays. Click  Here .

1. Introduction

  • Classification of education
  • Social, spiritual and vocational types of education

2. Modern trends of industry and agriculture

  • Modern ways of cultivation
  • Use of agricultural machines

3. Benefits of Technical education

  • Increase the material resources
  • It promotes the material prosperity and economic advancement

4. Technical education in Pakistan

  • Lack of technical institutions
  • Poverty due to negligence of technical education

5. Conclusion

Education can be classified into three parts. Education that teaches us how to live in society is called social education. The education that develops our personality can be termed as spiritual education. Education that teaches how to earn our living is named as vocational education. Technical education is a branch of vocational education. It means training in technology, industry and mechanics. Its aim is to provide instruction and training in skills that have a practical use. Those who obtain such education learn about the production and use of their spare parts.

The engineers, builders and merchants are the most useful section of an industrial society. Ours is an age of industry. In our part of the world where industrialization is just beginning, there is a great need for technical workers. Even agriculture which has been our major occupation will not prosper if modern ways of cultivation are not employed. It is possible only if our farmers are trained to use agricultural machines. Thus they will be able to do more work in less time.

Technical education is not only necessary but also the only answer to the problems of our expending economy. Through technical education we can increase the material resources for country. It promotes the material prosperity and economic advancement. It imparts quickness, attention, neatness and order to workers. It creates faith in the dignity of labour. If a country has her own technical experts she can save a lot of foreign exchange. It produces doers and workers, and the workers are the people who make real and important contribution to the welfare of society. Naturally society must honour them and pay them better wages. In short, technical education makes a country rich, prosperous and resourceful.

In Pakistan, there is lack of technical education. Our school and colleges produce clerks. Our young-men run after office jobs. They do not learn practical skills. Poverty in Pakistan is due to the negligence of technical education. Our country is rich in raw material resources, but we do not have technical knowledge to benefit from them. We should know that technical education is the very condition of modern civilization. Our educationists must realize the need of technical education. More and more technical institutions should be established and the idea of dignity of labour should be popularized if we want our country to progress and prosper.

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Technical Education Essay Quotes & Sayings

why is critical thinking important in social studies

  • Our Mission

Preparing Social Studies Students to Think Critically in the Modern World

Vetting primary resources isn’t easy—but doing it well is crucial for fostering engagement and deeper learning in a rapidly changing world.

An illustration of a microscope looking at a history book

In an era when students must sort through increasingly complex social and political issues, absorbing news and information from an evolving digital landscape, social studies should be meaningful and engaging—a means for preparing students for the modern world, writes Paul Franz for EdSurge . Yet much of our social studies curricula emphasizes content knowledge over the development of foundational, critical thinking skills such as understanding the context in which primary sources were created, and determining the credibility of resources.

“The consequence of this approach, coupled with a preference by many schools for multiple-choice assessments, turns out students who are disillusioned with social studies—and creates an environment where “accumulating knowledge and memorizing information is emphasized because that’s what counts on standardized tests,” writes Franz.

In his book Why Learn History (When It’s Already on Your Phone) , author Sam Wineburg, a professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, examines how historians approach resources and argues that this is how teachers should be rigorously vetting—and teaching students to vet—social studies materials for the classroom.

Wineburg first describes how an AP US History student analyzes a New York Times article from 1892 about the creation of Discovery Day, later renamed Columbus Day. The student criticizes the article for celebrating Columbus as a noble hero when, in fact, he “captured and tortured Indians.” However, when real-life historians examine the same article, Wineburg notes that their  approach is “wildly different.”

“When historians encounter this resource, their first move is to source it and put it in context, not to engage with the content,” writes Franz. “This article, to them, isn’t really about Columbus at all. It’s about President Harrison, who was responsible for the proclamation, and the immigration politics of the 1890s.”

The skills demonstrated by the historians are the same skills that should form the core of effective social studies education, according to Franz:

  • Assessing the point of view of an author and source
  • Placing arguments in context
  • Validating the veracity of a claim

It is critical that teachers model this process for students: “Vetting social studies resources is important not just because we want to ensure students are learning from accurate, verifiable materials. It’s important also because the ability to ask questions about sources, bias, and context are at the heart of social studies education and are essential skills for thriving in the modern world.”

Much like historians, professional fact-checkers verify digital resources by using lateral reading. As opposed to vertical reading, where a reader might stay within a single website to evaluate a factual claim, fact-checkers scan a resource briefly, then open up new browser tabs to read more widely about the original site and verify its credibility via outside sources. This process mirrors how historians vet primary sources.

Teachers may also, of course, choose to rely on vetted social studies resources and lessons published by reputable sources—Franz recommends Newsela, Newseum, The National Archives, and the Stanford History Education Group.

Encouraging students to seek out knowledge and ideas, and then to deeply explore the reliability of their sources by considering their context, perspective, and accuracy should be the core skill of any rigorous social studies curriculum.

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Critical Thinking in Your Social Studies Lessons

social studies critical thinking activities

If your state is like mine, you’re expected to teach critical thinking skills in every subject. And it makes sense why! We want our students to be evaluating content and creating solutions – not just memorizing facts. Today, I want to share some easy ways to get your students using critical thinking skills in social studies.

What Critical Thinking Skills Can I Teach?

Practically all of them!

Here are just a few skills you can integrate into your history lessons:

  • ask questions
  • determine credibility and evaluate bias
  • interpret sources
  • recognize a variety of perspectives
  • analyze choices
  • compare and contrast
  • determine relationships
  • sequence events
  • draw conclusions based on evidence
  • differentiate facts from opinions
  • explore impact

A lot of the social studies activities you’re using probably include some critical thinking skills! Let’s take a look at some simple strategies you can try to include more critical thinking opportunities in your lessons.

Critical thinking skills in history poster

Ask Questions

A simple way to encourage students to dig a little deeper when they learn about history is to use higher-order thinking questions. Once they know the what, where, who, and when, you can guide students to explore the HOW and WHY. What were the causes of these events? What effects did they have? How did they impact different groups of people then and now?

