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Critical thinking refers to deliberately scrutinizing and evaluating theories, concepts, or ideas using reasoned reflection and analysis. The act of thinking critically involves moving beyond simply understanding information, but rather, to question its source, its production, and its presentation in order to expose potential bias or researcher subjectivity [i.e., being influenced by personal opinions and feelings rather than by external determinants ] . Applying critical thinking to investigating a research problem involves actively challenging basic assumptions and questioning the choices and potential motives underpinning how the author designed the study, conducted the research, and arrived at particular conclusions or recommended courses of action.

Mintz, Steven. "How the Word "Critical" Came to Signify the Leading Edge of Cultural Analysis." Higher Ed Gamma Blog , Inside Higher Ed, February 13, 2024; Van Merriënboer, Jeroen JG and Paul A. Kirschner. Ten Steps to Complex Learning: A Systematic Approach to Four-component Instructional Design . New York: Routledge, 2017.

Thinking Critically

Applying Critical Thinking to Research and Writing

Professors like to use the term critical thinking; in fact, the idea of being a critical thinker permeates much of higher education writ large. In the classroom, the idea of thinking critically is often mentioned by professors when students ask how they should approach a research and writing assignment [other approaches your professor might mention include interdisciplinarity, comparative, gendered, global, etc.]. However, critical thinking is more than just an approach to research and writing. It is an acquired skill associated with becoming a complex learner capable of discerning important relationships among the elements of, as well as integrating multiple ways of understanding applied to, the research problem. Critical thinking is a lens through which you holistically interrogate a topic.

Given this, thinking critically encompasses a variety of inter-related connotations applied to writing a college-level research paper:

• Integrated and Multi-Dimensional . Critical thinking is not focused on any one element of research, but instead, is applied holistically throughout the process of identifying the research problem, reviewing the literature, applying methods of analysis, describing the results, discussing their implications, and, if appropriate, offering recommendations for further research. It permeates the entire research endeavor from contemplating what to write to proofreading the final product.
• Humanizes the Research . Thinking critically can help humanize what is being studied by extending the scope of your analysis beyond the traditional boundaries of prior research. This prior research could have involved, for example, sampling homogeneous populations, considering only certain factors related to the investigation of a phenomenon, or limiting the way authors framed or contextualized their study. Critical thinking creates opportunities to incorporate the experiences of others into the research process, leading to a more inclusive and representative examination of the topic.
• Non-Linear . This refers to analyzing a research problem in ways that do not rely on sequential decision-making or rational forms of reasoning. Creative thinking relies on intuitive judgement, flexibility, and unconventional approaches to investigating complex phenomena in order to discover new insights, connections, and potential solutions . This involves going back and modifying your thinking as new evidence emerges , perhaps multiple times throughout the research process, and drawing conclusions from multiple perspectives.
• Normative . This is the idea that critical thinking can be used to challenge prior assumptions in ways that advocate for social justice, equity, and inclusion and that can lead to research having a more transformative and expansive impact. In this respect, critical thinking can be viewed as a method for breaking away from dominant culture norms so as to produce research outcomes that illuminate previously hidden aspects of exploitation and injustice.
• Power Dynamics . Research in the social sciences often includes examining aspects of power and influence that shape social relations, organizations, institutions, and the production and maintenance of knowledge. These studies focus on how power operates, how it can be acquired, and how power and influence can be maintained. Critical thinking can reveal how societal structures perpetuate power and influence in ways that marginalizes and oppresses certain groups or communities within the contexts of history , politics, economics, culture, and other factors.
• Reflection . A key component of critical thinking is practicing reflexivity; the act of turning ideas and concepts back onto yourself in order to reveal and clarify your own beliefs, assumptions, and perspectives. Being critically reflexive is important because it can reveal hidden biases you may have that could unintentionally influence how you interpret and validate information. The more reflexive you are, the better able and more comfortable you are in opening yourself up to new modes of understanding.
• Rigorous Questioning . Thinking critically is guided by asking questions that lead to addressing complex concepts, principles, theories, or problems more effectively and, in so doing, help distinguish what is known from from what is not known [or that may be hidden]. Critical thinking involves deliberately framing inquiries not just as research questions, but as a way to apply systematic, disciplined,  in-depth forms of questioning concerning the research problem and your positionality as a researcher.
• Social Change . An overarching goal of critical thinking applied to research and writing is to seek to identify and challenge sources of inequality, exploitation, oppression, and marinalization that contributes to maintaining the status quo within institutions of society. This can include entities, such as, schools, courts, businesses, government agencies, or religious organizations, that have been created and maintained through certain ways of thinking within the dominant culture.

Although critical thinking permeates the entire research and writing process, it applies most directly to the literature review and discussion sections of your paper . In reviewing the literature, it is important to reflect upon specific aspects of a study, such as, determining if the research design effectively establishes cause and effect relationships or provides insight into explaining why certain phenomena do or do not occur, assessing whether the method of gathering data or information supports the objectives of the study, and evaluating if the assumptions used t o arrive at a specific conclusion are evidence-based and relevant to addressing the research problem. However, an assessment of whether a source is helpful to investigating the research problem also involves critically analyzing how the research challenges conventional approaches to investigations that perpetuate inequalities or hides the voices of others.

Critical thinking applies to the discussion section of your paper because this is where you internalize the results of your study and explain its significance. This involves more than summarizing findings and describing outcomes. It includes reflecting on their importance and providing reasoned explanations why your paper is important in filling a gap in the literature or expanding knowledge and understanding in ways that inform practice. Critical reflection helps you think introspectively about your own beliefs concerning the significance of the findings, but in ways that avoid biased judgment and decision making.

Behar-Horenstein, Linda S., and Lian Niu. “Teaching Critical Thinking Skills in Higher Education: A Review of the Literature.” Journal of College Teaching and Learning 8 (February 2011): 25-41; Bayou, Yemeserach and Tamene Kitila. "Exploring Instructors’ Beliefs about and Practices in Promoting Students’ Critical Thinking Skills in Writing Classes." GIST–Education and Learning Research Journal 26 (2023): 123-154; Butcher, Charity. "Using In-class Writing to Promote Critical Thinking and Application of Course Concepts." Journal of Political Science Education 18 (2022): 3-21; Loseke, Donileen R. Methodological Thinking: Basic Principles of Social Research Design. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2012; Mintz, Steven. "How the Word "Critical" Came to Signify the Leading Edge of Cultural Analysis." Higher Ed Gamma Blog , Inside Higher Ed, February 13, 2024; Hart, Claire et al. “Exploring Higher Education Students’ Critical Thinking Skills through Content Analysis.” Thinking Skills and Creativity 41 (September 2021): 100877; Lewis, Arthur and David Smith. "Defining Higher Order Thinking." Theory into Practice 32 (Summer 1993): 131-137; Sabrina, R., Emilda Sulasmi, and Mandra Saragih. "Student Critical Thinking Skills and Student Writing Ability: The Role of Teachers' Intellectual Skills and Student Learning." Cypriot Journal of Educational Sciences 17 (2022): 2493-2510. Suter, W. Newton. Introduction to Educational Research: A Critical Thinking Approach. 2nd edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2012; Van Merriënboer, Jeroen JG and Paul A. Kirschner. Ten Steps to Complex Learning: A Systematic Approach to Four-component Instructional Design. New York: Routledge, 2017; Vance, Charles M., et al. "Understanding and Measuring Linear–Nonlinear Thinking Style for Enhanced Management Education and Professional Practice." Academy of Management Learning and Education 6 (2007): 167-185; Yeh, Hui-Chin, Shih-hsien Yang, Jo Shan Fu, and Yen-Chen Shih. "Developing College Students’ Critical Thinking through Reflective Writing." Higher Education Research & Development 42 (2023): 244-259.

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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.

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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• 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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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.

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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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1.2: Critical Thinking Skills

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We are not born with natural critical thinking abilities. Critical thinking is a skill that can be developed. The good news is that we all have the ability to improve our critical thinking skills. We can become more effective decision makers and improve our self- confidence. Below are some of those Critical Thinking Skills that can be developed and enhanced:

Critical thinkers are intellectually curious . This skill implies that the critical thinker is never totally satisfied with what they know. He or she seeks answers to various kinds of questions and problems. The critical thinker is concerned with investigating the causes and seeking explanations of events; asking why, how, who, what, when, and where.

Critical thinkers are open-minded . An open-minded person is one who is confident enough in his/her abilities to accept new and contradictory ideas, which challenge his/her current beliefs. This is opposed to being “tolerant” where the dogmatic person may politely listen to other arguments, but their minds will not be changed.

The open-minded person is one who is not only willing to listen to new ideas, but will alter an already adopted position if the new data dictates. The open-minded person is willing to consider a wide variety of positions and beliefs as possibly being valid. Open-minded people are flexible. They are willing to change their beliefs and methods of inquiry, if they are faced with a more valid argument. Open-minded people show a willingness to admit they may be wrong and that other ideas they did not accept may be correct. Critical thinkers do not just want to prove they are correct; they are open- minded enough to change their mind.

Critical thinkers avoid “Red Herrings.” Critical thinkers follow a line of reasoning consistently to a particular conclusion. They avoid irrelevancies, called “red herrings,” that stray from the issue being argued. When Jim and his wife Suzy argue, and Jim feels he is losing, he looks at Suzy and says, “You argue pretty well for a short person.” He is hoping to draw her off the argument and send her fishing for the “red herring,” her being short. If she takes the bait the original argument fades away. Critical thinkers won’t go after “red herrings.”

Critical thinkers are aware of their own biases . All humans are biased, some more than others. Some know that they have biases, some are not aware of their biases. We all have biases that we are not aware of and the critical thinker strives to learn them, so he or she can be more in charge of their thinking. It may be too much of a challenge to eliminate the different biases we have. Instead a critical thinker needs to be aware of the bias and how it will affect the thinking process. Thinking about thinking is referred to as metacognition. A critical thinker looks at how he or she thinks and makes decisions in order to improve the process.

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”

----F. Scott Fitzgerald 1

Critical thinkers learn to handle confusion . People will do almost anything to avoid the mental pain that comes with lingering confusion. We bypass it, avoid it, and even try to pass it off to someone else. In this haste to avoid confusion we often make quick decisions based on limited data or overworked stereotypes. The critical thinker allows him or herself to be confused as they work through the argument towards a conclusion.

Critical thinkers are able to control and use their emotions . Notice this does not say, “ Eliminate emotions .” We gather all sorts of valuable data through our emotions, that we can use in the decision-making process. We just have to be careful not to let emotions dominate our critical thinking and argumentation. Nothing will destroy the critical thinking process faster than misplaced or misdirected anger, fear, or frustration.

Critical thinkers are sensitive and empathetic to the needs of others . Critical thinkers need to pay particular attention to the needs of their target audience. The needs, concerns, and desires of your audience may be different than yours. The critical thinker is more effective if he or she can understand those concerns. They may not agree with them, but at least they understand them. The target audience may be the person trying to convince you of their argument or the person you are trying to convince with your argument. Persuasion usually takes place when an advocate is able to meet the needs of his or her target audience. In fact, your needs may be unimportant as it pertains to moving a target audience towards adherence to your point of view.

Critical thinkers can distinguish between a conclusion that might be “true” and one that they would like to be “true.” Notice the use of "truth" with a lower case "t . " This "truth" refers to just what a person believes, not the ultimate correct position that would be indicated by "Truth." A conclusion that might be true, is based on calculating the probability of its outcome, to see if it has a reasonable chance of becoming a reality. The second type, a conclusion that you would like to be true, is based more on your wishing, wanting, and desiring that it become a reality. The first can be put to the tests of critical reasoning, but the second cannot, and, therefore, is of little value in critical thinking. You may believe your child to be a great person, but the evidence might suggest otherwise.

Critical thinkers know when to admit to not knowing something . An essential prerequisite to understanding is humility; to be able to admit when you don’t know an answer to a situation. Although we want to protect our egos by believing we know everything, learning comes from questioning, not from knowing all the answers. When we can admit that we don’t know, we are more likely to ask questions that will enable us to learn. By giving ourselves permission to admit we don’t know everything, we can overcome the fear that our lack of knowledge will be discovered. The energy expended trying to cover up what we don’t know diminishes our ability to learn. If we are always trying to disguise our lack of knowledge of a subject, we will never fully understand what it is we don’t know about it. Feel free to say, "I don't know."

Critical Thinkers are independent Thinkers. They have the confidence to state their opinions and point of view to others who might disagree. They use the skills of critical thinking to support their positions and make their arguments.

Critical thinkers seek a “dialogical” approach to the process of argument. “Dialogical” thinkers seriously seek points of view other than their own. The ability to think “dialogically” would include the abilities to: analyze, synthesize, compare and contrast, explain, evaluate, justify, recognize valid and invalid conclusions, identify or anticipate or pose problems, look for alternatives, apply logical principles, and solve conventional or novel problems. These are many of the skills of critically thinkers.

Stephen Brookfield in his book, Challenging Adults to Explore Alternative Ways of Thinking, writes,

“Critical thinking is only possible when people probe their habitual ways of thinking, for their underlying assumptions, those taken-for-granted values, common-sense ideas, and stereotypical notions about human nature that underlie our actions.” 2

We are looking at the process of argumentation and the type of person who can be most effective in an argumentative situation. You as a critical thinker will be both involved in an argument and an observer of an argument. We can improve our abilities to do both.

• Thomas Oppong "F. Scott Fitzgerald on first Rate Intelligence," 2018, medium.com/personal-growth/f...e-7cf8ea002794 (accessed on November 6, 2019)
• Brookfield, Stephen. Developing Critical Thinkers : Challenging Adults to Explore Alternative Ways of Thinking and Acting. (Baltimore: Laureate Education, 2010)

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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.  

Join the community and learn explicit tools of critical thinking.

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• v.17(1); Spring 2018

Understanding the Complex Relationship between Critical Thinking and Science Reasoning among Undergraduate Thesis Writers

Jason e. dowd.

† Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708

Robert J. Thompson, Jr.

‡ Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708

Leslie A. Schiff

§ Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455

Julie A. Reynolds

Associated data.

This study empirically examines the relationship between students’ critical-thinking skills and scientific reasoning as reflected in undergraduate thesis writing in biology. Writing offers a unique window into studying this relationship, and the findings raise potential implications for instruction.

