Critical Thinking

An Exploration of Theory and Practice

Jennifer Moon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781134127719
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica generale

In this book, Jennifer Moon explores and clarifies critical thinking and provides practical guidance for improving student learning and supporting the teaching process.

Key themes covered include:

• different views of and approaches to critical thinking with an emphasis on a practical basis that can be translated into use in the classroom.
• links between learning, thinking and writing
• the place of critical thinking alongside other academic activities such as reflective learning and argument
• critical thinking and assessment, class environments, staff knowledge and development, writing tasks and oral tasks.

Teachers in all disciplines in post-compulsory education will find this approach to defining and improving students' critical thinking skills invaluable.

Part 1
Introduction

1 Introduction

The topic, the content, the writer, . . .

Introduction

This book is, as the preface says, an exploration and exposition. Writing it was not just a matter of bringing together existing ideas, but a matter of the use of the format of a book and the activity of writing in order to research this thing – this notion of critical thinking – that seems to be a prominent activity in education and professional development, but about which there is so much uncertainty. This chapter provides the background to this critical thinking project. It contains a range of headings that are generally introductory, but that do not logically flow from beginning to end. It begins by considering some examples of the use of the term ‘critical thinking’ from tutors and learners. It moves on to ask some questions and review the significance of critical thinking in higher education. The next section describes how the writer began to recognize the issues that she felt needed to be explored, for if this book is research, it is important to place the researcher’s orientation into the consideration. There is then a section that summarizes the content of the whole book.

Critical thinking situations

It is tempting to dive into the exploration of critical thinking without any illustration of the kind of situation that might inspire critical thinking in the first place. To dive straight in would be to ignore one of the major points that this book is designed to make – that there are unclear understandings as to just what critical thinking is. We start, therefore, with some scenarios in which critical thinking might be enacted, and one example of critical thinking in action.

Seth is a student on a drama course. He is asked to attend a performance of a new play and write a critique of it, first for a public newspaper, then as a drama specialist.

Tim has tried working in oil paint for the first time. He asks Julia to comment on his work. Julia says that she does not want to express her reaction in words, but in a graphic form. She makes a picture. They discuss Tim’s work, using Julia’s graphic statement as a stimulus.

Sally and Sean are talking of going on holiday and taking their elderly parents. This means that they must take various factors into account – like stairs to climb in hotels, the food available, the ease of sight-seeing and so on. Somewhere at the bottom of the list is what they want to do, themselves. They have several options and need now to judge which fits their needs best.

Simone is a physics postgraduate student. A journal article has been published that relates to her proposed research. She needs to make judgements as to the validity of the new findings and how they relate to her research.

Jenna is in the process of buying a house. She has seen several, all of which could be suitable but ‘don’t feel quite right’. She says she needs to ‘go back to the drawing board’ and think again through her needs and wants.

Abdula is a town planner. He is asked to make an initial report on plans for a new supermarket on the edge of the town.

Jay has just started to sing in a folk club. She is keen to improve her singing and looks back on how it went.

An incident has happened on a guided walking expedition. The leaders are required to reflect on it and write it up as a report.

Moses is an engineering student and is asked to evaluate the design for a footbridge.

Ellen is asked in a tutorial to take a role in a debate on a motion about the prison system.

A significant business decision has been made by Geong International. A meeting is held to ensure that it is a correct decision before action is taken.

Simon has half an hour spare while he waits for a plane. He picks up several newpapers and reads the different views of a current political issue and thinks about his own views on it.

Xu is an architecture student. He and his fellow students are asked to write critically on a new building that has been put up locally.

Françoise is a social worker and has to make a decision about her team’s management of a child for whom they have some concern. They are anxious to support the family.

David has an essay to write. The title is ‘Critically discuss the role of the Gaslantic writers in the development of the literature of Tarraland’.

Jeremiah has written a poem. He puts it away for a few days and takes it out for a fresh and critical look before he takes it to his writing group.

Samuel is asked, in the context of a personal development planning module, critically to review the modules that he took last year and his general progress in higher education.

Why a book on critical thinking? It’s evident, isn’t it?

Critical thinking as a topic lurks intriguingly behind and about much of the thinking about higher education and professional development. Now the concept and its relationships to the educational processes seem to have emerged on top and it is time to explore the landscape of this term. If, as many argue, the development of a critical stance could be said to epitomize the aims for the individual of higher education and the professions, it might be reasonable to assume that everyone would know anyway what critical thinking is. After all, the term is used confidently and ‘knowingly’. In addition, ‘critical thinking’ – or words around it – is heavily implied in many descriptions of what should be achieved at higher levels of education (Moon, 2002). This must surely mean that ‘critical thinking’ is understood. However, with a growing scepticism over many other terms that are commonly used in pedagogy and the various environments of education, this writer has grown more willing to question and then doubt whether commonly used terms like ‘critical thinking’ are understood in a manner that is appropriate for their use in teaching.