Inquiry-based lessons are a great way to get students using these skills. Plus, they give them ownership of what they’re learning and help to increase engagement.

If you want to start a little more low-key, you can use some HOTS question prompts. A simple “parking lot” or bulletin board where students can record questions is also a good place to begin.

Analyze Primary Sources

I LOVE using primary sources to teach social studies. Primary source analysis requires students to use their background knowledge and observational skills to draw conclusions about history.

I almost always have students collaborate when they work with primary sources so they can bounce ideas off each other. I also usually use DBQs or question prompts so they have some direction. Afterward, I like to follow up with a whole-class discussion to debrief.

Primary source question cards with document

Compare & Contrast

A simple Venn diagram or t-chart is a great way for students to compare people, places, civilizations, artifacts, inventions, events, and time periods from history.

Digital critical thinking skills social studies graphic organizer on ipad

Plus, comparing helps students identify connections between people/places and over time.

Use Sorting Activities

Sorting activities are one of my favorite ways to get students thinking critically. They’re hands-on, interactive, and perfect for kids to do with a partner or in a small group.

You can assign an open sort, where students sort cards with words and/or pictures according to their own categories by looking for connections or patterns. I love this activity because it helps me see how students think.

Another option is to do a closed sort where you can ask students to sort according to specific rules. For example, they might sequence events into a timeline or sort them into cause-and-effect relationships. To make it more challenging, you can involve some inferencing scenarios. For instance, you can have them match quotes to the person or group that would’ve been likely to say them.

Explore Perspectives

We want students to consider a variety of perspectives and points of view when they learn about different historical events or periods. Primary sources are very helpful here, especially if you can find letters or diary entries. Picture books are another good option if you can find ones that provide different perspectives on a topic.

An easy activity is to use two different quotes about an event (that represent two points of view) and have students analyze their differences. Again, guiding questions or prompts will help them to understand the perspectives of different groups of people. One activity I’ve used is to explore the English colonization of Jamestown from Captain John Smith’s perspective compared to Chief Powhatan’s.

critical thinking skills activity of comparing historical perspectives

Even creating a fake social media profile for a historical figure can help students think critically about someone’s needs, wants, and point-of-view.

Look at Cause and Effect

I think that exploring cause and effect relationships in history helps students understand the impact of events that have taken place. I like using a simple graphic organizer that has room for multiple causes and effects. (Cause and effect is also a good place to tie in perspectives and connections.)

Analyze Decision Making

Another critical thinking activity you can use is to analyze specific choices that people made.

A decision-making model graphic organizer helps students determine the costs and benefits of a choice or event. For example, they can weigh the costs and benefits of the 13 Colonies declaring independence from Great Britain.

A good extension activity is to have students discuss alternate decisions that could have been made. They can hypothesize how different choices would have changed history.

Investigate the Impact of Geography

Geography has played such a huge role in human history, but it’s not something our students always think about. It helps to use activities that encourage students to consider the specific ways geography has affected people. Comparing early maps to current maps is one option. And I love having students explore locations with Google Earth.

You can also practice this skill with the 5 themes of geography .

5 themes of geography worksheet

Research and Create Products

Finally, social studies research projects are a great way to use critical thinking skills. Students can take their research and create an artifact or product to apply their knowledge. They can also design solutions for the future based on what they’ve learned.

I’m all about finding ways to make social studies engaging . Incorporating critical thinking skills into your social studies lessons is a great way to challenge students, and it doesn’t have to be complicated. I hope you give some of these activities a try!

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why is critical thinking important in social studies

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These easy-to-make, reusable social studies anchor charts are great for any elementary history unit!

6 Easy Social Studies Anchor Charts for Any Unit

Here are some of my favorite fiction and nonfiction trade books, biographies, picture books, and chapter books to use to teach an upper elementary Civil War unit.

Must-Have Civil War Books for Kids

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history critical thinking skills

Using Blended Learning pp 59–78 Cite as

Improving Social Studies Students’ Critical Thinking

  • Khe Foon Hew 3 &
  • Wing Sum Cheung 4  
  • First Online: 01 January 2014

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2 Citations

Part of the SpringerBriefs in Education book series (BRIEFSEDUCAT)

The ability to think critically along with an awareness of local and global issues have been identified as important competencies that could benefit students as they journey through life in the 21st century (Voogt and Roblin 2012 ). Social studies, as a subject discipline, could serve as a conducive environment for the development of such competencies because it not only aims to equip students with information about important social-cultural issues within and without a country but also to inculcate critical thinking ability whereby students review, analyze, and make appropriate judgments based on particular evidences or ideas presented. This chapter reports a study that examines the effect of using blended learning approaches on social studies students’ critical thinking. This study relied on objective measurements of students’ critical thinking such as their actual performance scores, rather than students’ self-report data of their critical thinking levels. It employed a one-group pre- and post-test research design to examine the impact of a Socratic question-blogcast model on grade 10 students’ ability to critically evaluate controversial social studies issues. A paired-samples t -test was conducted to determine the potential critical thinking gain using a validated rubric. There was a significant difference in critical thinking between pre-intervention ( M  = 2.33 SD  = 1.240) and post-intervention ( M  = 3.19 SD  = 1.388), t (26) = −3.690, p  < 0.001, with an effect size of 0.67. We also reported students’ perceptions of the Socratic question-blogcast blended learning approach to provide additional qualitative insights into how the approach was particularly helpful to the students.

  • Social studies
  • Critical thinking
  • Blended learning
  • Socratic question

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Faculty of Education, Division of Information and Technology Studies, The University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong SAR

Khe Foon Hew

Learning Sciences and Technologies, NIE, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

Wing Sum Cheung

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4.1.1 Activity 1

1. Instructions

Getting started:

why is critical thinking important in social studies

Podcast your answer:

Study the background information, sources and question. Then answer the question orally and record it to audacity. Just say out whatever comes to mind. Do not worry if your ideas do not flow. This is only your first draft. You will be given a chance to improve on your answers later. Upload your podcast onto your blogcast account, which have been created for you. Do not spend more than 15 min on this activity!