Developing critical-thinking and scientific reasoning skills are core learning objectives of science education, but little empirical evidence exists regarding the interrelationships between these constructs. Writing effectively fosters students’ development of these constructs, and it offers a unique window into studying how they relate. In this study of undergraduate thesis writing in biology at two universities, we examine how scientific reasoning exhibited in writing (assessed using the Biology Thesis Assessment Protocol) relates to general and specific critical-thinking skills (assessed using the California Critical Thinking Skills Test), and we consider implications for instruction. We find that scientific reasoning in writing is strongly related to inference , while other aspects of science reasoning that emerge in writing (epistemological considerations, writing conventions, etc.) are not significantly related to critical-thinking skills. Science reasoning in writing is not merely a proxy for critical thinking. In linking features of students’ writing to their critical-thinking skills, this study 1) provides a bridge to prior work suggesting that engagement in science writing enhances critical thinking and 2) serves as a foundational step for subsequently determining whether instruction focused explicitly on developing critical-thinking skills (particularly inference ) can actually improve students’ scientific reasoning in their writing.

INTRODUCTION

Critical-thinking and scientific reasoning skills are core learning objectives of science education for all students, regardless of whether or not they intend to pursue a career in science or engineering. Consistent with the view of learning as construction of understanding and meaning ( National Research Council, 2000 ), the pedagogical practice of writing has been found to be effective not only in fostering the development of students’ conceptual and procedural knowledge ( Gerdeman et al. , 2007 ) and communication skills ( Clase et al. , 2010 ), but also scientific reasoning ( Reynolds et al. , 2012 ) and critical-thinking skills ( Quitadamo and Kurtz, 2007 ).

Critical thinking and scientific reasoning are similar but different constructs that include various types of higher-order cognitive processes, metacognitive strategies, and dispositions involved in making meaning of information. Critical thinking is generally understood as the broader construct ( Holyoak and Morrison, 2005 ), comprising an array of cognitive processes and dispostions that are drawn upon differentially in everyday life and across domains of inquiry such as the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Scientific reasoning, then, may be interpreted as the subset of critical-thinking skills (cognitive and metacognitive processes and dispositions) that 1) are involved in making meaning of information in scientific domains and 2) support the epistemological commitment to scientific methodology and paradigm(s).

Although there has been an enduring focus in higher education on promoting critical thinking and reasoning as general or “transferable” skills, research evidence provides increasing support for the view that reasoning and critical thinking are also situational or domain specific ( Beyer et al. , 2013 ). Some researchers, such as Lawson (2010) , present frameworks in which science reasoning is characterized explicitly in terms of critical-thinking skills. There are, however, limited coherent frameworks and empirical evidence regarding either the general or domain-specific interrelationships of scientific reasoning, as it is most broadly defined, and critical-thinking skills.

The Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education Initiative provides a framework for thinking about these constructs and their interrelationship in the context of the core competencies and disciplinary practice they describe ( American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2011 ). These learning objectives aim for undergraduates to “understand the process of science, the interdisciplinary nature of the new biology and how science is closely integrated within society; be competent in communication and collaboration; have quantitative competency and a basic ability to interpret data; and have some experience with modeling, simulation and computational and systems level approaches as well as with using large databases” ( Woodin et al. , 2010 , pp. 71–72). This framework makes clear that science reasoning and critical-thinking skills play key roles in major learning outcomes; for example, “understanding the process of science” requires students to engage in (and be metacognitive about) scientific reasoning, and having the “ability to interpret data” requires critical-thinking skills. To help students better achieve these core competencies, we must better understand the interrelationships of their composite parts. Thus, the next step is to determine which specific critical-thinking skills are drawn upon when students engage in science reasoning in general and with regard to the particular scientific domain being studied. Such a determination could be applied to improve science education for both majors and nonmajors through pedagogical approaches that foster critical-thinking skills that are most relevant to science reasoning.

Writing affords one of the most effective means for making thinking visible ( Reynolds et al. , 2012 ) and learning how to “think like” and “write like” disciplinary experts ( Meizlish et al. , 2013 ). As a result, student writing affords the opportunities to both foster and examine the interrelationship of scientific reasoning and critical-thinking skills within and across disciplinary contexts. The purpose of this study was to better understand the relationship between students’ critical-thinking skills and scientific reasoning skills as reflected in the genre of undergraduate thesis writing in biology departments at two research universities, the University of Minnesota and Duke University.

In the following subsections, we discuss in greater detail the constructs of scientific reasoning and critical thinking, as well as the assessment of scientific reasoning in students’ thesis writing. In subsequent sections, we discuss our study design, findings, and the implications for enhancing educational practices.

Critical Thinking

The advances in cognitive science in the 21st century have increased our understanding of the mental processes involved in thinking and reasoning, as well as memory, learning, and problem solving. Critical thinking is understood to include both a cognitive dimension and a disposition dimension (e.g., reflective thinking) and is defined as “purposeful, self-regulatory judgment which results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well as explanation of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual considera­tions upon which that judgment is based” ( Facione, 1990, p. 3 ). Although various other definitions of critical thinking have been proposed, researchers have generally coalesced on this consensus: expert view ( Blattner and Frazier, 2002 ; Condon and Kelly-Riley, 2004 ; Bissell and Lemons, 2006 ; Quitadamo and Kurtz, 2007 ) and the corresponding measures of critical-­thinking skills ( August, 2016 ; Stephenson and Sadler-McKnight, 2016 ).

Both the cognitive skills and dispositional components of critical thinking have been recognized as important to science education ( Quitadamo and Kurtz, 2007 ). Empirical research demonstrates that specific pedagogical practices in science courses are effective in fostering students’ critical-thinking skills. Quitadamo and Kurtz (2007) found that students who engaged in a laboratory writing component in the context of a general education biology course significantly improved their overall critical-thinking skills (and their analytical and inference skills, in particular), whereas students engaged in a traditional quiz-based laboratory did not improve their critical-thinking skills. In related work, Quitadamo et al. (2008) found that a community-based inquiry experience, involving inquiry, writing, research, and analysis, was associated with improved critical thinking in a biology course for nonmajors, compared with traditionally taught sections. In both studies, students who exhibited stronger presemester critical-thinking skills exhibited stronger gains, suggesting that “students who have not been explicitly taught how to think critically may not reach the same potential as peers who have been taught these skills” ( Quitadamo and Kurtz, 2007 , p. 151).

Recently, Stephenson and Sadler-McKnight (2016) found that first-year general chemistry students who engaged in a science writing heuristic laboratory, which is an inquiry-based, writing-to-learn approach to instruction ( Hand and Keys, 1999 ), had significantly greater gains in total critical-thinking scores than students who received traditional laboratory instruction. Each of the four components—inquiry, writing, collaboration, and reflection—have been linked to critical thinking ( Stephenson and Sadler-McKnight, 2016 ). Like the other studies, this work highlights the value of targeting critical-thinking skills and the effectiveness of an inquiry-based, writing-to-learn approach to enhance critical thinking. Across studies, authors advocate adopting critical thinking as the course framework ( Pukkila, 2004 ) and developing explicit examples of how critical thinking relates to the scientific method ( Miri et al. , 2007 ).

In these examples, the important connection between writing and critical thinking is highlighted by the fact that each intervention involves the incorporation of writing into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education (either alone or in combination with other pedagogical practices). However, critical-thinking skills are not always the primary learning outcome; in some contexts, scientific reasoning is the primary outcome that is assessed.

Scientific Reasoning

Scientific reasoning is a complex process that is broadly defined as “the skills involved in inquiry, experimentation, evidence evaluation, and inference that are done in the service of conceptual change or scientific understanding” ( Zimmerman, 2007 , p. 172). Scientific reasoning is understood to include both conceptual knowledge and the cognitive processes involved with generation of hypotheses (i.e., inductive processes involved in the generation of hypotheses and the deductive processes used in the testing of hypotheses), experimentation strategies, and evidence evaluation strategies. These dimensions are interrelated, in that “experimentation and inference strategies are selected based on prior conceptual knowledge of the domain” ( Zimmerman, 2000 , p. 139). Furthermore, conceptual and procedural knowledge and cognitive process dimensions can be general and domain specific (or discipline specific).

With regard to conceptual knowledge, attention has been focused on the acquisition of core methodological concepts fundamental to scientists’ causal reasoning and metacognitive distancing (or decontextualized thinking), which is the ability to reason independently of prior knowledge or beliefs ( Greenhoot et al. , 2004 ). The latter involves what Kuhn and Dean (2004) refer to as the coordination of theory and evidence, which requires that one question existing theories (i.e., prior knowledge and beliefs), seek contradictory evidence, eliminate alternative explanations, and revise one’s prior beliefs in the face of contradictory evidence. Kuhn and colleagues (2008) further elaborate that scientific thinking requires “a mature understanding of the epistemological foundations of science, recognizing scientific knowledge as constructed by humans rather than simply discovered in the world,” and “the ability to engage in skilled argumentation in the scientific domain, with an appreciation of argumentation as entailing the coordination of theory and evidence” ( Kuhn et al. , 2008 , p. 435). “This approach to scientific reasoning not only highlights the skills of generating and evaluating evidence-based inferences, but also encompasses epistemological appreciation of the functions of evidence and theory” ( Ding et al. , 2016 , p. 616). Evaluating evidence-based inferences involves epistemic cognition, which Moshman (2015) defines as the subset of metacognition that is concerned with justification, truth, and associated forms of reasoning. Epistemic cognition is both general and domain specific (or discipline specific; Moshman, 2015 ).

There is empirical support for the contributions of both prior knowledge and an understanding of the epistemological foundations of science to scientific reasoning. In a study of undergraduate science students, advanced scientific reasoning was most often accompanied by accurate prior knowledge as well as sophisticated epistemological commitments; additionally, for students who had comparable levels of prior knowledge, skillful reasoning was associated with a strong epistemological commitment to the consistency of theory with evidence ( Zeineddin and Abd-El-Khalick, 2010 ). These findings highlight the importance of the need for instructional activities that intentionally help learners develop sophisticated epistemological commitments focused on the nature of knowledge and the role of evidence in supporting knowledge claims ( Zeineddin and Abd-El-Khalick, 2010 ).

Scientific Reasoning in Students’ Thesis Writing

Pedagogical approaches that incorporate writing have also focused on enhancing scientific reasoning. Many rubrics have been developed to assess aspects of scientific reasoning in written artifacts. For example, Timmerman and colleagues (2011) , in the course of describing their own rubric for assessing scientific reasoning, highlight several examples of scientific reasoning assessment criteria ( Haaga, 1993 ; Tariq et al. , 1998 ; Topping et al. , 2000 ; Kelly and Takao, 2002 ; Halonen et al. , 2003 ; Willison and O’Regan, 2007 ).

At both the University of Minnesota and Duke University, we have focused on the genre of the undergraduate honors thesis as the rhetorical context in which to study and improve students’ scientific reasoning and writing. We view the process of writing an undergraduate honors thesis as a form of professional development in the sciences (i.e., a way of engaging students in the practices of a community of discourse). We have found that structured courses designed to scaffold the thesis-­writing process and promote metacognition can improve writing and reasoning skills in biology, chemistry, and economics ( Reynolds and Thompson, 2011 ; Dowd et al. , 2015a , b ). In the context of this prior work, we have defined scientific reasoning in writing as the emergent, underlying construct measured across distinct aspects of students’ written discussion of independent research in their undergraduate theses.

The Biology Thesis Assessment Protocol (BioTAP) was developed at Duke University as a tool for systematically guiding students and faculty through a “draft–feedback–revision” writing process, modeled after professional scientific peer-review processes ( Reynolds et al. , 2009 ). BioTAP includes activities and worksheets that allow students to engage in critical peer review and provides detailed descriptions, presented as rubrics, of the questions (i.e., dimensions, shown in Table 1 ) upon which such review should focus. Nine rubric dimensions focus on communication to the broader scientific community, and four rubric dimensions focus on the accuracy and appropriateness of the research. These rubric dimensions provide criteria by which the thesis is assessed, and therefore allow BioTAP to be used as an assessment tool as well as a teaching resource ( Reynolds et al. , 2009 ). Full details are available at www.science-writing.org/biotap.html .

Theses assessment protocol dimensions

In previous work, we have used BioTAP to quantitatively assess students’ undergraduate honors theses and explore the relationship between thesis-writing courses (or specific interventions within the courses) and the strength of students’ science reasoning in writing across different science disciplines: biology ( Reynolds and Thompson, 2011 ); chemistry ( Dowd et al. , 2015b ); and economics ( Dowd et al. , 2015a ). We have focused exclusively on the nine dimensions related to reasoning and writing (questions 1–9), as the other four dimensions (questions 10–13) require topic-specific expertise and are intended to be used by the student’s thesis supervisor.

Beyond considering individual dimensions, we have investigated whether meaningful constructs underlie students’ thesis scores. We conducted exploratory factor analysis of students’ theses in biology, economics, and chemistry and found one dominant underlying factor in each discipline; we termed the factor “scientific reasoning in writing” ( Dowd et al. , 2015a , b , 2016 ). That is, each of the nine dimensions could be understood as reflecting, in different ways and to different degrees, the construct of scientific reasoning in writing. The findings indicated evidence of both general and discipline-specific components to scientific reasoning in writing that relate to epistemic beliefs and paradigms, in keeping with broader ideas about science reasoning discussed earlier. Specifically, scientific reasoning in writing is more strongly associated with formulating a compelling argument for the significance of the research in the context of current literature in biology, making meaning regarding the implications of the findings in chemistry, and providing an organizational framework for interpreting the thesis in economics. We suggested that instruction, whether occurring in writing studios or in writing courses to facilitate thesis preparation, should attend to both components.

Research Question and Study Design

The genre of thesis writing combines the pedagogies of writing and inquiry found to foster scientific reasoning ( Reynolds et al. , 2012 ) and critical thinking ( Quitadamo and Kurtz, 2007 ; Quitadamo et al. , 2008 ; Stephenson and Sadler-­McKnight, 2016 ). However, there is no empirical evidence regarding the general or domain-specific interrelationships of scientific reasoning and critical-thinking skills, particularly in the rhetorical context of the undergraduate thesis. The BioTAP studies discussed earlier indicate that the rubric-based assessment produces evidence of scientific reasoning in the undergraduate thesis, but it was not designed to foster or measure critical thinking. The current study was undertaken to address the research question: How are students’ critical-thinking skills related to scientific reasoning as reflected in the genre of undergraduate thesis writing in biology? Determining these interrelationships could guide efforts to enhance students’ scientific reasoning and writing skills through focusing instruction on specific critical-thinking skills as well as disciplinary conventions.