Some of the questions that have prompted the thinking and guided the research for this book might seem to be naïve and it has been interesting to note that the more the delving, the more simplistic have become the questions about it. Below are listed a set of mostly naïve questions that have driven this exploration of ‘critical thinking’.

What is critical thinking?

How does critical thinking relate to the process of learning?

Is it one activity or a number of activities?

Are critical evaluation, critical appraisal, critical reflection and similar terms, the same as or different from critical thinking? – that is, of course, if they are understood any better.

How do learners learn the ability to think critically?

Do all learners use the same form of critical thinking from the start or is there a developmental process?

If there is a developmental process, what are the implications for pedagogy?

What are the implications of this for the writing of learning outcomes and assessment criteria?

Are there significant differences in disciplinary ‘takes’ on critical thinking?

Are there issues about critical thinking that go beyond just sitting and thinking?

What areas of theory might underpin the development and attainment of critical thinking?

Why are there so many books written about critical thinking that tell different stories about it?

Where does logic fit in?

What do teachers need to know about critical thinking in order to support it properly? And what should we be telling learners about critical thinking skills so that they can use them?

And so on . . . and now it is time to start to find some answers. The text of this book is focused on trying to respond to these and other questions both in a theoretical manner and then in terms of classroom and learning practices. As in other books by this writer, there is exploration of the theory and then consideration of the practical implications and the application of the ideas in the classroom with learners. The first part of the book is largely the theory and the latter part is largely practical.

The significance of critical thinking in higher education and the professions

Critical thinking is considered to be central to higher levels of education or a fundamental goal of learning (Kuhn, 1999; Keeley and Shemberg, 1995). It is also a process involved in any research activity. Barnett (1997: 2) calls it a ‘defining concept of the Western university’ and others pick up the rhetoric and expand this to the attitudes of employers (Phillips and Bond, 2004), or relate the importance of it to their disciplines (e.g. management – Gold, Holman and Thorpe, 2002 or social sciences – Fisher, 2003) or professions (e.g. medicine – Maudsley and Striven, 2000; social work – Brown and Rutter, 2006); at Master’s level (Kaasboll, 1998; Durkin, 2004); and undergraduate level (Phillips and Bond, 2004). A simple search on Google shows that critical thinking has a central role in education and this is evident in mission statement information for higher education, professional bodies and programmes. It is clearly a good and impressive term with some gravitas which is the stuff of missionary zeal. For example, Bradford University, in its mission information cites critical thinking as an ‘objective’:

Critical Thinking: To support students and staff in developing a critical, independent and scholarly approach to their discipline which will enable them to apply their knowledge.

(Bradford University Mission Statement, n.d.)

Beyond this, however, and more significantly for the current task, critical thinking is an element in many level and qualification descriptors for education. Level and qualification descriptors describe what we expect students to achieve at the end of a level in (in this case) a higher education programme – or at the point of award of a qualification in higher education (HE) (Moon, 2002, 2005a). For example, the SEEC level descriptors (SEEC, 2001) make the following statements at Level 3:

Level 3 (last year of the first cycle): ‘Evaluation: can critically evaluate evidence to support conclusions/recommendations; reviewing its reliability, validity and significance. Can investigate contradictory information/identify reasons for contradictions.’

The SEEC level descriptors make an advanced statement at Master’s level and for Taught Doctorate they say:

Taught Doctorate (PhD level): ‘has a level of conceptual understanding and critical capacities that will allow independent evaluation of research, advanced scholarship and methodologies; can argue alternative approaches’.

The Quality Assurance Agency, in the Framework for Higher Educational Qualifications (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) indicates that those obtaining intermediate qualifications (mid-part of higher education first cycle – or level 2) should be able to demonstrate ‘knowledge and critical understanding of the well-established principles of their area(s) of study’ and ‘be able to initiate and undertake critical analysis of information and to propose solutions to problems arising from that analysis’.

At the Honours level, at the end of the first cycle, they should be able to:

critically evaluate arguments, assumptions, abstract concepts and data (that might be incomplete) to make judgements and to frame appropriate questions to achieve a solution . . . to a problem.