2. The Question

Study this question carefully.

Study Source A

How reliable is the source as evidence to suggest that the Tamils formed a militant group due to the unfair university admission criteria? Explain your answer.

3. The Background Information

Read this carefully. It may help you to answer the questions.

After 1970, the government introduced new university admission criteria. Tamil students had to score higher marks than the Sinhalese students to enter the same courses in the universities. A fixed number of places were also reserved for the Sinhalese. Admission was no longer based solely on academic results. This became the main point of the conflict between the government and Tamil leaders. Tamil youths, resentful by what they considered discrimination against them, formed a militant group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), more popularly known as Tamil Tigers, and resorted to violence to achieve its aim.

4. The Sources

A cartoon about university admission in Sri Lanka by a Tamil artist.

http://www.slideshare.net/khooky/srilanka-conflict-v09

A view expressed by a Sinhalese about the Tamils in Sri Lanka, 1995.

The LTTE terrorists complain that the Tamils have been treated unfairly. This is unfair. This is no longer true. They say they have been the victims of discrimination in university education, employment and in other matters controlled by the government. But most of their demands were met long ago. Discrimination exists in every society but in Sri Lanka it is less serious than in some countries. It certainly does not give them the right to kill people. The Tamils do not need to be freed by a group of terrorists. Discrimination is not the real reason for terrorism, it is just an excuse.

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Hew, K.F., Cheung, W.S. (2014). Improving Social Studies Students’ Critical Thinking. In: Using Blended Learning. SpringerBriefs in Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-089-6_4

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Critical Thinking and Social Studies

by Mike Yell

                        The advance of knowledge has been achieved not because the mind is capable of memorizing what teachers say but because it can be disciplined to ask probing questions and pursue them in a reasoned, self-critical way. Scholars pursuing knowledge submit their thinking to rigorous discipline. 

~Richard Paul

One of the most used and highlighted books in my professional library is Critical Thinking: How to Prepare Students for a Rapidly Changing World by Richard Paul, an international leader in critical thinking movement. We often hear about the need for critical thinking, but we seldom hear sound definitions, or, in my opinion, see comprehensive models that we can apply to what we do in our classrooms. To my mind the works of Richard Paul, and his colleagues Linda Elder Gerald Nosich, and others at the Foundation for Critical Thinking put flesh on the bones of the concept of critical thinking; a concept all too rarely made substantive.

While there are many different approaches to, and definitions of, critical thinking, the Paul/Elder view is that critical thinking is the development of discipline organized thinking that monitors itself and is guided by intellectual standards . Further, they hold that reasoning must be at the heart of good teaching, sound learning, and preparation for college, career, and civic life. Rather than lectures, worksheets, and didactic instruction, it is through reasoning and thinking their way through the curriculum, that students really learn. This approach to critical thinking, I believe, puts this model of critical thinking head and shoulders above others.

To read the full article, join the   Center for Critical Thinking Community Online   – the world’s leading online community dedicated to teaching and advancing critical thinking. Featuring the world's largest library of critical thinking articles, videos, and books, as well as learning activities, study groups, and a social media component, this interactive learning platform is essential to anyone dedicated to developing as an effective reasoner in the classroom, in the professions, in business and government, and throughout personal life.  

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why is critical thinking important in social studies

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Developing your critical thinking skills, critical thinking skills, critical thinking skills are the navigational tools needed for everyday life and in any professional journey. they enable you to analyze and solve complex problems effectively, allowing you to gain a competitive edge and empowering you to make smarter decisions.    .

With these skills, you’ll be able to think outside the box, adapt to change, and handle risks with greater efficiency. By improving your critical thinking abilities, you're setting yourself up to succeed in any field. 

This guide explores different types of critical thinking skills and how you can learn and apply them in your everyday life.

why is critical thinking important in social studies

What Are Critical Thinking Skills?

Critical thinking skills refer to your ability to analyze, evaluate, and interpret information in a logical and systematic manner to determine possible solutions. Think of it as employing objective reasoning and sound judgment to assess situations, solve problems, make decisions, and draw meaningful conclusions.

These skills assist you in thinking clearly and making sensible decisions when needed to solve problems, make better choices, think independently, consider multiple viewpoints, and apply thoughtful analysis to complex issues.

Why Are Critical Thinking Skills Important?

Critical thinking skills are highly valued by employers and are crucial in today's job market for several reasons. Let’s have a look at why these skills are important:

  • Decision-making: You can make informed decisions based on careful analysis, which leads to more effective decision-making, minimizing risks and maximizing opportunities. 
  • Effective problem-solving: These skills provide the foundation for effective problem-solving in different professional contexts. These skills equip you to effectively identify, define, and analyze problems from different perspectives.
  • Promote open-mindedness: Critical thinking leads to innovative ideas and approaches that will make you challenge assumptions. These challenges lead to innovative ideas and approaches. 
  • Effective communication: By enabling you to clearly organize your thoughts and articulate ideas, critical thinking skills promote effective communication.

why is critical thinking important in social studies

What are the Benefits of Having Critical Thinking Skills?

As mentioned above, critical thinking skills are crucial in every profession and enable you to stand out and succeed in your field. Let’s explore some of the benefits of critical thinking skills and how they add value to your profession:

Stronger analytical abilities: You enhance your analytical thinking capabilities, allowing you to gather, assess, and interpret data effectively. Using logical reasoning, you can identify patterns, extract relevant insights, and draw meaningful conclusions from complex information. This skill is valuable in problem-solving, decision-making, and strategic planning.  