To address this research question, we focused on undergraduate thesis writers in biology courses at two institutions, Duke University and the University of Minnesota, and examined the extent to which students’ scientific reasoning in writing, assessed in the undergraduate thesis using BioTAP, corresponds to students’ critical-thinking skills, assessed using the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST; August, 2016 ).

Study Sample

The study sample was composed of students enrolled in courses designed to scaffold the thesis-writing process in the Department of Biology at Duke University and the College of Biological Sciences at the University of Minnesota. Both courses complement students’ individual work with research advisors. The course is required for thesis writers at the University of Minnesota and optional for writers at Duke University. Not all students are required to complete a thesis, though it is required for students to graduate with honors; at the University of Minnesota, such students are enrolled in an honors program within the college. In total, 28 students were enrolled in the course at Duke University and 44 students were enrolled in the course at the University of Minnesota. Of those students, two students did not consent to participate in the study; additionally, five students did not validly complete the CCTST (i.e., attempted fewer than 60% of items or completed the test in less than 15 minutes). Thus, our overall rate of valid participation is 90%, with 27 students from Duke University and 38 students from the University of Minnesota. We found no statistically significant differences in thesis assessment between students with valid CCTST scores and invalid CCTST scores. Therefore, we focus on the 65 students who consented to participate and for whom we have complete and valid data in most of this study. Additionally, in asking students for their consent to participate, we allowed them to choose whether to provide or decline access to academic and demographic background data. Of the 65 students who consented to participate, 52 students granted access to such data. Therefore, for additional analyses involving academic and background data, we focus on the 52 students who consented. We note that the 13 students who participated but declined to share additional data performed slightly lower on the CCTST than the 52 others (perhaps suggesting that they differ by other measures, but we cannot determine this with certainty). Among the 52 students, 60% identified as female and 10% identified as being from underrepresented ethnicities.

In both courses, students completed the CCTST online, either in class or on their own, late in the Spring 2016 semester. This is the same assessment that was used in prior studies of critical thinking ( Quitadamo and Kurtz, 2007 ; Quitadamo et al. , 2008 ; Stephenson and Sadler-McKnight, 2016 ). It is “an objective measure of the core reasoning skills needed for reflective decision making concerning what to believe or what to do” ( Insight Assessment, 2016a ). In the test, students are asked to read and consider information as they answer multiple-choice questions. The questions are intended to be appropriate for all users, so there is no expectation of prior disciplinary knowledge in biology (or any other subject). Although actual test items are protected, sample items are available on the Insight Assessment website ( Insight Assessment, 2016b ). We have included one sample item in the Supplemental Material.

The CCTST is based on a consensus definition of critical thinking, measures cognitive and metacognitive skills associated with critical thinking, and has been evaluated for validity and reliability at the college level ( August, 2016 ; Stephenson and Sadler-McKnight, 2016 ). In addition to providing overall critical-thinking score, the CCTST assesses seven dimensions of critical thinking: analysis, interpretation, inference, evaluation, explanation, induction, and deduction. Scores on each dimension are calculated based on students’ performance on items related to that dimension. Analysis focuses on identifying assumptions, reasons, and claims and examining how they interact to form arguments. Interpretation, related to analysis, focuses on determining the precise meaning and significance of information. Inference focuses on drawing conclusions from reasons and evidence. Evaluation focuses on assessing the credibility of sources of information and claims they make. Explanation, related to evaluation, focuses on describing the evidence, assumptions, or rationale for beliefs and conclusions. Induction focuses on drawing inferences about what is probably true based on evidence. Deduction focuses on drawing conclusions about what must be true when the context completely determines the outcome. These are not independent dimensions; the fact that they are related supports their collective interpretation as critical thinking. Together, the CCTST dimensions provide a basis for evaluating students’ overall strength in using reasoning to form reflective judgments about what to believe or what to do ( August, 2016 ). Each of the seven dimensions and the overall CCTST score are measured on a scale of 0–100, where higher scores indicate superior performance. Scores correspond to superior (86–100), strong (79–85), moderate (70–78), weak (63–69), or not manifested (62 and below) skills.

Scientific Reasoning in Writing

At the end of the semester, students’ final, submitted undergraduate theses were assessed using BioTAP, which consists of nine rubric dimensions that focus on communication to the broader scientific community and four additional dimensions that focus on the exhibition of topic-specific expertise ( Reynolds et al. , 2009 ). These dimensions, framed as questions, are displayed in Table 1 .

Student theses were assessed on questions 1–9 of BioTAP using the same procedures described in previous studies ( Reynolds and Thompson, 2011 ; Dowd et al. , 2015a , b ). In this study, six raters were trained in the valid, reliable use of BioTAP rubrics. Each dimension was rated on a five-point scale: 1 indicates the dimension is missing, incomplete, or below acceptable standards; 3 indicates that the dimension is adequate but not exhibiting mastery; and 5 indicates that the dimension is excellent and exhibits mastery (intermediate ratings of 2 and 4 are appropriate when different parts of the thesis make a single category challenging). After training, two raters independently assessed each thesis and then discussed their independent ratings with one another to form a consensus rating. The consensus score is not an average score, but rather an agreed-upon, discussion-based score. On a five-point scale, raters independently assessed dimensions to be within 1 point of each other 82.4% of the time before discussion and formed consensus ratings 100% of the time after discussion.

In this study, we consider both categorical (mastery/nonmastery, where a score of 5 corresponds to mastery) and numerical treatments of individual BioTAP scores to better relate the manifestation of critical thinking in BioTAP assessment to all of the prior studies. For comprehensive/cumulative measures of BioTAP, we focus on the partial sum of questions 1–5, as these questions relate to higher-order scientific reasoning (whereas questions 6–9 relate to mid- and lower-order writing mechanics [ Reynolds et al. , 2009 ]), and the factor scores (i.e., numerical representations of the extent to which each student exhibits the underlying factor), which are calculated from the factor loadings published by Dowd et al. (2016) . We do not focus on questions 6–9 individually in statistical analyses, because we do not expect critical-thinking skills to relate to mid- and lower-order writing skills.

The final, submitted thesis reflects the student’s writing, the student’s scientific reasoning, the quality of feedback provided to the student by peers and mentors, and the student’s ability to incorporate that feedback into his or her work. Therefore, our assessment is not the same as an assessment of unpolished, unrevised samples of students’ written work. While one might imagine that such an unpolished sample may be more strongly correlated with critical-thinking skills measured by the CCTST, we argue that the complete, submitted thesis, assessed using BioTAP, is ultimately a more appropriate reflection of how students exhibit science reasoning in the scientific community.

Statistical Analyses

We took several steps to analyze the collected data. First, to provide context for subsequent interpretations, we generated descriptive statistics for the CCTST scores of the participants based on the norms for undergraduate CCTST test takers. To determine the strength of relationships among CCTST dimensions (including overall score) and the BioTAP dimensions, partial-sum score (questions 1–5), and factor score, we calculated Pearson’s correlations for each pair of measures. To examine whether falling on one side of the nonmastery/mastery threshold (as opposed to a linear scale of performance) was related to critical thinking, we grouped BioTAP dimensions into categories (mastery/nonmastery) and conducted Student’s t tests to compare the means scores of the two groups on each of the seven dimensions and overall score of the CCTST. Finally, for the strongest relationship that emerged, we included additional academic and background variables as covariates in multiple linear-regression analysis to explore questions about how much observed relationships between critical-thinking skills and science reasoning in writing might be explained by variation in these other factors.

Although BioTAP scores represent discreet, ordinal bins, the five-point scale is intended to capture an underlying continuous construct (from inadequate to exhibiting mastery). It has been argued that five categories is an appropriate cutoff for treating ordinal variables as pseudo-continuous ( Rhemtulla et al. , 2012 )—and therefore using continuous-variable statistical methods (e.g., Pearson’s correlations)—as long as the underlying assumption that ordinal scores are linearly distributed is valid. Although we have no way to statistically test this assumption, we interpret adequate scores to be approximately halfway between inadequate and mastery scores, resulting in a linear scale. In part because this assumption is subject to disagreement, we also consider and interpret a categorical (mastery/nonmastery) treatment of BioTAP variables.

We corrected for multiple comparisons using the Holm-Bonferroni method ( Holm, 1979 ). At the most general level, where we consider the single, comprehensive measures for BioTAP (partial-sum and factor score) and the CCTST (overall score), there is no need to correct for multiple comparisons, because the multiple, individual dimensions are collapsed into single dimensions. When we considered individual CCTST dimensions in relation to comprehensive measures for BioTAP, we accounted for seven comparisons; similarly, when we considered individual dimensions of BioTAP in relation to overall CCTST score, we accounted for five comparisons. When all seven CCTST and five BioTAP dimensions were examined individually and without prior knowledge, we accounted for 35 comparisons; such a rigorous threshold is likely to reject weak and moderate relationships, but it is appropriate if there are no specific pre-existing hypotheses. All p values are presented in tables for complete transparency, and we carefully consider the implications of our interpretation of these data in the Discussion section.

CCTST scores for students in this sample ranged from the 39th to 99th percentile of the general population of undergraduate CCTST test takers (mean percentile = 84.3, median = 85th percentile; Table 2 ); these percentiles reflect overall scores that range from moderate to superior. Scores on individual dimensions and overall scores were sufficiently normal and far enough from the ceiling of the scale to justify subsequent statistical analyses.

Descriptive statistics of CCTST dimensions a

a Scores correspond to superior (86–100), strong (79–85), moderate (70–78), weak (63–69), or not manifested (62 and lower) skills.

The Pearson’s correlations between students’ cumulative scores on BioTAP (the factor score based on loadings published by Dowd et al. , 2016 , and the partial sum of scores on questions 1–5) and students’ overall scores on the CCTST are presented in Table 3 . We found that the partial-sum measure of BioTAP was significantly related to the overall measure of critical thinking ( r = 0.27, p = 0.03), while the BioTAP factor score was marginally related to overall CCTST ( r = 0.24, p = 0.05). When we looked at relationships between comprehensive BioTAP measures and scores for individual dimensions of the CCTST ( Table 3 ), we found significant positive correlations between the both BioTAP partial-sum and factor scores and CCTST inference ( r = 0.45, p < 0.001, and r = 0.41, p < 0.001, respectively). Although some other relationships have p values below 0.05 (e.g., the correlations between BioTAP partial-sum scores and CCTST induction and interpretation scores), they are not significant when we correct for multiple comparisons.

Correlations between dimensions of CCTST and dimensions of BioTAP a

a In each cell, the top number is the correlation, and the bottom, italicized number is the associated p value. Correlations that are statistically significant after correcting for multiple comparisons are shown in bold.

b This is the partial sum of BioTAP scores on questions 1–5.

c This is the factor score calculated from factor loadings published by Dowd et al. (2016) .

When we expanded comparisons to include all 35 potential correlations among individual BioTAP and CCTST dimensions—and, accordingly, corrected for 35 comparisons—we did not find any additional statistically significant relationships. The Pearson’s correlations between students’ scores on each dimension of BioTAP and students’ scores on each dimension of the CCTST range from −0.11 to 0.35 ( Table 3 ); although the relationship between discussion of implications (BioTAP question 5) and inference appears to be relatively large ( r = 0.35), it is not significant ( p = 0.005; the Holm-Bonferroni cutoff is 0.00143). We found no statistically significant relationships between BioTAP questions 6–9 and CCTST dimensions (unpublished data), regardless of whether we correct for multiple comparisons.

The results of Student’s t tests comparing scores on each dimension of the CCTST of students who exhibit mastery with those of students who do not exhibit mastery on each dimension of BioTAP are presented in Table 4 . Focusing first on the overall CCTST scores, we found that the difference between those who exhibit mastery and those who do not in discussing implications of results (BioTAP question 5) is statistically significant ( t = 2.73, p = 0.008, d = 0.71). When we expanded t tests to include all 35 comparisons—and, like above, corrected for 35 comparisons—we found a significant difference in inference scores between students who exhibit mastery on question 5 and students who do not ( t = 3.41, p = 0.0012, d = 0.88), as well as a marginally significant difference in these students’ induction scores ( t = 3.26, p = 0.0018, d = 0.84; the Holm-Bonferroni cutoff is p = 0.00147). Cohen’s d effect sizes, which reveal the strength of the differences for statistically significant relationships, range from 0.71 to 0.88.

The t statistics and effect sizes of differences in ­dimensions of CCTST across dimensions of BioTAP a

a In each cell, the top number is the t statistic for each comparison, and the middle, italicized number is the associated p value. The bottom number is the effect size. Correlations that are statistically significant after correcting for multiple comparisons are shown in bold.

Finally, we more closely examined the strongest relationship that we observed, which was between the CCTST dimension of inference and the BioTAP partial-sum composite score (shown in Table 3 ), using multiple regression analysis ( Table 5 ). Focusing on the 52 students for whom we have background information, we looked at the simple relationship between BioTAP and inference (model 1), a robust background model including multiple covariates that one might expect to explain some part of the variation in BioTAP (model 2), and a combined model including all variables (model 3). As model 3 shows, the covariates explain very little variation in BioTAP scores, and the relationship between inference and BioTAP persists even in the presence of all of the covariates.

Partial sum (questions 1–5) of BioTAP scores ( n = 52)

** p < 0.01.

*** p < 0.001.

The aim of this study was to examine the extent to which the various components of scientific reasoning—manifested in writing in the genre of undergraduate thesis and assessed using BioTAP—draw on general and specific critical-thinking skills (assessed using CCTST) and to consider the implications for educational practices. Although science reasoning involves critical-thinking skills, it also relates to conceptual knowledge and the epistemological foundations of science disciplines ( Kuhn et al. , 2008 ). Moreover, science reasoning in writing , captured in students’ undergraduate theses, reflects habits, conventions, and the incorporation of feedback that may alter evidence of individuals’ critical-thinking skills. Our findings, however, provide empirical evidence that cumulative measures of science reasoning in writing are nonetheless related to students’ overall critical-thinking skills ( Table 3 ). The particularly significant roles of inference skills ( Table 3 ) and the discussion of implications of results (BioTAP question 5; Table 4 ) provide a basis for more specific ideas about how these constructs relate to one another and what educational interventions may have the most success in fostering these skills.