(QAA, 2001)

Later in the book we imply that these statements about critical thinking processes in level descriptors might sometimes be over-ambitious (Chapter 8). In the Dublin Descriptors which are the basis of the agreements between countries signed up to the Bologna initiatives in European higher education, critical ‘analysis’ features only at Doctoral level. The descriptors indicate that learners at this level should be capable of ‘critical analysis, evaluation and synthesis of new and incomplete ideas’ (Dublin Descriptors, 2004). However, these capacities probably do not appear fully formed at this stage!

When critical thinking is clearly expressed in higher education descriptors, it means that students who are achieving those levels or qualifications should be critical thinkers. Brennan and Osbourne (2005) suggest that critical thinking is, indeed, one of the main outcomes of UK higher education, though interestingly it is put in inverted commas – a reflection, perhaps, of the relative lack of clarity as to exactly what we might expect that learners will be able to do to evidence this.

The wider significance of critical thinking

There are plenty of reasons that could be given here to justify the importance of critical thinking in society beyond the educational and professional contexts. Ennis (1996: xvii) says that it is ‘critical to the survival of a democratic way of life’ because people make their own decisions in the voting process. Similarly, Brookfield (1987: 14) says that critical thinking is ‘at the heart of what it means to be a developed person living in a democratic society’, though I would add here that there are very ‘developed’ people who think and act critically and who work towards democracy in societies that are far from democratic – as evidenced by the work done by Amnesty International in their support.

We use a well-known example to demonstrate the importance of the ability to take a critical stance and the consequences of the slip into non-criticality that nearly led to the end of the world as we know it. In 1972, a social psychologist, Irving Janis, was reading about the ‘Bay of Pigs events’ in America in the 1960s and he considered how ‘shrewd men like John F. Kennedy and his advisors [were] taken in by the CIA’s stupid patchwork plan’. Janis says, ‘I began to wonder whether some kind of psychological contagion, similar to social conformity phenomena observed in studies of small groups, had interfered with their mental alertness’ (Janis, 1982: vii). He went on to study several other apparent ‘fiascos’ (page) of American politics and used them to theorize on a phenomenon that he termed ‘groupthink’. Groupthink is, in effect, a lack of engagement in appropriate critical thinking that can occur in a cohesive group where there is a tendency to ‘evolve informal norms to preserve friendly intragroup relationships . . . [where] these become part of the hidden agenda of their meetings’ (page). Janis summarized the outcome of his research:

The more amiability and esprit de corps among the members of a policy-making in-group, the greater is the danger that independent critical thinking will be replaced by groupthink which is likely to result in irrational and dehumanizing actions directed against out-groups.

(Janis, 1982: 13)

In the early years of the 21st century, groupthink would still seem to be a characteristic of much political and social thinking. A willingness to be a critical thinker is important – but in situations such as that described above, just sitting and thinking counter thoughts about a group’s decision-making is not enough – the thoughts need to be expressed powerfully and possibly acted on. In this book, we recognize that critical thinking is not just a cognitive process – but is linked with expression and action and the various capacities that become relevant. Barnett (1997, 2006) makes this point in a powerful manner which is also political. He refers to the massacre of students in Tienanmen Square in Beijing, saying that those who stood against the tanks were carrying through the outcomes of their critical thinking into significant action. Bowell and Kemp (2002: 4) say, ‘those who hold power . . . fear the effects of those who can think critically about moral, social, economic and political issues’. This may be, but it is the step beyond the thinking – the willingness to act – that is really significant. This will be the case in many areas of critical thinking. It is this and other issues that generate academic assertiveness (Chapters 6 and 12).

Routes and roots – the personal origins of thinking that have led to this book

At the beginning of a book, I like to plot out my route into the topic that I cover. Since I theorize about learning – and thinking – from a constructivist stance, I acknowledge that the concept of critical thinking that will emerge is related to the routes that I have taken into the topic – and its roots in the development of my knowledge. This activity in which I engage is part of the process of critical thinking about critical thinking (metacognitive).

Looking back on my track through education, a significant underlying theme has been the development of my conceptualization about the ownership of knowledge and ideas. My initial orientation to this was through the ‘A’ level route and then in a science first degree and it was about the learning of other people’s ideas. The development of knowledge was assumed to be the accumulation of facts. The tasks that were given concerned the identification and reformulation of ideas in order to meet the demands of the task at hand – which was not necessarily of relevance to anything other than the achievement of an educational award. My talent or otherwise as a learner was first the ability to understand the demands of the task, then to be able to gather the appropriate information and ideas that would enable me to respond to it, and lastly to reformulate these resources and to represent them in a manner that was as close as possible to what I thought to be the demands of the task. The parts of that process that expressed my ability were the understanding of the task, the selection of the required and relevant informa...