Flexibility: Being flexible enables you to adapt to changing circumstances and swiftly navigate uncertainties. By considering multiple perspectives, evaluating information gathered, and adjusting your thinking, you can adapt your strategies and approaches to respond effectively to evolving situations. This adaptability is crucial in today's fast-changing work environments. 

Lifelong learning: By embracing a growth mindset and engaging in lifelong learning, you can acquire new skills, question assumptions, seek new knowledge, critically evaluate your beliefs, and stay relevant in your chosen field.  

Vision clarity: Having a clear vision enables you to forecast situations and goals. Critical thinking skills provide a framework for purposeful action. This concept also guarantees that your efforts are consistently directed toward achieving the desired outcomes.

Endless possibilities: Solid critical thinking skills allow you to uncover an array of potential outcomes, ideas, and opportunities to go beyond the familiar. 

why is critical thinking important in social studies

Examples of Critical Thinking Skills in the Workplace

Critical thinking skills can be applied in many ways across various professions. Here are some practical examples:

Analysis: You can ask relevant questions, evaluate evidence, and draw logical conclusions based on available information. You can uncover a trend or problem through analysis and make a well-informed decision based on your findings. 

Evaluation: You can weigh different perspectives, consider biases or limitations, and make informed judgments about the quality and validity of information or claims presented. You can distinguish between credible and unreliable sources by evaluating evidence, claims, or proposals and determining the best cause of action.

Creative thinking: Thinking creatively means being innovative, embracing new perspectives, and engaging in divergent thinking to discover fresh insights and possibilities.  

Inference: You can draw logical conclusions based on available evidence, observations, or patterns. By making reasoned judgments and connecting pieces of information, you can delve deeper into complex situations leading to better solutions. 

Reflection: You can critically examine your thoughts, beliefs, and experiences. By displaying self-awareness and introspection, you enhance self-directed learning and promote continuous improvement.  

How Will I Use Critical Thinking Skills?

By developing and applying critical thinking skills, you will be better equipped to navigate complex work environments, contribute to organizational success, and excel in your chosen career path. 

These skills are applicable across various professional roles and industries. For example, with IT careers, you can use critical thinking skills in the following fields:

IT Career: In the IT industry, critical thinking skills are essential for problem-solving and troubleshooting. For example, you’ll be able to analyze the symptoms, gather relevant information, and evaluate potential causes. IT careers such as risk analysts , information manager and IT manager require solid critical thinking skills.

With health careers you can use critical thinking skills in the workplace. This includes:

Accurate diagnoses and treatment decisions: Critical thinking skills are crucial for the hospital environment and beyond.  For instance, as a nurse or doctor with strong critical thinking skills, you will carefully assess a patient's symptoms, review medical history, and analyze test results. Most careers in healthcare such as community health workers , ICU nurses , medical records manager , etc., require these skills.

With education careers, you’ll discover how critical thinking skills are useful in the classroom and beyond:

Designing engaging classroom activities: As a teacher with strong critical thinking skills, you’ll design engaging classroom activities and questions. You can promote problem-solving and creative learning. Most careers in education such as teaching assistants , preschool teachers , and even high school teachers need these skills.

With business professions you incorporate critical thinking skills into everyday decisions in the workplace:

Evaluating market trends: As a decision-maker in business, critical thinking skills help you evaluate market trends, analyze financial data, and assess potential risks and opportunities. You’ll use logical reasoning and sound judgment to make informed business-related decisions such as product development, resource allocation, and business strategies. Most business-related careers such as project management, actuary , human resources management , etc., need these skills.

Critical thinking skills provide a foundation for thoughtful approaches in each field.

How Can I Learn Critical Thinking Skills?

At WGU, our curriculum is designed to foster critical thinking skills by incorporating interactive and thought-provoking course content. 

Our courses are structured to encourage active learning and provide opportunities to apply critical thinking skills in different subject areas.  

For example, in the Leavitt School of Health , the following degree programs teach critical thinking as part of the coursework:

  • BS Nursing (BSRN) 
  • BS Nursing (RN- to BSN Degree), BSNU
  • BS Nursing-Prelicensure (BSPRN) 

In nursing and other health-related degrees, you’ll learn to:

  • Identify reliable and credible sources of information. 
  • Identify different academic arguments concerning a particular issue.
  • Identify potential sources of bias when analyzing a given issue. 
  • Gather relevant facts to form a judgment.
  • Analyze data from various sources and contexts. 

In critical thinking courses, you’ll encounter challenging concepts, case studies, and real-world scenarios that require critical analysis and problem-solving. 

You’ll be able to engage in collaborative learning activities, such as group projects, discussions, and simulations. You’ll also complete a capstone project that integrates and applies the knowledge and skills you’ve acquired. 

These activities encourage you to share ideas, consider diverse perspectives, and provide an opportunity to demonstrate your proficiency in critical thinking while also showcasing your ability to apply it practically. 

Our goal at WGU is to provide a comprehensive learning experience that enhances your critical thinking skills.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is critical thinking used in everyday life?

You can apply critical thinking to various aspects of everyday life, such as:

  • Making logical decisions when solving problems. 
  • Assessing the credibility of the information you encounter online to avoid being misled or scammed.
  • Understanding and questioning norms, biases, and stereotypes leading to a change in policies and social justice. 

How do you say you’re good at critical thinking in your résumé?

You must provide concrete examples to demonstrate your abilities as a critical thinker in your résumé. 

For example, you can describe situations where you successfully applied critical thinking to solve problems or make decisions. 

You can also provide relevant certifications or coursework if you’ve completed any courses or certifications related to critical thinking. Make sure that you highlight them in the education section of your résumé.

What are the barriers to critical thinking?

There are various factors that can limit your ability to think critically:

  • Allowing emotions to influence your thinking process.
  • Conforming to cultural and social norms.
  • Lacking access to accurate information about a subject. 
  • Having insufficient time to thoroughly evaluate information.
  • Lacking exposure to situations that require critical thinking.