Our results build on previous findings. The genre of thesis writing combines pedagogies of writing and inquiry found to foster scientific reasoning ( Reynolds et al. , 2012 ) and critical thinking ( Quitadamo and Kurtz, 2007 ; Quitadamo et al. , 2008 ; Stephenson and Sadler-McKnight, 2016 ). Quitadamo and Kurtz (2007) reported that students who engaged in a laboratory writing component in a general education biology course significantly improved their inference and analysis skills, and Quitadamo and colleagues (2008) found that participation in a community-based inquiry biology course (that included a writing component) was associated with significant gains in students’ inference and evaluation skills. The shared focus on inference is noteworthy, because these prior studies actually differ from the current study; the former considered critical-­thinking skills as the primary learning outcome of writing-­focused interventions, whereas the latter focused on emergent links between two learning outcomes (science reasoning in writing and critical thinking). In other words, inference skills are impacted by writing as well as manifested in writing.

Inference focuses on drawing conclusions from argument and evidence. According to the consensus definition of critical thinking, the specific skill of inference includes several processes: querying evidence, conjecturing alternatives, and drawing conclusions. All of these activities are central to the independent research at the core of writing an undergraduate thesis. Indeed, a critical part of what we call “science reasoning in writing” might be characterized as a measure of students’ ability to infer and make meaning of information and findings. Because the cumulative BioTAP measures distill underlying similarities and, to an extent, suppress unique aspects of individual dimensions, we argue that it is appropriate to relate inference to scientific reasoning in writing . Even when we control for other potentially relevant background characteristics, the relationship is strong ( Table 5 ).

In taking the complementary view and focusing on BioTAP, when we compared students who exhibit mastery with those who do not, we found that the specific dimension of “discussing the implications of results” (question 5) differentiates students’ performance on several critical-thinking skills. To achieve mastery on this dimension, students must make connections between their results and other published studies and discuss the future directions of the research; in short, they must demonstrate an understanding of the bigger picture. The specific relationship between question 5 and inference is the strongest observed among all individual comparisons. Altogether, perhaps more than any other BioTAP dimension, this aspect of students’ writing provides a clear view of the role of students’ critical-thinking skills (particularly inference and, marginally, induction) in science reasoning.

While inference and discussion of implications emerge as particularly strongly related dimensions in this work, we note that the strongest contribution to “science reasoning in writing in biology,” as determined through exploratory factor analysis, is “argument for the significance of research” (BioTAP question 2, not question 5; Dowd et al. , 2016 ). Question 2 is not clearly related to critical-thinking skills. These findings are not contradictory, but rather suggest that the epistemological and disciplinary-specific aspects of science reasoning that emerge in writing through BioTAP are not completely aligned with aspects related to critical thinking. In other words, science reasoning in writing is not simply a proxy for those critical-thinking skills that play a role in science reasoning.

In a similar vein, the content-related, epistemological aspects of science reasoning, as well as the conventions associated with writing the undergraduate thesis (including feedback from peers and revision), may explain the lack of significant relationships between some science reasoning dimensions and some critical-thinking skills that might otherwise seem counterintuitive (e.g., BioTAP question 2, which relates to making an argument, and the critical-thinking skill of argument). It is possible that an individual’s critical-thinking skills may explain some variation in a particular BioTAP dimension, but other aspects of science reasoning and practice exert much stronger influence. Although these relationships do not emerge in our analyses, the lack of significant correlation does not mean that there is definitively no correlation. Correcting for multiple comparisons suppresses type 1 error at the expense of exacerbating type 2 error, which, combined with the limited sample size, constrains statistical power and makes weak relationships more difficult to detect. Ultimately, though, the relationships that do emerge highlight places where individuals’ distinct critical-thinking skills emerge most coherently in thesis assessment, which is why we are particularly interested in unpacking those relationships.

We recognize that, because only honors students submit theses at these institutions, this study sample is composed of a selective subset of the larger population of biology majors. Although this is an inherent limitation of focusing on thesis writing, links between our findings and results of other studies (with different populations) suggest that observed relationships may occur more broadly. The goal of improved science reasoning and critical thinking is shared among all biology majors, particularly those engaged in capstone research experiences. So while the implications of this work most directly apply to honors thesis writers, we provisionally suggest that all students could benefit from further study of them.

There are several important implications of this study for science education practices. Students’ inference skills relate to the understanding and effective application of scientific content. The fact that we find no statistically significant relationships between BioTAP questions 6–9 and CCTST dimensions suggests that such mid- to lower-order elements of BioTAP ( Reynolds et al. , 2009 ), which tend to be more structural in nature, do not focus on aspects of the finished thesis that draw strongly on critical thinking. In keeping with prior analyses ( Reynolds and Thompson, 2011 ; Dowd et al. , 2016 ), these findings further reinforce the notion that disciplinary instructors, who are most capable of teaching and assessing scientific reasoning and perhaps least interested in the more mechanical aspects of writing, may nonetheless be best suited to effectively model and assess students’ writing.

The goal of the thesis writing course at both Duke University and the University of Minnesota is not merely to improve thesis scores but to move students’ writing into the category of mastery across BioTAP dimensions. Recognizing that students with differing critical-thinking skills (particularly inference) are more or less likely to achieve mastery in the undergraduate thesis (particularly in discussing implications [question 5]) is important for developing and testing targeted pedagogical interventions to improve learning outcomes for all students.

The competencies characterized by the Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education Initiative provide a general framework for recognizing that science reasoning and critical-thinking skills play key roles in major learning outcomes of science education. Our findings highlight places where science reasoning–related competencies (like “understanding the process of science”) connect to critical-thinking skills and places where critical thinking–related competencies might be manifested in scientific products (such as the ability to discuss implications in scientific writing). We encourage broader efforts to build empirical connections between competencies and pedagogical practices to further improve science education.

One specific implication of this work for science education is to focus on providing opportunities for students to develop their critical-thinking skills (particularly inference). Of course, as this correlational study is not designed to test causality, we do not claim that enhancing students’ inference skills will improve science reasoning in writing. However, as prior work shows that science writing activities influence students’ inference skills ( Quitadamo and Kurtz, 2007 ; Quitadamo et al. , 2008 ), there is reason to test such a hypothesis. Nevertheless, the focus must extend beyond inference as an isolated skill; rather, it is important to relate inference to the foundations of the scientific method ( Miri et al. , 2007 ) in terms of the epistemological appreciation of the functions and coordination of evidence ( Kuhn and Dean, 2004 ; Zeineddin and Abd-El-Khalick, 2010 ; Ding et al. , 2016 ) and disciplinary paradigms of truth and justification ( Moshman, 2015 ).

Although this study is limited to the domain of biology at two institutions with a relatively small number of students, the findings represent a foundational step in the direction of achieving success with more integrated learning outcomes. Hopefully, it will spur greater interest in empirically grounding discussions of the constructs of scientific reasoning and critical-thinking skills.

This study contributes to the efforts to improve science education, for both majors and nonmajors, through an empirically driven analysis of the relationships between scientific reasoning reflected in the genre of thesis writing and critical-thinking skills. This work is rooted in the usefulness of BioTAP as a method 1) to facilitate communication and learning and 2) to assess disciplinary-specific and general dimensions of science reasoning. The findings support the important role of the critical-thinking skill of inference in scientific reasoning in writing, while also highlighting ways in which other aspects of science reasoning (epistemological considerations, writing conventions, etc.) are not significantly related to critical thinking. Future research into the impact of interventions focused on specific critical-thinking skills (i.e., inference) for improved science reasoning in writing will build on this work and its implications for science education.

Supplementary Material

Acknowledgments.

We acknowledge the contributions of Kelaine Haas and Alexander Motten to the implementation and collection of data. We also thank Mine Çetinkaya-­Rundel for her insights regarding our statistical analyses. This research was funded by National Science Foundation award DUE-1525602.

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• Basics for GSIs
• Advancing Your Skills

Critical Reading in the Social Sciences

by Manuel Vallée, Sociology

What Is Critical Reading? Overview of the Four-Step Approach Assignments to Promote Reading Efficiency In-Class Discussions References Appendix: Detailed Description of the Four-Step Approach (pdf)

What Is Critical Reading?

It is reading actively with the goals of identifying arguments, weighing evidence, evaluating sources, looking for conflicts of interest, and questioning underlying assumptions. It is distinctly different from the passive reading associated with reading for pleasure, which many students mistakenly apply to academic texts. Regardless of discipline, critical reading is an important skill that will help students become more informed and, hopefully, more effective citizens.

What does it mean for the social sciences?

In the social sciences, critical reading also means being aware of how a reading fits into an analytic lineage. That means identifying the research question being asked, what has been said about that question, and what the current author is contributing to the analysis.

What difficulties do students face?

Students at the beginning of their college career might confuse the concept of critique with the idea that they are always supposed to criticize a reading. Others might confuse critical engagement with a text with the hopeless task of distinguishing the part of an article that is objective and factual from the part that is opinion-based, biased, or just plain false.

Where do these difficulties come from?

This confusion stems from a model of teaching prevalent at the high-school level that teaches students to memorize answers that have been coded as “facts” for one-time testing. In general, beginning college students have not been prepared to critically engage with their texts, understand how the texts are part of an intellectual lineage, or question the assumptions that have been built into the particular models of understanding that they have been exposed to in different disciplines.

Therefore, in asking students to become critical readers within many disciplines at the college level, we are asking students to develop a skill set which is diametrically opposed to the one they learned at the high-school level.

How do we help students surmount these difficulties?

To alleviate these difficulties I offer a comprehensive, four-step approach to critical reading as well as suggestions for assignments, in-class discussions, and ways to help students better relate to social science articles.

Overview of the Four-Step Approach

This approach includes three layers of reading as well as a “response” component. Good readers will reread a piece several times until they are satisfied that they know it inside and out. It is recommended that you read a text three times to elicit as much meaning as you can.

First Reading: Previewing

The first time you read a text, skim it quickly for its main ideas. Pay attention to the introduction, the opening sentences of paragraphs, and section headings, if there are any. Previewing the text in this way gets you off to a good start when you have to read critically.

Second Reading: Annotating and Analyzing

The second reading includes annotating and analyzing the evidence in support of the argument. It should be a slow, meditative read, and you should have your pencil in your hand so you can annotate the text. Taking time to annotate your text during the second reading may be the most important strategy to master if you want to become a critical reader.

Third Reading: Review

The third reading should take into account any questions you asked yourself by annotating in the margins. You should use this reading to look up any unfamiliar words and to make sure you have understood any confusing or complicated sections of the text.

Fourth Step: Responding

Responding to what you read is an important step in understanding what you read. You can respond in writing or by talking about what you’ve read to others.

Below I provide details about the first two levels of reading and the “response” portion of the approach. Additionally, I provide suggestions for critical reading assignments, topics for in-class discussions, and ways to help students better relate to academic texts.

Assignments to Promote Reading Efficiency

Immediately after reading the article or chapter, write about it for 15 minutes. Do not concern yourself with logic, style, punctuation, or any other standard of “correctness.” If, in the middle of a sentence, another idea comes to you — go with it. The point of this exercise is to get down as many of your impressions of what you have read as possible without having to consider any possible use for what you are writing. Just let yourself think about what you have read and record these thoughts.

Reflect on the Title

Before reading the article or chapter, reflect on its title. Write a paragraph about what is conveyed by the title, what the article’s focus will be, and what you believe the argument will be. Don’t worry about “getting it right,” as that isn’t the point of this exercise. Then read the article in question and, when you are done, summarize the author’s argument. After summarizing the argument, reflect on a) how your reading of the article or chapter was informed by reflecting on its title, and b) whether you were misled by the title.

Reflect on the Abstract

Same as above, but with the article’s abstract instead of the title.

Evaluate the Argument

Read the introduction and conclusion of the article. Then identify the argument of the text. Then take ten minutes to freewrite, identifying what types of evidence the article will need to provide to persuade you of its argument. Read the article, and then write a paragraph that analyzes the extent to which the article did or did not meet your expectations. Were you persuaded by the evidence? Why or why not?

Freewrite about Connections to Other Readings

After freewriting about the article, take a short break, and then do a freewrite on the various ways you think the text links up to the preceding texts covered in the class, and/or themes of the course. What are the similarities and differences in terms of subject matter, research question, geographical focus, temporal focus, type of data, and argument?

Identify Citation Lineages

a) Make a list of the theoretical approaches mentioned in the text.

b) Make a list of the specific authors referred to.

c) Make a list of the key concepts used in the text. (Can the reader glean a working definition of these concepts from the text?)

d) Mark each member of the lists created above in reference to the author’s relationship to it. Does the author mention the theoretical approach, concept, or thinker under consideration as an advance to previous thinking, or does he / she emphasize the limitations of it?

e) What is the author’s main analytical point as opposed to the ideas of other thinkers in the text?

Answer Reading Questions

Another strategy is for the instructor to provide reading questions a few days before the readings are due. These can include standard questions, such as “what is the author’s argument?” and “how does his / her argument relate to the readings that preceded it?” Or the questions can be more specific to the article, such as asking for definitions of key concepts in the reading. The questions provide students with guidance about how to read texts and help focus class discussion around salient points. Also, teachers can provide extra incentive by offering extra credit to students who submit satisfactory written responses to the questions.

In-Class Discussions

Discuss reading strategies.

Set aside class time for a short discussion about the reading process. Ask each student to share one or more strategies that help them with their reading assignments. This could pertain to places they read, the number of pages they attempt to read at one sitting, comfort of the reading environment, time of day, etc. This exercise will help the students become more conscious of their reading habits or strategies, learn about the reading strategies used by others, and build classroom solidarity.

Discuss Difficulties

Have a similar conversation about the difficulties students face vis-à-vis the readings and how they have sought to address those difficulties.

Apply Metaphors

A difficulty experienced by many social science students is understanding that a particular article is a piece in an ongoing analytical lineage. To address this difficulty, below I provide metaphors that help students read analytically within a particular disciplinary lineage. These metaphors also help students understand that the main task that they are expected to master is to understand analytical arguments and the assumptions that those arguments are based on, not only for the author they are reading now but for the authors that the current author is citing.

