The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Thinking in Higher Education

M. Davies, R. Barnett, M. Davies, R. Barnett

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781137378057
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Higher Education

The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Thinking in Higher Education provides a single compendium on the nature, function, and applications of critical thinking. This book brings together the work of top researchers on critical thinking worldwide, covering questions of definition, pedagogy, curriculum, assessment, research, policy, and application.

Part I

What Is Critical Thinking in Higher Education?

Just what is it that counts as critical thinking, especially in the context of higher education? A belief of ours, and one that has provided much of the motivation for this volume, is that critical thought is a defining condition of higher education. Unless efforts to promote criticality are present in the design of curricula, especially in teaching and in the teacher-student relationship, we cannot say we are espousing the cause of genuine higher education. But then we are faced at the outset with the need to try to give some account of the very idea of critical thought.

It will be noted that, in this opening paragraph, we have used the terms “critical thinking,” “critical thought,” and “criticality.” Are these terms synonyms or are there significant differences between the concepts that underlie them? The welter of different terms is one of the features of the debate here; and to the three terms just used can be added “critique” and “critical pedagogy”; and there are yet others, as the chapters in this opening section display. Such differences—in sheer terminology—across the scholars who have made significant contributions to the debate on critical thinking are not happenstance but, as our Introduction intimated (1–25), spring out of different perspectives and different interests, and those differences in terminology reflect, too, the stages that the debate has traversed.

Some of these different perspectives are apparent in the four chapters in this section. Robert Ennis can be considered to be one of the founders of the field of inquiry into critical thinking and has been working on the topic for some decades. Over time, Ennis has refined his position such that it has evolved into a depiction of critical thinking as residing in certain dispositions and abilities; and Ennis distinguishes twelve dispositions and eighteen abilities. While both the dispositions and the abilities overlap and interact, Ennis holds to their individual distinctiveness and exemplifies them each in turn by recounting the story of a jury faced with a defendant charged with murder and manslaughter. The narrative shows how the jurors, both individually and collectively, displayed to a greater or lesser extent the dispositions and abilities in Ennis’s theory and, thereby, demonstrated the significance and practical power of critical thinking.

Richard Andrews takes a different tack. His title, “Critical Thinking and/or Argumentation in Higher Education?” indicates the direction of travel. For Andrews, critical thinking is a necessary component of argumentation: get the argumentation right—and get students to acquire understanding of and competence in argumentation—and critical thinking will be in evidence pari passu. Here, on this view, the very term “critical thinking” is something of a misnomer, being “tautological,” since “to think clearly is to be critical.” If students can be helped to think clearly, and to acquire all the self-discipline that accompanies rigorous clear thought, then they will become not only critical thinkers but self-critical thinkers.

Notably, both Ennis and Andrews deploy a language of dispositions and abilities (or skills) but they do so through differing perspectives and with differing motives. Partly, going back to our earlier point about perspectives and interests, the difference here can be explained in Ennis coming at the matter primarily through philosophy and Andrews coming at the matter primarily as an educator. For the one, teaching critical thinking is a matter of the application of a philosophical conception of critical thinking whereas for the other, the originating concern is that of enabling higher education students to develop and to realize their potential.

Benjamin Hamby attempts to cut through much of the complexity of this debate by arguing trenchantly for there being one cardinal, “necessary and central,” virtue that lies at the heart of critical thinking, namely a “willingness to inquire.” Hamby teases out this idea, referring to individuals having “passion,” “perseverance,” “motivation,” and “willing engagement.” This virtue “stands behind other critical thinking virtues,” such as open-mindedness; after all, “I could be the most open-minded person yet not at all interested in critical inquiry, being open-minded only for the sake of making friends [and other such instrumental reasons].” Equally, the display of critical thinking is not in itself indicative of a critical thinker in our midst. A critical thinker has to want to be critical, has to be stirred up to be critical and be energized so to do, even (so we might add) to do so when no one is watching.

Implicit, therefore, in Hamby’s account is a fundamental distinction between dispositions and skills (or abilities), and it is this distinction that Barnett drives forward in introducing the concept of criticality into the debate. For Barnett, the full realization of critical thinking resides in three domains, critical thought, critical action, and critical being, which together amount to criticality. The fully critical student not only can think critically but can also exemplify that capacity in action in the world—say in professional life—and also be energized in that way, having the appropriate set of dispositions so to act. These dispositions include, for instance, the virtue of courage since the enactment of critical thinking may run against dominant ideologies and power structures.

Such criticality can be displayed at a number of levels, and Barnett identifies four levels: it might be exemplified in a rather perfunctory way, but at the highest level, it would amount to critique, in which students were able to see their studies in the widest possible way, enact their criticality on the largest and even global stage, and be fully committed to the critical way of life, even at some personal cost. “The critical spirit” (Siegel 1988) is a way of capturing such a large conception of criticality.

Cognition, skills, abilities, dispositions, and ways of being in the world: these are just some of the fault lines that have permeated the critical thinking debate for thirty years. These are apparent in the chapters in this opening section, and these chapters serve, accordingly, to set the scene for the sections to come.

1

Critical Thinking: A Streamlined Conception

Robert H. Ennis

Beginnings

Critical thinking under that name was inspired by pragmatic philosopher John Dewey (1910) and endorsed by analytic philosopher Max Black (1946). Dewey was revered by the progressive educators, who re-labeled his “reflective thinking” as “critical thinking,” a name I believe they originated and that persists to the present (see Aiken (1942) for a mixture of both terms). Black (1946), insofar as I can determine, wrote the first college text including the words “critical thinking” in the title.