Find Your Degree

Are you ready to embark on an exciting journey where your analytical reasoning and problem-solving abilities set you apart? 

Take the degree quiz and find the perfect degree program for you. Prepare to embrace a future of exciting possibilities and success in every facet of your life.

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The Importance of Critical Thinking, For Students and Ourselves

A group of students sit at a table discussing the importance of critical thinking

Critical thinking is a vital skill, yet it’s often neglected. In higher education, we know the importance of learning objectives that let us measure learner success. Starting with a clear definition of critical thinking allows us to identify the associated skills that we want to imbue in our students and ourselves.

According to the Oxford Languages dictionary , critical thinking is “the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment.” It sounds relatively simple, yet we often form judgments without that all-important objective analysis/evaluation piece.

Employers on the Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) Social Sciences Advisory Board tell us that they want to hire people with critical thinking skills, but applicants often lack this ability. According to Professor of Science Dr. Norman Herr , critical thinking skills can be boiled down to the following key sequential elements:

  • Identification of premises and conclusions — Break arguments down into logical statements
  • Clarification of arguments — Identify ambiguity in these stated assertions
  • Establishment of facts — Search for contradictions to determine if an argument or theory is complete and reasonable
  • Evaluation of logic — Use inductive or deductive reasoning to decide if conclusions drawn are adequately supported
  • Final evaluation — Weigh the arguments against the evidence presented

As educators, we must teach our students those critical thinking skills and practice them ourselves to objectively analyze an onslaught of information. Ideas, especially plausible-sounding philosophies, should be challenged and pass the credibility litmus test.

Red Flag Alert

The School Library Journal lists four types of information that should raise red flags when we’re watching the news, reading social media, or at any point in our everyday lives when we are confronted with something purported to be “fact:”

  • Fake news, which refers to purported news that is demonstrably untrue.
  • Misinformation, which is spread by those who don’t realize that it’s false or only partially true.
  • Disinformation, which is deliberately spread by people who know that it’s not accurate and who want to spread a false message.
  • Propaganda, which is information that is spread with a specific agenda. It may or may not be false, but it’s intended to get an emotional reaction.

Get With the Times

SNHU, and other colleges and universities across the U.S., must use updated tools to help their students think critically about the information they consume. Currently, many institutions of higher learning fail to teach students how to identify misinformation sources. Sam Wineburg and Nadiv Ziv , professors of education at Stanford University, argue that many colleges offer guides to evaluating website trustworthiness, but far too many of them base their advice on a 1998 report on assessing websites. They warn that it makes no sense for colleges to share 20-year-old advice on dealing with the rapidly-changing online landscape, where two decades feels like a century.

Further, as educators in institutions of higher education, we must afford learners as many opportunities as possible to hone their critical thinking skills when interacting with instructors and fellow students. Greg Lukianoff and Johnathan Haidt , authors of The Coddling of the American Mind , contend that “one of the most brilliant features of universities is that, when they are working properly, they are communities of scholars who cancel out one another’s confirmation biases .” Without exploring opposing viewpoints, students may fall prey to confirmation bias, further cementing ideas that they already believe to be true. Being inclusive when it comes to viewpoint diversity is indispensable for avoiding these echo chambers that circumvent having one’s ideas challenged.

Separating Wheat from Chaff: Critical Thinking Examples

As we teach our students the importance of critical thinking, how do we equip them to sift through the onslaught of information they encounter every day, both personally and in their educational pursuits? And how do we do the same for ourselves?

Here are four critical thinking examples that anyone can apply when evaluating information:

  • Consider whether the person who wrote or is sharing the information has any vested interest in doing so. For example, a writer may have a degree and professional experience that gives them expertise to write an article on specific communication techniques. Be aware that the writer’s credibility can be affected by outside interests. These include being paid to write a book with a certain viewpoint, giving paid seminars, affiliation with certain organizations or anything else that creates a financial or personal interest in promoting a specific perspective.
  • Consider the venue in which the person is sharing the information. Newscasts and newspapers once were slanted more toward neutrality, although there was never an era when bias was completely absent. The 19th century even had its own version of “clickbait” in the form of yellow journalism . Today, it’s getting more difficult for those with critical thinking skills to find unbiased sources. Websites like Towards Data Science publish lists rating major sites on their leanings; check these lists to view content on biased sites through a more skeptical lens, verifying their claims for yourself.
  • Read beyond clickbait headlines. Websites create headlines to generate traffic and ad revenue, not to support critical thinking or give accurate information. Too many people go by what the headline says without reading more deeply, even though media misrepresentation of studies is rampant . Often, the information contained within the article is not accurately represented in the headline. Sometimes there’s even a direct contradiction, or the publication is focusing on one single study that may mean nothing because other studies have contradictory results.
  • Use Snopes , Fact Check , and other fact-checking websites. Ironically, Snopes itself has been the victim of misinformation campaigns designed to discredit its efforts to promote the importance of critical thinking.

Anyone in a teaching position should point their students toward reliable references. For example, at SNHU, instructors can point their students towards the Shapiro Library for their assignments. No matter where you teach, the main objective is to give them opportunities to apply critical thinking skills by evaluating material that they encounter in everyday life. Another way to do this at SNHU or in any online classroom is by incorporating elements of the four points into your announcements, discussion posts and feedback. For example, you might post two articles with differing viewpoints on the week’s material. For each, break down the publication’s possible slant, the way in which any research-based material is presented and the author’s credentials. Hypothetically, ask students whether those factors might be playing into the opinions expressed.

Misinformation Morphs into Disinformation

Misinformation, if not addressed, easily turns into disinformation when it is readily shared by students, individuals and groups that may know it is wrong. They may continue to intentionally spread it to cast doubt or stir divisiveness. Students listen to their peers, and the more critical thinking is addressed in a course, the more we prepare students not to fall into the misinformation trap.