• The metaphor of a citation lineage : This expression can itself be considered a metaphor. It references the fact that disciplines within an analytic tradition produce texts that are densely referenced and that authors are working within multilayered traditions of citation.
• The metaphor of a conversation : Instead of trying to read for “the facts,” encourage students to see an article as an ongoing conversation in which the current author of the article being read is engaging with other authors’ ideas. These other authors might span large expanses of time and disciplinary space, so the student needs to pay attention to the different authors and concepts mentioned. They need to start to construct a conceptual map for themselves.
• The metaphor of the party : Tell students that reading an analytical article feels very similar to going to a party where they know only one person, but everyone else has been going to the same parties for years. The new person (the student) doesn’t know the prior history of the groups (who hates whom, who used to date whom, for example) and needs to be filled in on the backstory. This is very similar to many disciplines in which the ongoing conversation into which a particular author is making an intervention is quite complex and pulls from divergent sources. When students are first asked to read an analytical argument that is densely referenced, they may get confused and give up. The metaphor of the party lets students know that you expect them to feel over-loaded when they first read an article that is densely layered from multiple citation lineages.
• The metaphor of enemies and allies : This is very similar to the metaphor of the party but emphasizes the fact that the author being read either agrees or disagrees with aspects of the argumentation of the other thinkers cited in his / her own article. Students therefore need to pay attention to tone.
• The metaphor of a language class : This helps students understand that we are giving them “real” articles that will be difficult for them in the beginning. When students start to read this kind of text they might feel like they are being asked to read a third-year foreign language text when they haven’t yet taken the first two years.

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Rethinking critical thinking for social justice: Introducing a new measure of critical being that emphasizes thought, reflection, and action

• Original Paper
• Published: 30 September 2022
• Volume 2 , article number  218 , ( 2022 )

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• K. C. Culver   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7929-2680 1 ,
• Benjamin Selznick 1 , 2 &
• Teniell L. Trolian 1 , 3  

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While postsecondary stakeholders agree that critical thinking is an essential college outcome, it is challenging to measure this outcome using rigorous and equitable theoretically derived instruments. Assessment of critical thinking in the US tends to focus on argument and evaluation, privileging individualistic, capitalist values. This study introduces a measure of critical being which expands notions of critical thinking beyond these cognitive skills to include affective and action-oriented lines of development. Close attention is paid to the creation of this measure, which utilized items from the Wabash National Study—a longitudinal study of over 17,000 undergraduates at 49 institutions. Analyses include item response techniques, confirmatory factor analysis, and robust validity testing. In addition to describing the development and validation of a critical being scale, we examine identity-based equity in students’ scores on critical being compared to their scores on a critical thinking test. Results provide support for use of this new measure and indicate its potential to improve equity in measuring this crucial college outcome. Discussion and implications for use are offered.

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A Model of Critical Thinking in Higher Education

Do critical thinkers drink too much alcohol, forget to do class assignments, or cheat on exams using a critical thinking measure to predict college students’ real-world outcomes.

Amanda R. Franco, Patrício S. Costa & Leandro S. Almeida

The Nature and Development of Critical-Analytic Thinking

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the University of Iowa’s Center for Research on Undergraduate Education but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are, however, available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of the Center’s director.

Code availability

Stata code is available from the corresponding author, KC Culver, upon reasonable request.

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The Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education was conducted through generous support from the Center of Inquiry on the Liberal Arts at Wabash College.

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Culver, K.C., Selznick, B. & Trolian, T.L. Rethinking critical thinking for social justice: Introducing a new measure of critical being that emphasizes thought, reflection, and action. SN Soc Sci 2 , 218 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-022-00531-4

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The Importance of Critical Thinking, For Students and Ourselves

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.

Defining Critical Thinking

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.

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About southern new hampshire university.

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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Original research article, critical thinking as a necessity for social science students capacity development: how it can be strengthened through project based learning at university.

• 1 Department of Economics Education, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Tanjungpura, Pontianak, Indonesia
• 2 Universitas Khairun, Ternate, Indonesia

Critical thinking is necessary for students because it empowers them to solve problems, especially during the learning stage and in real-life situations within society. Based on this fact, the present study proposes a citizenship project model that aims to enhance the Elementary School Teacher Education Study Program by emphasizing critical thinking among students during the teaching of Civic Education at universities in Indonesia. The research is of the experimental quasi-research type, which comprises two classes: an experimental class and a control class. Both the classes were conducted to compare the effectiveness of the proposed citizenship project learning model. The statistical package for the social sciences was used for data analysis. To attain the required results on the implementation of the citizenship project learning model, there were several stages, including problem identification, problem formulation, information gathering, documenting the process, showcasing the results, and reflective analysis of the model implementation process. The results have revealed a significant improvement in the critical thinking abilities of the students in the experimental class category compared to the control-class category. Thus, it is concluded that the adoption of a citizenship project learning model is appropriate for critical thinking skills' improvement of students taking up citizenship education study programs at universities.

Introduction

The development of critical thinking skills is very essential for every student of higher education today ( Kwangmuang et al., 2021 ). Globally, it has been found that 85% of teachers entail a belief that today's students have limited critical thinking abilities, mostly at the time of entry to university ( Jimenez et al., 2021 ). This development is coupled with the fact that, the world of present is facing rapid transformation in technology and scientific knowledge ( Kraus et al., 2021 ), something that is affecting people from all walks of life, including eroding their love for nationalism and affecting their attachment to nationalistic values ( Smith, 1983 ). This situation is also worsened by the existing learning models on citizenship ( Maitles, 2022 ), which are said to have not fully assisted students in developing critical thinking skills, thereby leading to difficulties in reasoning with the mindset of mature citizenry. This in turn affects their communication skills and leads to difficulties in responding to social phenomena that take place in society ( Castellano et al., 2017 ).

Because of the importance of critical thinking in solving problems related to students' learning, critical thinking cannot be separated from educational institutions ( Kim and Choi, 2018 ), especially from institutions of higher education ( Collier and Morgan, 2008 ), which are empowered to address challenges related to human resource development through the implementation of teaching and learning content. This development in turn influences students' change in mindset toward a positive direction by bringing about a change in their attitudes ( Sapriya, 2008 ). For this reason, when citizenship education is included in the realm of higher education it needs to contribute to the development of critical thinking skills as one of the compulsory subjects being taught to each student at any university in Indonesia, with the aim of achieving a 2045 Golden Indonesia ( Malihah, 2015 ). The main concern of such an educational course would be to create students who are able to instill a sense of nationalism and patriotism, as well as inculcate a sense of responsibility as future citizens who are competitive, intelligent, independent, and are able to defend their homeland, nation, and state ( Dirwan, 2018 ). Based on the above reasons, this paper focuses on the development of the critical thinking ability of student teachers by the lecturers of citizenship education by using a project-based citizenship learning model.

The concept of developing such critical thinking skills has paved the way for designing a Project Citizen model, which has been named a project-based citizenship learning model. This model has a twofold objective. Because it not only emphasizes the development of abilities in the form of mastery of skills alone, but more importantly, it emphasizes being critical in views and at decision-making, intellectually, and in character thinking ( CCE, 1998 ; Budimansyah, 2009 ; Nusarastriya et al., 2013 ; Falade et al., 2015 ; Adha et al., 2018 ) presented in practice through daily activities. To prepare students to realize the mastery of skills, such as critical thinking skills, positive mentality, and independent personality, a project-based citizenship learning model ( Adha et al., 2018 ) serves as an appropriate problem-based instructional treatment that can lead students to hone their critical thinking skills ( Brookfield, 2018 ).

The project citizen learning model is a strategy and art in the learning process to meet the learning objectives, especially students' critical thinking skills ( Susilawati, 2017 ). The Project Citizen model can develop students' abilities in terms of knowledge, skills, and civic character, as well as shape their democratic attitudes, and hence moral values ( Ching Te Lin et al., 2022 ). In addition, it can encourage student participation as citizens who are trained and prepared to learn to solve problems, both in the educational realms and government circles, as well as in society and family ( CCE, 1998 ; Budimansyah, 2009 ; Lukitoaji, 2017 ). The Project Citizen model can also encourage students acquire skillset such as intentional development through change. In fact, people can actively become involved in these changes, which may effectively take place on an ongoing basis ( Dharma and Siregar, 2015 ).

Therefore, the project citizenship model in Civic Education learning must be implemented because it is a major contributor to advancing students' critical thinking skills. This model works in such a way that it attracts or calls students to participate in dealing with social problems within a democratic and constitutional way of thinking in society through a Project Citizen-based learning process ( Budimansyah, 2009 ; Fry and Bentahar, 2013 ).

This research was conducted at Khairun Ternate University, a state university founded within the Province of North Maluku, Indonesia. Being one of the most favored universities in the region, its leadership ensures that the institution become a center of critical thinking and knowledge development, one of the soft skills required for national growth and development by shaping students and citizenship education students as future leaders. This study sought 1. To determine whether project-based citizenship education lectures can lead to improvement in critical thinking skills among students; 2. To examine students' critical thinking ability before taking up the study of Citizenship Education, we used a project-based citizenship learning model; and 3. To understand the difference in critical thinking ability between students who were taught using the project-based citizenship learning model and those who were taught using conventional models.

Basing on the above-mentioned aspects, this study sought to address and fill the gaps in students' thinking abilities, by sharpening their ways of looking at the varying citizenship challenges faced in the country. The author(s) implemented a project-based learning conceptual model, as it entailed the required aspects in improving students' thinking competences.

Literature review

Citizenship education as a compulsory subject at university.

The inclusion of subjects pertaining to Citizenship Education at all levels of education is required to sharpen and transform students into responsible stakeholders in nation building ( Gaynor, 2010 ; Kawalilak and Groen, 2019 ) of any given country. In Indonesia, Citizenship Education has of recent times attracted the attention of everyone by leading to varying discussions and policies ( Marsudi and Sunarso, 2019 ) on the program and steps for its implementation as a course or subject that promotes democratic values and shapes citizens into responsible persons who think positively and decide wisely.

Citizenship Education is also basically a vehicle for educating citizens to become democratic citizens ( Hahn, 1999 ). The implementation of this type of education program is carried out by carefully designing the material to be delivered from the curriculum so that it can be applied, assessed, and updated for the purposes of the community ( Callahan and Obenchain, 2013 ). This educational effort is believed to be an integral part of the process of transforming society in all aspects of life, whether social, political, economic, cultural, or spiritual.

By law, Citizenship Education is compulsory because it is enshrined in the Indonesian Constitution. According to Law No. 20 of 2003 on the National Education System ( Nurdin, 2015 ), Citizenship Education explicitly refers to the task of education, whereby it should be able to determine the potential of students and be able to change their morals and character for the better ( Raihani, 2014 ). The law explicitly states that the task of education is to improve the behavior of educated people. Changes in behavior and character have the potential to advance the nation and the state at large. Therefore, education must aim to develop the potential for students to become faithful and obedient servants of God, be healthy, knowledgeable, and competent. These abilities must meet three domains: knowledge, affective, and psychomotor abilities.

Philosophical basis for citizenship education

Every science has a philosophical foundation as a scientific root that can be used as the basis of knowledge ( Ginzburg, 1934 ). Likewise, Citizenship Education too has its own foundation, ontologically, epistemologically, and axiologically ( Uljens and Ylimaki, 2017 ). As it is known that Citizenship Education (Civics) developed from the civic concept with a lexical basis based on the word used in ancient Rome, namely, Civicus ( Cresshore, 1986 ; Winataputra, 2001 ). At that time, Civicus had the meaning of citizens. This term has been adapted especially in Indonesia as a concept called “Citizenship Education.”

Citizenship Education has developed both scientifically and in curricular form, hence, it touches on the broader aspects of sociocultural activities with the nature and various kinds of studies and dimensions ( Cresshore, 1986 ). Furthermore, the epistemological study of Citizenship Education focuses on the topic of “citizenship transmission,” the essence of the first social science study to obtain knowledge believed to be a tradition of self-evident truth. When drawn into learning, Citizenship Education lies at the core of social studies learning ( Anderson et al., 1997 ), which includes studies of scientific disciplines both in practice and concepts called “social studies” ( Barr et al., 1978 ; Soemantri, 2011 ). As a cross-disciplinary study, Citizenship Education is substantially driven by various types of scholarships, including political, social, and humanities. Although integrated into various studies, Citizenship Education can be held in the school sector, universities, and communities ( Winataputra, 2001 ).

From the description given above, it can be interpreted that the inclusion of Citizenship Education as a scientific area of specialization determines the study of what, how, and for what knowledge is constructed. We have long recognized terms in the study of Educational Philosophy, which include perennialism, essentialism, progressivism, and reconstructionism ( Brameld, 1955 ). The four terms of Educational Philosophy are related to Citizenship Education, among which philosophically Civic Education (Civics) is based on the concept of “reconstructed philosophy of education” which has a suitability to fulfill scholarship in terms of “perennialism, essentialism, progressivism, reconstructionism” ( Winataputra, 2001 ). The philosophy of essentialism looks at educational needs, which is the result of a proof that has been tested and experienced. The foundation is taken through an eclectic state that is philosophically centered on sophisticated knowledge (ideas) and reality (real).

The linkage between these educational philosophies makes this philosophical view sociopolitical in line with the Indonesian human conception, which is still an ideal–conceptual profile that must be realized and fought for continuously ( Winataputra and Budimansyah, 2007 ). Citizenship Education is expected to have an effect on three roles, namely; first, in the role of a curriculum that has a planned concept for educational institutions, both legally at the level of the education unit and outside of official activities; second, having an engagement plan to play an active role in the community in the context of social and cultural interaction; and third, having a role in the treasures of scientific knowledge, both in the sector of concept studies, academic ideas, and studies that have certain objects, systems, and methods for science. Such a role when examined has aspects, namely, the first aspect, the most important aspect is the academic subject as content that brings changes from their learning experience, for example, the standard content of Citizenship Education subjects, which determine scientific studies and determine the development of the study; the second aspect, in terms of scientific studies carried out including classroom action research, so that teachers will always reflect in every lesson they do ( Winataputra, 2001 ).