But critical thinking did not assume extensive prominence until the early 1980s. The California State University system in its “Executive Order 338” (Harmon 1980) required that all students study critical thinking in order to graduate from its units. The Commission on the Humanities (“Rockefeller Commission”) asserted, “The Department of Education should define critical thinking as one of the basic skills that provides the foundation for advanced skills of all kinds” (1980, 37). There is not enough space here to report the many other strong expressions of support for critical thinking since then (see Ennis 2011), but I should mention the rapid development of interest in critical thinking worldwide since the 1970s. Also especially noteworthy is the support for critical thinking from both major US political parties in the form of statements by two presidents, George H. W. Bush and Barack Obama. Critical thinking was an explicit expressed goal in America 2000 (1991, 40), an education policy statement endorsed in its preface by then-president Bush. President Obama, in his State of the Union Address (2014), listed critical thinking as one of the six basic goals of education.

But what is this critical thinking concept (using Rawls’s [1971] distinction between concept and conception) that has been receiving increasing support? After careful consideration of its use in the previous century, I proposed this definition of the concept in the mid-1980s and still think it fits what most people were and are talking about:

Critical thinking is reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do.

Brief listings of dispositions and abilities of the ideal critical thinker

Given this definition, the ideal critical thinker can be characterized in somewhat more detail by the following proposed interdependent and somewhat-overlapping sets of twelve dispositions and eighteen abilities that constitute a streamlined conception. I have modified the organization and wording of critical thinking dispositions and abilities over the years in the direction of theoretical refinement and precision (1980; 1987; 1991; 1996a; 2011; 2013b); and Norris and Ennis (1989), but the basic ideas have not changed.

Critical thinking dispositions

Ideal critical thinkers are disposed to

1. seek and offer clear statements of the thesis or question,

2. seek and offer clear reasons,

3. try to be well informed,

4. use credible sources and observations, and usually mention them,

5. take into account the total situation,

6. keep in mind the basic concern in the context,

7. be alert for alternatives,

8. be open-minded

a. seriously consider other points of view,

b. withhold judgment when the evidence and reasons are insufficient,

9. take a position and change a position when the evidence and reasons are sufficient,

10. seek as much precision as the situation requires,

11. try to “get it right” to the extent possible or feasible, and

12. employ their critical thinking abilities.

Critical thinking abilities

Ideal critical thinkers have the ability to

1. have a focus and pursue it,

2. analyze arguments,

3. ask and answer clarification questions,

4. understand and use graphs and maths,

5. judge the credibility of a source,

6. observe, and judge observation reports,

7. use their background knowledge, knowledge of the situation, and previously established conclusions,

8. deduce, and judge deductions,

9. make, and judge, inductive inferences and arguments (both enumerative induction and best-explanation reasoning),

10. make, and judge, value judgments,

11. define terms, and judge definitions,

12. handle equivocation appropriately,

13. attribute and judge unstated assumptions,

14. think suppositionally, and

15. deal with fallacy labels.

Three nonconstitutive but helpful abilities that ideal critical thinkers possess are to:

16. be aware of, and check the quality of, their own thinking (metacognition),

17. deal with things in an orderly manner, and

18. deal with rhetorical strategies.

More detail in the form of principles and criteria can be found in Ennis (1996a; 2011; 2013b).

Exemplification of critical thinking dispositions and abilities

I shall exemplify these dispositions and abilities, showing the vital role that they can play in dealing with real issues. The main source of these examples is my experience as a juror in a murder trial. This experience was unique, but dealing with the legal system was not. Furthermore, most parts of this experience are similar to many features of our daily lives.

The defendant, Arlene, was charged with murder and voluntary manslaughter in the death of her companion, Al, late at night in her parents’ kitchen. Soon after they entered the house through the back door, Arlene stabbed Al through the heart with a kitchen knife. She went to her parents’ bedroom and awakened them, whereupon they called an ambulance. The victim was dead when the ambulance arrived. No one except Arlene witnessed the events leading to the killing, or the killing itself.

Although the defendant was charged with voluntary manslaughter as well as murder, I shall simplify by specifying in full only the nature of the charge of murder in the terms that were given in writing to the jurors.

The charge of murder in this trial

This is the charge of murder that we were directed by the judge to address:

To sustain the charge of Murder, the State must prove the following propositions:

First: That the Defendant performed the acts which caused the death of the Victim; and

Second: That when the Defendant did so she intended to kill or do great bodily harm to the Victim, or she knew that her acts would cause death or great bodily harm to the Victim, or she knew that her acts created a strong probability of death or great bodily harm to the Victim; and

Third: that the Defendant was not justified in using the force which she used.

If you find from your consideration of all the evidence that each of these propositions has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, then you should find the Defendant guilty.

If, on the other hand, you find from your consideration of all the evidence that any of these propositions has not been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, then you should find the Defendant not guilty.

Critical thinking dispositions exemplified

We used all the specified critical thinking dispositions in dealing with this murder charge:

1. Seek and offer clear statements of the thesis or question. We needed to be clear about what was at issue. If we had not been clear about the murder charge, we might have carelessly assumed that murder in this context required intent to kill, but this charge did not so require, we noted, although intent to kill would have been sufficient to establish the second necessary condition for murder. We also had to be clear about the difference between there being a strong probability of great bodily harm and the defendant’s knowing that there was such a probability.

This clarity disposition had a more sophisticated application. In our situation, proof was the basic concern. The standard of proof in this situation was proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But one of the jurors acted as if the standard were logical necessity. Assuming the logical-necessity interpretation of proof would have resulted in a different verdict about voluntary manslaughter than the one we produced, though it would not have made a difference in our decision about murder. We needed to be clear about the difference between the two concepts of proof. At one point we sent a note to the judge seeking a definition of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” This note was part of our effort to secure a clear statement of the question.

2. Seek and offer clear reasons. When one juror said at the beginning of our deliberations, “She’s guilty, let’s vote,” others asked why he ...