Courtney Brown and Sherrish Holland , of the Center for the Professional Education of Teachers, argue that for educators, the challenge is now far more about how they need to inform their students to interpret and assess the information they come across and not simply how to gain access to it. The term “fake news” is used to discredit anyone trying to clarify fact from fiction. Fake news is a cover for some people when they are being deliberately deceptive. As educators become clearer about the distinction, it can be better communicated to students.

Anyone Can Promote Critical Thinking

Even if you don’t teach, use those points in conversations to help others hone their critical thinking skills, along with a dose of emotional intelligence. If someone shares misinformation with you, don’t be combative. Instead, use probing statements and questions designed to spark their critical thinking.

Here are some examples:

“That’s very interesting. Do you think the person they’re quoting might be letting his business interests color what he’s saying?”

“I know that sometimes the media oversimplifies research. I wonder who funded that study and if that’s influencing what they’re saying.”

Of course, you need to adapt to the situation and to make what you say sound organic and conversational, but the core idea remains the same. Inspire the other person to use critical thinking skills. Give them reasons to look more deeply into the topic instead of blindly accepting information. Course activities that stimulate interaction and a deep dive into course-related ideas will encourage perspective-taking and foster new avenues of thought along the path to life-long learning. As American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead said, “Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” While Mead was referring to younger children, this statement is apropos for learners in higher education who are tasked with dissecting volumes of information.

It’s crucial to teach our students to question what they read and hear. Jerry Baldasty , provost at the University of Washington, believes that democracies live and die by the ability of their people to access information and engage in robust discussions based upon facts. It is the facts that are being attacked by misinformation. The result is a growing distrust of our core societal institution. People have lost confidence in religious organizations, higher education, government and the media as they believe deliberately deceptive information they come across.

Baldasty argues, “this is why it is crucial that we educate our students how to think critically, access and analyze data, and, above all, question the answers.” Students need critical thinking skills for much more than their self-enlightenment. They will become our leaders, politicians, teachers, researchers, advocates, authors, business owners and perhaps most importantly, voters. The more we can imbue them with critical thinking skills, the better.

Dr Nickolas Dominello

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SNHU is a nonprofit, accredited university with a mission to make high-quality education more accessible and affordable for everyone.

Founded in 1932, and online since 1995, we’ve helped countless students reach their goals with flexible, career-focused programs . Our 300-acre campus in Manchester, NH is home to over 3,000 students, and we serve over 135,000 students online. Visit our about SNHU  page to learn more about our mission, accreditations, leadership team, national recognitions and awards.

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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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Why Is Critical Thinking Important? A Survival Guide

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Why is critical thinking important? The decisions that you make affect your quality of life. And if you want to ensure that you live your best, most successful and happy life, you’re going to want to make conscious choices. That can be done with a simple thing known as critical thinking. Here’s how to improve your critical thinking skills and make decisions that you won’t regret.

What Is Critical Thinking?

You’ve surely heard of critical thinking, but you might not be entirely sure what it really means, and that’s because there are many definitions. For the most part, however, we think of critical thinking as the process of analyzing facts in order to form a judgment. Basically, it’s thinking about thinking.

How Has The Definition Evolved Over Time?

The first time critical thinking was documented is believed to be in the teachings of Socrates , recorded by Plato. But throughout history, the definition has changed.

Today it is best understood by philosophers and psychologists and it’s believed to be a highly complex concept. Some insightful modern-day critical thinking definitions include :

  • “Reasonable, reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do.”
  • “Deciding what’s true and what you should do.”

The Importance Of Critical Thinking

Why is critical thinking important? Good question! Here are a few undeniable reasons why it’s crucial to have these skills.

1. Critical Thinking Is Universal

Critical thinking is a domain-general thinking skill. What does this mean? It means that no matter what path or profession you pursue, these skills will always be relevant and will always be beneficial to your success. They are not specific to any field.

2. Crucial For The Economy

Our future depends on technology, information, and innovation. Critical thinking is needed for our fast-growing economies, to solve problems as quickly and as effectively as possible.

3. Improves Language & Presentation Skills

In order to best express ourselves, we need to know how to think clearly and systematically — meaning practice critical thinking! Critical thinking also means knowing how to break down texts, and in turn, improve our ability to comprehend.

4. Promotes Creativity

By practicing critical thinking, we are allowing ourselves not only to solve problems but also to come up with new and creative ideas to do so. Critical thinking allows us to analyze these ideas and adjust them accordingly.

5. Important For Self-Reflection

Without critical thinking, how can we really live a meaningful life? We need this skill to self-reflect and justify our ways of life and opinions. Critical thinking provides us with the tools to evaluate ourselves in the way that we need to.

Woman deep into thought as she looks out the window, using her critical thinking skills to do some self-reflection.

6. The Basis Of Science & Democracy

In order to have a democracy and to prove scientific facts, we need critical thinking in the world. Theories must be backed up with knowledge. In order for a society to effectively function, its citizens need to establish opinions about what’s right and wrong (by using critical thinking!).

Benefits Of Critical Thinking

We know that critical thinking is good for society as a whole, but what are some benefits of critical thinking on an individual level? Why is critical thinking important for us?

1. Key For Career Success

Critical thinking is crucial for many career paths. Not just for scientists, but lawyers , doctors, reporters, engineers , accountants, and analysts (among many others) all have to use critical thinking in their positions. In fact, according to the World Economic Forum, critical thinking is one of the most desirable skills to have in the workforce, as it helps analyze information, think outside the box, solve problems with innovative solutions, and plan systematically.

2. Better Decision Making

There’s no doubt about it — critical thinkers make the best choices. Critical thinking helps us deal with everyday problems as they come our way, and very often this thought process is even done subconsciously. It helps us think independently and trust our gut feeling.

3. Can Make You Happier!

While this often goes unnoticed, being in touch with yourself and having a deep understanding of why you think the way you think can really make you happier. Critical thinking can help you better understand yourself, and in turn, help you avoid any kind of negative or limiting beliefs, and focus more on your strengths. Being able to share your thoughts can increase your quality of life.