Critical thinking skills' development through citizenship education

As it is known, critical thinking in solving problems and finding solutions is indispensable to the learning of Civic Education for students as prospective teachers ( Ige, 2019 ). Moreover, at this time, digital students are challenged with a lot of information that can trap them in the flow of incorrect information (hoax); therefore, students must be critical and selective to the information available. To break down the problem of students' critical thinking ability, certainly not apart from educational institutions, especially college institutions, which are the right institutions to address this challenge, namely applying learning through content and touching the realm of thinking skills ( Sapriya, 2008 ; Aboutorabi, 2015 ; Borden and Holthaus, 2018 ; Japar, 2018 ).

One of the supports in critical thinking is hunting assumptions, which is one of the indicators of critical thinking ability in the Brookfield assumption. Critical thinking explores alternatives to decisions, actions, and practices from views mastered in a variety of contexts, as well as engaging in experience and information ( Brookfield, 2012 ). In this case, students are required to master critical thinking, namely, hunting assumptions, checking assumptions, seeing things from different viewpoints, and taking informed actions ( Brookfield et al., 2019 ). These four aspects help them by serving as the bases for critical thinking in a learning process that focuses on uncovering and examining assumptions, exploring alternative perspectives, and taking information-based actions as a result ( Brookfield, 2019 ). Critical thinking is best experienced as a social learning process, which is important to the learning of Civic Education, which is oriented toward society. This critical thinking ability is also necessary for students to participate in political and community life ( Banks, 1985 ; Sapriya, 2008 ; Budimansyah and Karim, 2009 ; Setiawan, 2009 ; Wahab, 2011 ; Brookfield, 2012 ). At this critical thinking stage, students can think more systematically and critically, and have high sensitivity to cultural differences, as well as local, national, and global perspectives, with a future orientation ( Kalidjernih, 2009 ; Shaw, 2014 ; Lilley et al., 2017 ). One approach can be implemented through education, by honing critical thinking skills during the learning process, to gain a high learning experience to face social problems from various aspects ( Raiyn and Tilchin, 2017 ; Alkhateeb and Milhem, 2020 ).

From the various opinions given above, the ability to think critically of hunting assumptions is needed in the course of the Civic Education field covering many topics and problems ( Cohen, 2010 ). The implementation of a Project Citizen-based learning model as one of the powerful ways to build an understanding in Civic Education aims to provide learning that focuses on the ability of students to solve problems, so that this provision can benefit them while facing and solving various problems of life.

These abilities are manifested not only in the form of mastery of skills, but more importantly, also by the ability to think critically, mentally, and characteristically ( CCE, 1998 ; Budimansyah, 2009 ; Nusarastriya et al., 2013 ; Falade et al., 2015 ; Adha et al., 2018 ). To prepare students to realize the mastery of skills, critical thinking skills, and mental and independent character, the Project Citizen learning model is a problem-based instructional treatment that can lead students to cultivate their critical thinking skills.

The Project Citizen learning model is a strategy and art in the learning process so as to meet the learning objectives that need to be achieved, particularly as regards the critical thinking skills of students ( Susilawati, 2017 ). This is because the Project Citizen model is able to develop the knowledge, proficiency, and character of democratic civic that allows and encourages the participation of students as democratic citizens. The said model can also help in dealing with problems that can be learned and trained according to the situation of self-condition of the environment faced by anyone, as many things are learned in terms of education, government, society, and family ( CCE, 1998 ; Budimansyah, 2009 ; Warren et al., 2013 ; Lukitoaji, 2017 ; Bentahar and O'Brien, 2019 ). The Project Citizen model is also able to encourage the development of change in an intentional manner, so that actively and effectively, the change occurs continuously ( Dharma and Siregar, 2015 ; Marzuki and Basariah, 2017 ). Therefore, it is important to apply the Project Citizen model to the learning of Civic Education as a major contribution to advancing students' critical thinking skills. This is because the learning model of Project Citizen invites students to participate in dealing with social problems in democracies and constitutional ways of thinking in the community through a learning process based on the project citizenship ( Budimansyah, 2009 ; Anker et al., 2010 ; Fry and Bentahar, 2013 ; Romlah and Syobar, 2021 ).

Thus, the learning model of citizen project lecturers and students can reflect on the studies they found during the course of their studies. The study was conducted by each group that was formed at the beginning of the meeting. Finally, lecturers and students hold joint discussions in the classroom by presenting data and information to create alternative solutions to the urgent problems they had to solve.

Methodology

In this study, a quasi-experimental research method was used. A quasi-experimental research approach is mostly referred to as nonrandomized, pre-post-test intervening research design (Harris et al., 200), which is used across fields of study. In the case of this study, the researchers used control groups and experimental groups but did not randomly segregate (non-random assignment) the participants into the two groups ( Creswell, 2017 ).

In this study, researchers want to see and learn more about the new learning model; therefore, they use two different classes, namely control and experimentation, to compare the classes that use project citizens (experimental) with classes that use the old method ( Sukmadinata, 2005 ). From both classes, researchers can compare the effectiveness of the experimental class learning model with that of the control class model. In addition, researchers will also observe how the results of both experiment and control classes reached high values. The researchers' approach is quantitative. This approach was determined by the researchers because it aimed to statistically test and compare both control and experimental classes. Furthermore, this approach emphasized testing to see an average comparison of the two groups that were statistically the same at the beginning of treatment.

Object and area of the study

This study was conducted at Khairun University in North Maluku Province, Indonesia. The research subjects were undergraduate students of the Elementary School Teacher Education Program and were basically those attending Civic Education courses as their major field of study. The research population comprised of all elementary school teacher Education Study Program students in Semester III totaling 100 of them, consisting of two classes, experimental classes and control classes. Each class consisted of 50 student teachers. The experimental classes of 42 females and 8 male students were experimented with a project-based citizenship learning model. In the control class, there were 44 female students and 6 male students using a conventional learning approach.

Data collection techniques

Data collection comes in various forms ( Gray and Bounegru, 2019 ), which can be either qualitative or quantitative data, comprised of either structured or unstructured data collection instruments or tools ( Pitcher et al., 2022 ). Data in its raw form may have no meaning, but due to the setting up of research targets, most research data are given meaning through interpretation by the authors, just like how the authors used with this study.

This means that data collection can be carried out with the help of written tests ( Silvia and Cotter, 2021 ). So in regard to this research too, the data were obtained through written tests, because this is a way the research chose so as to determine the critical thinking abilities of students, for both the experimental and control classes, before or after the treatment, with the method that had been chosen. This test was administered to students in the form of a detailed questionnaire. The question instrument used in the implementation of this research was a written test sheet that was formulated previously through the validation process by the validator. The hypothesis in this study is H 0 : there is no difference in hunting assumption ability between the experimental and control classes. H 1 : There are significant differences in hunting assumption ability between control-class experiments.

Normality test

Parametric statistical analyses were used to compare the average experimental and control classes. In the early stages of the test, a prerequisite test was conducted using a normality test, with the following results:

Based on Table 1 , the Sig. = 0.200 in the experiment, where G is the group. = 0.200 in the control group. The score is Sig. = 0.200 > 0.05 in both groups. Thus, it can be concluded that normally distributed data displayed a level of significance of = 0.05. A homogeneity test was also performed. = 0.344. This score is >0.05, indicating that the data are homogeneous. After conducting a prerequisite test, a t -test was performed on the Sig results. (2-tailed) = 0.259, with a significance level of a = 0.05.

Table 1 . Normality test results.

The score indicates that there are no significant differences between the experimental and control groups, so both groups are eligible to be subject to research. The average similarity between two groups is a measure of the effectiveness of a citizen's project-learning model. There was a significant difference at the final measurement after the intervention.

The findings and discussion are the answers to the formulation of the problem, which is the main focus of this study. This section presents the results of this study. Before implementing the lecture process of learning using the project-based citizenship model, the students were first given an initial trial test to establish the extent of their ability to think critically. Based on the initial proficiency tests conducted, the students' ability to think critically revealed no limitations in ability. The results of the students' initial ability tests are illustrated in Table 2 .

Table 2 . Abilities of students thinking critically.

From the exposure in Table 2 , the basic ability score of critical thinking for both the control class and experimentation descriptively obtained an average similarity that is not much different from the ability of early critical thinking of the students.

Furthermore, the initial ability to hunt assumptions students also conducted different tests in experimental and control classes using the static test. This was done to determine the difference in students' initial critical thinking ability based on the classification of low, medium, and high categories. The test results are listed in Table 3 .

Table 3 . Classification of basic abilities of the students' critical thinking.

The results of the category wise classification test in Table 3 indicate that the initial ability to display critical thinking skills in the experimental and control classes did not show significant differences. This is illustrated in the classification of the ability based on low, medium, and high categories, which also show no significant differences.

Therefore, it is necessary to implement a learning model that can maximize the ability to think critically by the students, that is: through the Citizen Project model. The Citizen Project model was implemented during the 10 meetings. Step-by-step, learning is underway to implement the learning model. The implementation of this Citizen Project learning model achieved the criteria and gained success in the ability to hunt assumptions for students. This can be seen in the tables that describe in general the classification of the low, medium, and high categories. This exposure resulted from the implementation of the learning model project. An explanation citing the success of the citizenship project-based learning is presented in the following table.

Based on the normality test in Table 4 , it can be seen that the total score of overall hunting assumptions of students in both class control and class normal distributed experiments can be calculated and then a t -test conducted. The t -test results showed a sig. (2-tailed) = 0.00 at =0.05, which means that Ha1 is received. Thus, it can be concluded that there are significant differences in critical thinking abilities between the control classes and the experiments.

Table 4 . General differences in student critical thinking ability.

Then, based on the normality tests in low-category students, the total hunting assumptions were scored in a normally distributed experimental class. However, if the control class is not normally distributed, then a t -test cannot be done for the Mann–Whitney U test. The Mann–Whitney U test results obtained were sig. =0.00 at = 0.05, which means that the Ha1 is received. Thus, it can be concluded that there is a significant difference in the hunting assumption ability of low-category students between experimental and control classes.

Then, for students in the moderate category based on the normality test given in the table, the total score of the hunting assumption's ability of moderate-category students either in the control group or in the normally distributed experimental group is calculated, and then a t- test conducted. The t -test results had a large score. (2-tailed) = 0.00 at =0.05, which means the Ha1 is received. Thus, it can be concluded that there are significant differences in hunting assumption capability in general for students in the moderate categories between the control classes and experiments.

For students in the high category based on the normality test for high-category students, the total hunting assumption's ability score in the normal distribution experiment class was reached but in the normal distribution control class, the t -test could not be performed for the Mann–Whitney U test. The Mann–Whitney U test results obtained were sig. =0.00 at = 0.05, which means that the Ha1 is received. Thus, it can be concluded that there is a significant difference in the hunting assumption ability of high-category students between experimental and control classes.

There are also differences in the ability of students to hunt assumptions after the implementation of the Citizen Project model learning in the low, medium, and high categories. The results are outlined in Table 5 .

Table 5 . Student critical thinking ability based on classification.

Based on the normality test in Table 5 , we can see the total score of the critical thinking ability of all students in the normally distributed control group. However, if the experimental group is not normally distributed, then a t -test cannot be performed to test the Mann–Whitney U test results which were obtained as sig. =0.00 at = 0.05, which means that H 1 is received. Thus, it can be concluded that there was a significant difference in the ability of students' critical thinking between the experimental and control classes.

Then, based on the normality test on the ability of thinking critically among the students in the low category if the total critical thinking skills' ability score in the experimental class and control is not normally distributed, then t -test cannot be conducted to test the results of the Mann–Whitney U test in both the control and experimental classes. The Mann–Whitney U test results obtained were sig. = 0.00 at = 0.05, which means that H 1 is received.

Thus, it can be concluded that there was a significant difference in the ability of thinking critically among students in the low category between the experimental and control classes. Then, for the ability of critical thinking, students in the moderate category based on the normality test mentioned in the table can be seen to reach the total score of student critical thinking ability in both class control and class normally distributed experiments. The t -test results had a large score. (2-tailed) = 0.00 at = 0.05 which means that H 1 is received.

Thus, it can be concluded that there are significant differences in the ability of critical thinking of the students in the moderate category between the control classes and experiments.

For high-category students, based on normality tests on the ability of critical thinking of the students in the high-category score, the total critical thinking ability is normally distributed, in control classes. However, if the experimental class is not normally distributed, then a t- t est cannot be performed to test the Mann–Whitney U test results obtained. = 0.00 at = 0.05, which means that H 1 is received.

Thus, it can be concluded that there was a significant difference in students' critical thinking abilities in the high category between the experimental and control classes. To perceive the difference in the development of hunting assumption's ability to conduct an analysis of pre-test and post-test scores, the analysis included the examination of the magnitude of N-Gain in each class, both control and experimentation. The analysis was conducted on both categories based on initial ability.

Based on the table, we can see the difference in improved hunting assumptions between the control classes and experiments that are reviewed from the initial ability. If we analyze the groups based on indicators of critical thinking ability, we can see that in the control group, the improvement of critical thinking skills' ability is almost entirely in the low category, both in the subclass based on the initial ability and on the ability to critical thinking that students are in a low category.

In the experimental class, hunting assumptions increased in the moderate category. There was no increase in the low category, and it was placed in the ability to critical thinking of students. An increase in high-category critical thinking was also not seen. Furthermore, if we analyze the ability to critical thinking based on the initial ability, it can be seen that the control class shows an increase in the ability to critical thinking in the low category. In the experimental class, although the increase was not classified as high, in all classes, critical thinking showed an increase in the moderate category in the experimental class, which was significantly higher compared to the control class on improved critical thinking ability.

The ability to think critically by the students has an important element in assuming, identifying thinking critical skills, comparing critical thinking abilities based on students' opinions, and performing actions and movements to change old habits by promoting the application of new habits properly ( Brookfield, 2012 ). A study on the ability to think critically is intended to give students an understanding of building hypotheses or assumptions, seeing from data and facts to be identified, tracing figures and experts to compare, and making movements as a form of application of student work as their ability to critical thinking present day required life skill ( Brookfield, 2018 ; Gonzalez et al., 2022 ). Thus, the citizen project learning model is suitable for improving students' critical thinking skills through six learning steps. The six steps were identifying problems, formulating or selecting problems, collecting information or data, creating portfolio file documents, displaying studies, and reflecting on the findings discussed together ( Budimansyah, 2009 ; Dewey, 2021 ). The project citizen learning model is based on strategy “inquiry learning, discovery learning, problem-solving learning, research-oriented learning” (learning through research, learning to find/disclose, learning problem-solving, and learning-based research).

This model is packaged by Dewey, who is called a project citizen. This model is appropriate when applied to Citizenship Education to increase students' awareness and thinking ability, as well as to build smart and good citizen characters ( Budimansyah, 2008 ; Rafzan et al., 2020 ). Thus, through the process of learning the citizen project model, lectures have combined theoretical and practical studies that allow the readiness of students with their groups to undergo a mature process. In particular, Civic Education courses have a wide scope of studies, with a project citizen learning model able to train students to improve critical thinking skills, especially critical thinking hunting assumptions.

Project citizen-based learning in Civic Education courses to improve critical thinking skills and sharpens the argumentative way of reasoning among students, hence making them obtain good results. The results of the analysis of the influence of learning on the ability to critical thinking based on the learning model of project citizenship learning conclude that: the ability of students to think critically in the experimental class, in general, differs significantly compared to the control class; the ability to think critically of students in the low category in experimental class among students differed significantly compared to the control class; the critical thinking ability of students with moderate categories in experimental class differed significantly compared to the control class; and lastly, the critical thinking ability of students in the high category in experimental class was significantly higher compared to the control class.

Based on the statistical analysis of critical thinking assumptions' ability, it can be concluded that the understanding of the student's capacity to think critically through experimental classes, using project citizen-based learning models to ensure students learn from low to medium, and attain high critical thinking skills has been enhanced by learning steps that lead them to be more active and productive in understanding information and critical opinions. This means that there is uniformity in the acquisition of value in understanding students' opinion through critical arguments, which indicate that the citizen's project model can improve the critical thinking ability of students, gauged through exchange of opinions.

From the description given above, it appears that the learning model of a project-based citizenship education model has a significant impact on students' development of the critical thinking skills' ability. This is because the implementation of citizenship-based project learning provides learning steps based on experience. Such an experience can help students develop their knowledge, skills, and skills (civic knowledge, civic skills, and civic disposition) ( Fry and Bentahar, 2013 ; Fajri et al., 2018 ).

Conclusively, a project-based citizenship learning model, as a social learning model, has been found to be effective in developing critical thinking skills that impact on all students' competencies. Competency is the ability of students to conduct a given task independently based on the citizenship-based project learning model applied in the course of Civic Education to enhance students' abilities in problem-solving from concept to real-life realization stage ( Medina-Jerez et al., 2010 ; Mitchell et al., 2017 ; Yusof et al., 2019 ). In other words, the project-based model used in this research is expected to contribute to improved students' reasoning capacity while at school and in a real-life situation.

The result is in accordance with Brookfield's (2012 , 2018) opinion about the aims and objectives of the student's critical thinking ability, who states that social problems could be solved by making decisions based on hypotheses and critical thinking. Based on a deeper analysis and investigation of the research findings and discussion, the application of the project-based citizenship learning model in the Civics Education course was able to create an effective learning atmosphere in sharpening students' critical thinking skills and motivating them to be good and responsible human beings. This statement is in line with the objectives of the Civic Education course, which emphasizes the process of creating students who are intelligent, have good character and required morals in society ( Banks, 1985 ; Branson, 1994 ; Budimansyah and Suryadi, 2008 ; Budimansyah, 2009 ; Setiawan, 2009 ). Thus, the results of the study confirmed that the project-based citizenship learning model is not only a proof of the evidence of the improvement in students' critical thinking skills, but the study also notes that the learning model can as well be effective in helping students develop reasoning abilities and good critical thinking abilities which may also help them in solving various issues within society.

Facilitating the growth of critical thinking abilities of a student leads to critical reasoning, hence encouraging productive discussions, which in turn leads to acceptable criticisms and an open exchange of ideas among students to be easily understood, including those ideas based on assumptions and hypotheses. Based on the exposure of the results and discussion of research on the ability to hunt assumptions, students who were engaged in a project-based citizenship learning model obtained better scores for their critical thinking abilities. This implies that such students experience an improvement in their hunting assumption ability compared to students studying through conventional learning. Assembling a project citizen learning model in Civic Education courses can improve students' ability to hunt assumptions. Thus, it can be concluded that Civic Education courses with the application of the learning model project-based citizenship learning model can improve students' critical thinking skills.

Data availability statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Ethics statement

Ethical review and approval was not required for the study on human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent for participation was not required for this study in accordance with the national legislation and the institutional requirements.

Author contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.

This study was funded by University Administration.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

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Keywords: citizenship education, citizenship learning project model, critical thinking skills, elementary education, teacher preparation, university curriculum, university education

Citation: Witarsa and Muhammad S (2023) Critical thinking as a necessity for social science students capacity development: How it can be strengthened through project based learning at university. Front. Educ. 7:983292. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2022.983292

Received: 01 July 2022; Accepted: 26 September 2022; Published: 09 January 2023.

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Copyright © 2023 Witarsa and Muhammad. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

This article is part of the Research Topic

Design, Implementation, Assessment, and Effectiveness of Hybrid Problem-Based Learning

The Wide World of Science

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Critical thinking is important; most people agree with that statement. Research in cognitive science conceptualizes and measures (that is, operationalizes) critical thinking. There are myriad studies examining components of critical thinking (Stanovich, West, and Toplak 2016).

Educators often pay lip service to the idea of teaching “critical thinking.” But, when asked to define critical thinking , answers are often weak and ambiguous. Common responses to the defining critical thinking include: “teaching them how to think,” “teaching them formal logic,” “teaching them to be thinkers,” “teaching them how to think for themselves,” or “teaching them how to solve problems.” They already know how to think ; logic is only a portion of what is needed to increase critical thinking, independent thinking doesn’t necessarily imply critical thinking and teaching them how to solve problems are hard to measure assertions.

Stanovich argues “that the super-ordinate goal we are actually trying to foster is that of rationality” (Stanovich 2010, 198). Educators are concerned with critical thinking as it reflects rational thought, in both the epistemic sense and the practical, instrumental sense.Certain thinking dispositions and cognitive abilities are valued because they help us base our beliefs on available evidence and assist us in achieving our goals. Educators, science writers, and evidence based practitioners express to students, administrators, readers, clients, and patients the importance of critical thinking. Yet many of those expressing the importance of critical thinking don’t have a firm grip on rationality or critical thinking, or what it includes. Promoting critical thinking is important; promoting critical thinking through the lenses of cognitive science presents a clearer picture of exactly what critical thinking advocates are trying to promote. A key characteristic of science is precision, and critical thinking includes scientific thinking. A scientific concept is one derived from converging evidence; critical thinking demonstrates that type of convergence (evidence from various theoretical underpinnings and research). Critical thinking is a concept-complex (it involves various concepts, connections, and interactions). To reiterate, critical thinking is synonymous with rationality in the context of cognitive science.

Rationality

Rational thinking is not synonymous with rationalizing thought . These phrases are often mistakenly used interchangeably. Rationalizing thought has an Aristotelian flavor, in that it involves putting forth reason for essentially any behavior or thought. Rationality is a weak concept, when conceptualized in this sense. Most people are rational, if rational means an ability to provide some form of a reason for their behavior or actions. Cognitive science provides a different conceptualization of rationality—one that is consistent and subject to testing.

Rationality is concerned with what is true and what to do (Manktelow 2004). In order for beliefs to be rational they must be in agreement with evidence. In order for actions to be rational they must maximize potential in attaining goals. I suspect everyone agrees that both of these requirements are important. Cognitive scientists generally identify two types of rationality: instrumental and epistemic (Stanovich 2009) . Instrumental rationality can be defined as adopting appropriate goals, and behaving in a manner that optimizes one’s ability to achieve goals. Epistemic rationality is defined as holding beliefs that are commensurate with available evidence. This type of rationality is concerned with how well our beliefs map onto the structure of the world. Epistemic rationality is sometimes called evidential rationality or theoretical rationality. Instrumental and epistemic rationality are related; there is overlap.In order to optimize rationality one needs adequate knowledge in the domains of logic, scientific thinking, and probabilistic thinking. It is also essential that reflective processing (overriding fast thinking that leads to incorrect responses) occur at appropriate times. A wide variety of cognitive skills (cognitive style / thinking dispositions and cognitive ability) fall within these domains of knowledge. 

Components of critical thinking have been operationalized in a wide range of studies. In a 2012 study (Hale 2012), I presented students with questions derived from critical thinking tests. The critical thinking tasks were cover tasks; the primary concern of the study was expectation and food liking. In regards to the critical thinking tasks (three questions) the performances were not good. No one correctly answered all three of the problems, and many participants missed all three. Total percentage of correct answers was 19 percent. The tasks used were similar to the ones often used by Stanovich, Kahneman, and Frederick (Stanovich 2009; Kahneman 2011; Frederick 2005). The questions used on the test are presented here: Confused About Critical Thinking , https://jamiehalesblog.blogspot.com/2015/12/confused-about-critical-thinking.html.

In 2016, a prototype for a comprehensive assessment of rationality was made public: CART (Comprehensive Assessment of Rational Thinking). The assessment was constructed by the Stanovich, West, and Toplak Research Lab. CART assesses epistemic and instrumental rationality. The assessment involves twenty subtests. Stanovich discussing the importance of a comprehensive assessment of rationality (Interview with Stanovich, Hale 2016):

“Why does society need a comprehensive assessment of rational thinking? To be globally rational in our modern society you must have the behavioral tendencies and knowledge bases that are assessed on the CART to a sufficient degree.Our society is sometimes benign, and maximal rationality is not always necessary, but sometimes—in important situations—our society is hostile. In such hostile situations, to achieve adequate degrees of instrumental rationality in our present society the skills assessed by the CART are essential.In Chapter 15 of The Rationality Quotient we include a table showing that rational thinking tendencies are linked to real-life decision making.In that table, for each of the paradigms and subtests of the CART, an association with a real-life outcome is indicated.The associations are of two types.Some studies represent investigations where a laboratory measure of a bias was used as a predictor of a real-world outcome. Others are reports of real-world analogues of biases that were originally discovered in the lab. Clearly more work remains to be done on tracing the exact nature of the connections—that is, whether they are causal. The sheer number of real-world connections, however, serves to highlight the importance of the rational thinking skills in our framework. Now that we have the CART, we could in theory begin to assess rationality as systematically as we do IQ.If not for professional inertia and psychologists’ investment in the IQ concept, we could choose tomorrow to more formally assess rational thinking skills, focus more on teaching them, and redesign our environment so that irrational thinking is not so costly.  Whereas just thirty years ago we knew vastly more about intelligence than we knew about rational thinking, this imbalance has been redressed in the last few decades because of some remarkable work in behavioral decision theory, cognitive science, and related areas of psychology. In the past two decades cognitive scientists have developed laboratory tasks and real-life performance indicators to measure rational thinking tendencies such as sensible goal prioritization, reflectivity, and the proper calibration of evidence. People have been found to differ from each other on these indicators. These indicators are structured differently from the items used on intelligence tests. We have brought this work together by producing here the first comprehensive assessment measure for rational thinking, the CART.”

In order for educators to successfully teach critical thinking / rational thinking it is imperative that they understand what critical thinking actually is and why it matters. Questions that should be asked: What are the goals of critical thinking? How can critical thinking be tested? Does my curriculum contain information regarding scientific reasoning, logic, heuristic processing, and probabilistic thinking? 

Critical thinking is about what is true (epistemic rationality) and what to do (instrumental rationality).I recommend reading the works of Keith Stanovich, Daniel Kahneman, Richard West, Shane Frederick, and Jonathan Baron to name a few, in an effort to enhance critical thinking.

Rationality vs. Intelligence

Note that developing measures of rationality are a result of a plethora of research showing that intelligence and rationality are different concepts and are often weakly associated. Good thinking requires more than intelligence. Intelligence is important, but so is rationality (Stanovich 2009). Intelligence reflects reasoning abilities across a wide variety of domains (particularly novel ones) and processing speed. In addition, intelligence reflects general declarative knowledge acquired through acculturated learning. The type of cognitive skills required for rationality are not measured by intelligence tests and their proxies (GRE, SAT, standard IQ tests, etc.).

Society is complex, and requires complex thinking. Critical thinking is learnable; being a better critical thinker will assist humans in navigating the world much better, that is much better in the sense of making better judgments and better decisions, being more rational.

• Frederick, S. 2005. Cognitive reflection and decision making. Journal of Economic Perspectives 19, 25–42.
• Hale, J. 2012. “Expectations Do Not Always Influence Food Liking.” Online Theses and Dissertations . 129. Available online at https://encompass.eku.edu/etd/129 .
• ———. 2016. Rationality Quotient: Comprehensive Assessment of Rational Thinking. Knowledge Summit . Retrieved on July, 12 2018 from http://jamiehalesblog.blogspot.com/2016/11/rationality-quotient-comprehensive.html .
• Kahneman, D. 2011. Thinking Fast and Slow . New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• Manktelow, K. I. 2004. Reasoning and rationality: The pure and the practical. In K. I. Manktelow and M. C. Chung (Eds.), Psychology of reasoning: Theoretical and historical perspectives (pp. 157–177). Hove, England: Psychology Press.
• Stanovich, K. 2009. What Intelligence Tests Miss: the psychology of rational thought .London: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
• Stanovich, K. E., and P. J. Stanovich. 2010. A framework for critical thinking, rational thinking, and intelligence. In D. Preiss & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), Innovations in educational psychology: Perspectives on learning, teaching and human development (pp. 195–237). New York, NY: Springer.
• Stanovich, K., R. West, and M. Toplak. 2016. The Rationality Quotient: Toward A Test of Rational Thinking . Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

Jamie Hale is a college instructor, and he is associated with Eastern Kentucky University's Cognitive Neuroscience Lab and Perception & Cognition Lab. He has published articles and books on a wide range of topics. Jamie is the director of www.knowledgesummit.net and author of In Evidence We Trust: The need for science, rationality and statistics. His future articles will address models for improved scientific thinking, popular myths, and rationality in terms of cognitive science.