4. Form Well-Informed Opinions

There is no shortage of information coming at us from all angles. And that’s exactly why we need to use our critical thinking skills and decide for ourselves what to believe. Critical thinking allows us to ensure that our opinions are based on the facts, and help us sort through all that extra noise.

5. Better Citizens

One of the most inspiring critical thinking quotes is by former US president Thomas Jefferson: “An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.” What Jefferson is stressing to us here is that critical thinkers make better citizens, as they are able to see the entire picture without getting sucked into biases and propaganda.

6. Improves Relationships

While you may be convinced that being a critical thinker is bound to cause you problems in relationships, this really couldn’t be less true! Being a critical thinker can allow you to better understand the perspective of others, and can help you become more open-minded towards different views.

7. Promotes Curiosity

Critical thinkers are constantly curious about all kinds of things in life, and tend to have a wide range of interests. Critical thinking means constantly asking questions and wanting to know more, about why, what, who, where, when, and everything else that can help them make sense of a situation or concept, never taking anything at face value.

8. Allows For Creativity

Critical thinkers are also highly creative thinkers, and see themselves as limitless when it comes to possibilities. They are constantly looking to take things further, which is crucial in the workforce.

9. Enhances Problem Solving Skills

Those with critical thinking skills tend to solve problems as part of their natural instinct. Critical thinkers are patient and committed to solving the problem, similar to Albert Einstein, one of the best critical thinking examples, who said “It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” Critical thinkers’ enhanced problem-solving skills makes them better at their jobs and better at solving the world’s biggest problems. Like Einstein, they have the potential to literally change the world.

10. An Activity For The Mind

Just like our muscles, in order for them to be strong, our mind also needs to be exercised and challenged. It’s safe to say that critical thinking is almost like an activity for the mind — and it needs to be practiced. Critical thinking encourages the development of many crucial skills such as logical thinking, decision making, and open-mindness.

11. Creates Independence

When we think critically, we think on our own as we trust ourselves more. Critical thinking is key to creating independence, and encouraging students to make their own decisions and form their own opinions.

12. Crucial Life Skill

Critical thinking is crucial not just for learning, but for life overall! Education isn’t just a way to prepare ourselves for life, but it’s pretty much life itself. Learning is a lifelong process that we go through each and every day.

How to Think Critically

Now that you know the benefits of thinking critically, how do you actually do it?

How To Improve Your Critical Thinking

  • Define Your Question: When it comes to critical thinking, it’s important to always keep your goal in mind. Know what you’re trying to achieve, and then figure out how to best get there.
  • Gather Reliable Information: Make sure that you’re using sources you can trust — biases aside. That’s how a real critical thinker operates!
  • Ask The Right Questions: We all know the importance of questions, but be sure that you’re asking the right questions that are going to get you to your answer.
  • Look Short & Long Term: When coming up with solutions, think about both the short- and long-term consequences. Both of them are significant in the equation.
  • Explore All Sides: There is never just one simple answer, and nothing is black or white. Explore all options and think outside of the box before you come to any conclusions.

How Is Critical Thinking Developed At School?

Critical thinking is developed in nearly everything we do. However, much of this important skill is encouraged to be practiced at school, and rightfully so! Critical thinking goes beyond just thinking clearly — it’s also about thinking for yourself.

When a teacher asks a question in class, students are given the chance to answer for themselves and think critically about what they learned and what they believe to be accurate. When students work in groups and are forced to engage in discussion, this is also a great chance to expand their thinking and use their critical thinking skills.

How Does Critical Thinking Apply To Your Career?

Once you’ve finished school and entered the workforce, your critical thinking journey only expands and grows from here!

Impress Your Employer

Employers value employees who are critical thinkers, ask questions, offer creative ideas, and are always ready to offer innovation against the competition. No matter what your position or role in a company may be, critical thinking will always give you the power to stand out and make a difference.

Careers That Require Critical Thinking

Some of many examples of careers that require critical thinking include:

  • Human resources specialist
  • Marketing associate
  • Business analyst

Truth be told however, it’s probably harder to come up with a professional field that doesn’t require any critical thinking!

Photo by  Oladimeji Ajegbile  from  Pexels

What is someone with critical thinking skills capable of doing.

Someone with critical thinking skills is able to think rationally and clearly about what they should or not believe. They are capable of engaging in their own thoughts, and doing some reflection in order to come to a well-informed conclusion.

A critical thinker understands the connections between ideas, and is able to construct arguments based on facts, as well as find mistakes in reasoning.

The Process Of Critical Thinking

The process of critical thinking is highly systematic.

What Are Your Goals?

Critical thinking starts by defining your goals, and knowing what you are ultimately trying to achieve.

Once you know what you are trying to conclude, you can foresee your solution to the problem and play it out in your head from all perspectives.

What Does The Future Of Critical Thinking Hold?

The future of critical thinking is the equivalent of the future of jobs. In 2020, critical thinking was ranked as the 2nd top skill (following complex problem solving) by the World Economic Forum .

We are dealing with constant unprecedented changes, and what success is today, might not be considered success tomorrow — making critical thinking a key skill for the future workforce.

Why Is Critical Thinking So Important?

Why is critical thinking important? Critical thinking is more than just important! It’s one of the most crucial cognitive skills one can develop.

By practicing well-thought-out thinking, both your thoughts and decisions can make a positive change in your life, on both a professional and personal level. You can hugely improve your life by working on your critical thinking skills as often as you can.

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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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why is critical thinking important in social studies

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.

  • ChatGPT vs human editor
  • ChatGPT citations
  • Is ChatGPT trustworthy?
  • Using ChatGPT for your studies
  • What is ChatGPT?
  • Chicago style
  • Paraphrasing

 Plagiarism

  • Types of plagiarism
  • Self-plagiarism
  • Avoiding plagiarism
  • Academic integrity
  • Consequences of plagiarism
  • Common knowledge

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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Other students also liked, student guide: information literacy | meaning & examples, what are credible sources & how to spot them | examples, applying the craap test & evaluating sources.

why is critical thinking important in social studies

Yet much of our social studies curricula emphasizes content knowledge over the development of foundational, critical thinking skills such as understanding the context in which primary sources were created, and determining the credibility of resources. Nerd Out On the Latest Education Research

Keywords: Critical-thinking, ways to promote critical-thinking, social studies education, and NCSS journals. Teaching critical-thinking has always been an important mission of social studies education, and thus a subject of considerable attention in the social studies literature.

Critical Thinking in Your Social Studies Lessons July 21, 2021 No Comments If your state is like mine, you're expected to teach critical thinking skills in every subject. And it makes sense why! We want our students to be evaluating content and creating solutions - not just memorizing facts.

Social studies, as a subject discipline, could serve as a conducive environment for the development of such competencies because it not only aims to equip students with information about important social-cultural issues within and without a country but also to inculcate critical thinking ability whereby students review, analyze, and make appropr...

Critical thinking skills are essential for social studies, as they help students analyze, evaluate, and interpret diverse sources of information, perspectives, and evidence. However,...

Critical Thinking and the Social Studies Teacher. The advance of knowledge has been achieved not because the mind is capable of memorizing what teachers say but because it can be disciplined to ask probing questions and pursue them in a reasoned, self-critical way. Scholars pursuing knowledge submit their thinking to rigorous discipline.

examined as a whole. Social studies therefore nurtures the practice of inquiry, as it demands students view the content through the various lenses of social studies strands (Cuenca, 2021). This approach makes any social studies classroom a prime location for student-centered learning with the ultimate goal of building student critical thinking.

Critical Thinking in Social Studies TN 37 In this context, a critic is someone who reviews, analyzes, and makes judgments or evaluations on issues, ideas, processes, and experiences. Critical thinking is the kind of thinking through which such evaluation is achieved. Critical thinking, an important component of the thinking process, includes

prehension, critical thinking, problem solving, oral expression and listening skills. Additionally, students can understand the importance of people, events, and issues in the media and pay attention to the news they see and hear outside of school.6 In this article, we describe a process for engaging students in

Purpose of study: The purpose of this study was to identify approaches that social studies scholars believed or suggested to be more likely and predictive of success in the teaching of...

We are often in a state of doubt when faced with a challenging problem, but by using the abilities and dispositions of critical thinking, such as reflection and critical reasoning, we can resolve the problem and, by extension, resolve our doubt. At the same time, doubt can provide a gateway to transformation.

Critical thinking skills are important abilities that must be possessed in the 21st century. Critical thinking skills are an important aspect that students must have to

1. Have better spatial awareness Social studies can help students gain a better interpretation of the physical world. Rather than using the internet to find the location of a country, they can look at a globe or physical map in their textbook.

"The primary purpose of social studies is to help young people make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world." - National Council for Social Studies What Is Social Studies? Social studies can also be referred to as social sciences.

Social studies is still relevant today as it encourages community participation, enhances critical and creative thinking, fosters cultural sensitivity, broadens global perspective, and...

Critical thinking skills provide a framework for purposeful action. This concept also guarantees that your efforts are consistently directed toward achieving the desired outcomes. Endless possibilities: Solid critical thinking skills allow you to uncover an array of potential outcomes, ideas, and opportunities to go beyond the familiar.

Critical thinking has been more than just a part of academic rhetoric and educational practice for some time now. In the rapidly changing world of information flow, critical thinking is often identified as the goal of higher education, and in the modern labour market, the importance of critical thinking to an organisation's success is emphasised. Critical thinking is recognised as one of the ...

Oct 1, 2021 Explore Programs Critical thinking is a vital skill, yet it's often neglected. In higher education, we know the importance of learning objectives that let us measure learner success. Starting with a clear definition of critical thinking allows us to identify the associated skills that we want to imbue in our students and ourselves.

It is an important part of a critical thinking process in which one surveys arguments for various positions on an issue. ... 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 ...

KEYWORDS: Critical Thinking Ability, Social Studies, Learning. I. INTRODUCTION The 21st century is an era of openness. It means that the human‟s life experiences fundamental changes. The advancement of technology cause any change in various aspects of human‟s life. One of which is education. The 21st century is known as the age of knowledge ...

Having a good set of well-developed critical thinking (CT) skills would enable students with the ability to face real-world challenges more confidently and effectively, be it in the workplace...

A Survival Guide Why is critical thinking important? The decisions that you make affect your quality of life. And if you want to ensure that you live your best, most successful and happy life, you're going to want to make conscious choices. That can be done with a simple thing known as critical thinking.

The ability to see issues from 'multiple perspectives' was also thought to be important to critical thinking before the course by over half the participants (12), who mentioned this a total of 16 times. An equal number considered it important after the course, and 13 said the course had impacted their thinking in this area.

Research on Vibration Test and Dynamic Balancing of Laying Head Rotor 2024-01-5025

Wire rod is one of the important products of modern manufacturing. Laying head is widely used for wire rod coiling and storage. Rotors of laying head are typical rotating equipment in which vibration during operation is inevitable. To address the problem of achieving precise dynamic balance for the laying head rotor with complex and asymmetrical structures, a vibration test is performed on the rotor to determine its primary cause. Modal analysis is conducted on the laying head rotor using finite element analysis, with the critical speed calculated. Unbalance response analysis of the rotor is executed, coupled with the rotor structure to identify appropriate balancing planes. The rotor’s three-dimensional model is used to calculate the distribution of the unbalance amount. The balancing process effectively decreased the rotor’s eccentricity and vibration intensity with no significant increase in overall mass, meeting operational requirements. This method significantly increased balancing efficiency, compared to empirical balancing methods, without requiring multiple equipment start–stop cycles. The balancing outcomes suggest that the proposed method is an effective and efficient solution for rotor balancing.

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