Tips for Online Students , Tips for Students

Why Is Critical Thinking Important? A Survival Guide

Updated: December 7, 2023

Published: April 2, 2020

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.

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.

Related Articles

Thinking About Kahneman’s Contribution to Critical Thinking

A nobel laureate on the importance of 'thinking slow.'.

Updated April 11, 2024 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma

• Kahneman won a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his work.
• He found that people are often irrational about economics.

During my Ph.D. studies, I recall focusing on reconceptualising what we know of as critical thinking to include reflective judgment (not jumping to conclusions and taking your time in your decision-making to consider the nature limits, and certainty of knowing) on par with the commonly accepted skills and dispositions components. The importance of reflective judgment wasn’t a particularly novel idea – a good deal of research on reflective judgment and similar processes akin to critical thinking had already been conducted (see King and Kitchener, 1994; Kuhn, 1999; 2000; Stanovich, 1999). However, reflective judgment – as opposed to intuitive judgment – didn’t seem to have ‘the presence’ in the discussion of critical thinking that it does today.

The same month I submitted my Ph.D. back in 2011, a book was released that massively helped to accomplish what I had been working to help facilitate – changing the terrain of thought surrounding critical thinking: Thinking, Fast, and Slow . Its author, Daniel Kahneman, passed away a couple of weeks ago at age 90. Psychology students will likely recognise the name associated with Amos Tversky and their classic work together in the 1970s on the availability, representativeness, and anchoring and adjustment heuristics (for example, Tversky and Kahneman, 1974). Indeed, such heuristics, alongside the affect heuristic (Kahneman and Frederick, 2002; Slovic and colleagues, 2002) play a large role in how we think about thinking and barriers to critical thought. In 2002, Kahneman won a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his work on prospect theory concerning loss aversion and people’s often irrational approach to economics. Indeed, Kahneman’s resume is full of awards and achievements.

However, the accomplishment I will remember him best for is the publication of Thinking, Fast, and Slow and its contribution to the field of critical thinking. Funny enough, I don’t recall the term, critical thinking being used very often in the book, if at all – and I read it two or three times. No, critical thinking was not the focus of his book; rather system 1 (fast) and 2 (slow) thinking (see also Stanovich, 1999) – intuitive and reflective judgment. Not only did this book put into the spotlight many of the mechanics of reflective judgment for fellow academics and researchers of cognitive psychology, it also did so l for non-academic audiences – becoming a New York Times bestseller. Moreover, it won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Current Interest, and the National Academy of Sciences Communication Award for Best Book (both in 2011). Good thinking was cool again in popular culture.

In the critical thinking literature, reflective judgment – regardless of what you want to call it (for example, system 2 thinking, epistemological understanding, ‘taking your time’) – is becoming more accepted as a core component of critical thinking. The field of critical thinking research and psychology more broadly, owes Kahneman a debt of gratitude for his contributions in helping shine a light on the importance of ‘thinking slow’. Thank you .

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow . 2UK: Penguin.

Kahneman, D., & Frederick, S. (2002). Representativeness revisited: Attribute substitution in intuitive judgment. Heuristics and biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment , 49 (49-81), 74.

King, P. M., & Kitchener, K. S. (1994). Developing Reflective Judgment: Understanding and Promoting Intellectual Growth and Critical Thinking in Adolescents and Adults. CA: Jossey-Bass.

King, P. M., & Kitchener, K. S. (2004). Reflective judgment: Theory and research on the development of epistemic assumptions through adulthood. Educational Psychologist, 39 (1), 5–15.

Kuhn, D. (1999). A developmental model of critical thinking. Educational Researcher , 28 (2), 16-46.

Kuhn, D. (2000). Metacognitive development. Current Directions in Psychological Science , 9 (5), 178-181.

Slovic, P., Finucane, M., Peters, E., & MacGregor, D. G. (2002). Rational actors or rational fools: Implications of the affect heuristic for behavioral economics. The Journal of Socio-economics , 31 (4), 329-342.

Stanovich, K.E. (1999) Who is rational? Studies of individual differences in reasoning. Mahwah, Erlbaum.

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases: Biases in judgments reveal some heuristics of thinking under uncertainty. Science , 185 (4157), 1124-1131.

Christopher Dwyer, Ph.D., is a lecturer at the Technological University of the Shannon in Athlone, Ireland.

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Leadership in the Sciences: Being an Expert Is Just the Beginning

An insightful q&a with applied science professors.

Listen in on a conversation between two regulatory affairs experts and instructors in the Applied Sciences Leadership program about the importance of leadership and other soft skills in the science industry.

Brent Kobielush , PhD, Senior Director, Regulatory Affairs, Conagra Brands Ruth Petran , PhD, CFS, Senior Advisor, Food Safety, The Acheson Group and Ruth Petran Consulting, LLC

What skills are most critical for success in the sciences right now?

Brent Kobielush : In the food/feed safety and regulatory roles, a delineation between hazard and risk is very important. Hazard is the possibility of something causing harm, whereas risk is the likelihood of a hazard causing harm. Mathematically, risk equals hazard times exposure. As toxicologists, we talk about “dose makes the poison.” Oftentimes, risk assessors are dealing with issues in shades of gray, from what the literature tells us on safety and how to interpret certain regulations throughout the world. All these factors come into play. So, a healthy understanding and comfortability in that gray space is very important, because you're going to be called upon to make decisions. If you continually waffle, no one's going to come to you to make decisions.

I will say from a scientific perspective, the most important thing that someone entering the field should do well is communicate. Communicating PhD-level science isn't easy. If an executive is asking you about a certain issue, you can't use words that may not make any sense except in that academic, scientific sphere, because that individual may not have a scientific background. How you communicate, how you interact with different people, how you make decisions from an integrity and character standpoint, are invaluable. If you can't make relationships up and down the supply chain, cross functionally with peer sets, in other companies, you're going to struggle.

Ruth Petran : I think historically, we've thought about scientists as experts having a lot of deep technical knowledge because they've researched or studied something extensively, which is still a really important starting place. An old mentor of mine always used to say, well, if you ever don't know what to say, always go back to the science, and the science is typically not going to fail you, and that is true. But when we have a particular level of expertise, we have to make sure we communicate this information effectively to whoever the audience is. This means thinking about alternate ways of communicating the same kinds of messages, for example, to a more lay audience who may not have that same technical level of knowledge, but still can benefit from hearing about it.

Critical thinking is really important as well. There's a lot of information out there. With social media and the speed of everything being transmitted, we're bombarded with lots and lots of information. We need to be able to sift through that quickly and ensure that we're communicating what's most accurate. That's where that technical knowledge comes in handy, to make sure that the messages you send forward are valid.

What skills are you looking for when hiring for leadership roles?

Brent Kobielush : I think servant leadership is the strongest leadership quality anybody can have. I think people are saying, well, servant leadership is more of a weakness, you want to be visionary and strategic. I think that's important, but if you aren't advocating [for] or serving the individuals that report to you, that organization is not going to thrive while you're there. That's what I'm looking for as a leader.

More importantly, I believe, is serving the consumers . You and I are consumers; I just happen to be a consumer that works within a food organization. So serving the consumer, doing what's right by them from a safety, regulatory, quality standpoint, in that order, I think is very important. Character is defined as making the right decisions when no one's watching. That has to be part of any leader’s ability to make change, especially in the food safety and regulatory space. If you don't have character and integrity to make solid decisions, then you shouldn't even be interviewing.

Ruth Petran : I think adaptability is really important—being able to take that technical knowledge and apply it in different situations, being ready to be challenged, and standing your ground when it makes sense, but also being open to others' perspectives. The whole idea of risk communication or risk management approaches is making sure that the message you need to get across is going to work for the intended audience and those who need to go out and implement those strategies. It's one thing to come up with a strategy in a laboratory that looks really promising and can earn you a publication, but if it can't be done in the field, it's kind of a failure. So I think adaptability is really key, along with proper communication.

How do you provide growth opportunities for staff?

Brent Kobielush : When we see a great leader, we want to make sure we're elevating and challenging and rewarding them appropriately so that they stay. My approach to leadership is more hands-off than hands-on, because I feel that the more hands-on you are, the more you're viewed as a micromanager. If I get in the way, I'm impeding their growth potential. Not to mention, I'm draining their energy by always looking over their shoulder. Something like that will decimate your organization and the drive of an individual. You're not only doing a detriment to your team, but you're doing a detriment to the broader organization.

There's this whole idea of managing up, and I think that gets talked about as a way of managing your boss. But managing up also is, “Hey, have you thought about this? Maybe we should go this direction?” As a leader, you should allow your employees to express other ideas that you haven’t thought about and have the humility to say, “That's a way better direction than I thought.” Being humble will differentiate you as a leader.

Ruth Petran : I think it’s vital to give folks opportunities to practically apply what is traditionally learned in a four-year college or university. The more opportunities that we all have to get out in the real world and practice these, the better. Approaches can be: 

• Allowing staff to take over for the leader when they can, in perhaps a lower risk situation so that they're more likely to succeed
• Letting a junior person craft a message, and then with the leader, reviewing that before it gets sent out
• “Setting them loose” in a sense and letting them try things out and being open to the fact that it's probably not going to be the way I would do it or perfect the first time or ever

But this approach does a couple things ... It recognizes that there are different ways to pull facts together and send that message, and there may be different perspectives. None of us certainly has all the answers. So being open to what others may have experienced or learned in their course of study is key. And giving folks the chance to practice is so helpful and empowering!

How do you work in an integrated way with stakeholders from different industries and backgrounds?

Brent Kobielush : First of all, you’ve got to find the commonality . The goal, as a partner, is to come alongside that individual or that industry and support them in their initiatives, knowing that when you have tough times they're going to come support you. That's how I view collaboration, coming alongside, if it helps that industry. It's human nature to say, they supported me here, we're going to support them there.

Collaboration across industries is important where there is a shared interest of basic principles. We do collaborate across companies because safety is not competitive, and it never should be. So when I was at General Mills I'd call my Kellogg colleague, even though there's fierce competition in that marketplace. Not only is it ethically important to say and live by that, but there's also a business component to it. If they have a problem, it's going to indirectly affect us because the consumers don't see brands as much as they see product categories. Something that impacts one cereal brand will, inevitably, impact the cereal category. Again, ensuring the safety of the food supply is of the utmost importance beyond anything.

Ruth Petran : It's hard to do. But I think doing our best to understand different stakeholders’ points of view is important. For example, business leaders are focused on the bottom line, growth, and maintenance of the business or entity, and communication with them is important. This includes understanding how they can help support the company collectively getting to a more effective and balanced solution.

I've spent a lot of time working with food companies, and I think a food plant is a good analogy for this in that there's typically a quality assurance department, then there's maintenance people, some operators who are working in the plant, the plant manager, various supervisors, probably an HR person. At the end of the day, the goal of that facility is to make food that is saleable, of high quality, and in line with what consumers are going to buy. No one can do that alone. It's only by coming together and understanding how the whole “machine” works together that that goal will be achieved consistently. So everybody has to have the mindset of relying on and working collaboratively with these other functions to reach that common goal.

What about the siloed nature of thinking within certain disciplines? 

Brent Kobielush : I use this example all the time when I teach: We’re watching a football game and there's a 30-second commercial for pharmaceutical medication, but the whole 30 seconds is scrolling side effects. But as a consumer, I will take that risk so long as my elbow feels good. Imagine if we put potential side effects in a food commercial. There's this part of us that says food should not have any risk associated with it. Well, anything has risk, it's a matter of driving down the risk. The unique thing in the food or feed industry that the consumer cannot get their arms around is the fact that there's risk with food.

And that's what sets food apart in trying to communicate risk effectively, and no one has gotten it right. There's mercury in fish. If you don't cook chicken, you might have salmonella. If you're using raw dough, there is potential risk there. That's where it's really hard to collaborate, especially on the communication piece.

Ruth Petran : To some extent I think that's just the nature of tradition and “how we've always done things.” I think some of the newer regulations and focuses from the regulatory bodies have forced cooperation and collaboration among these different kinds of silos. It'd be nice if this had been happening on its own, and to some extent, it has, but when you have a regulator pushing something at the industry, it does encourage it, perhaps a little more quickly and effectively.

We know that it works; there's been lots of published work on the value of collaborating . At the end of the day it gives you a better solution than just one entity going at it themselves.

Why does having a blend of soft skills and hard science skills make for effective leadership?

Brent Kobielush : If you 100% know the science but you can't communicate it, it means nothing except to you. Likewise, if you can talk a great game, people are gonna pick that apart by asking harder questions. So you have to have both to be successful. Are there successful individuals who want to focus on the science but can’t explain it? Yeah … but they will hit a ceiling. I think if you want to have the quintessential whole package, you understand the science and you can communicate and translate it. If you can play and work in both ladders, that will set you apart.

We have to have a really firm understanding of what people are capable of and what their potential is. They might have the potential to do it, but they have to want to do it. In some cases, an individual will have to move organizations for the opportunity to lead. This is sometimes a difficult realization. The vast majority of individuals who have deep technical knowledge, as well as an appreciation and knowledge of the business side of things, tend to really accelerate up the ladder.

Ruth Petran : I think it's interesting because 20, 30 years ago, I don't think we would have thought about scientists really needing to have too many soft skills. But as we've seen, with the advent of the internet and more communication channels, there’s a need to be hyperaware of the audience and the need for effective communication in a variety of media.

So now you need to get your message across within a sentence or two, versus in the past you could write a publication or article that would be pages and pages. I think the pandemic certainly demonstrated examples where we had scientists communicating messages that, to them, were very accurate from a research standpoint. But the practical application of getting this information to the general public and having them do something about it failed in some cases. So we need to be able to blend those in order to be more effective as we're working to lead across these industries.

Brent and Ruth teach Regulatory Affairs for Food Production and Distribution (ASCL 6213).

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Political typology quiz.

Notice: Beginning April 18th community groups will be temporarily unavailable for extended maintenance. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

Where do you fit in the political typology?

Are you a faith and flag conservative progressive left or somewhere in between.

Take our quiz to find out which one of our nine political typology groups is your best match, compared with a nationally representative survey of more than 10,000 U.S. adults by Pew Research Center. You may find some of these questions are difficult to answer. That’s OK. In those cases, pick the answer that comes closest to your view, even if it isn’t exactly right.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .