Critical Thinking - Article Example

Economics – Critical Thinking Critical thinking is, self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. (Defining Critical Thinking, 2009) Critical thinking is the process of taking decisions or performing a task with the help of purposeful observations, experiences, verbal or written expressions, or arguments. It is essential in almost every segment of human life. While studying, or performing a task at the workplace or while taking a political, economical, or social decision, critical thinking is essential. Decisions or the actions taken without the backing of a critical thinking may not be proper ones. “Critical thinking involves logical thinking and reasoning including skills such as comparison, classification, sequencing, cause/effect, patterning, webbing, analogies, deductive and inductive reasoning, forecasting, planning, hypothesizing, and critiquing” (Johnson and Lamb, 2007) These paper discuses different aspects of critical thinking and its effectiveness as a tool to managers Skills and attitudes with respect to critical thinking Edward Glaser defines critical thinking as follows “The ability to think critically, which involves three things: (1 ) an attitude of being disposed to consider in a thoughtful way the problems and subjects that come within the range of ones experiences, (2) knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning, and (3) some skill in applying those methods (Defining Critical Thinking, 2009). It is important that one should learn lessons from the experiences he faces directly or from the incidents happening around him. It is not necessary that all the people respond to an incident in similar fashions because of differences in their experiences and intellectual levels. For example, most of the infants attracted towards a lighted candle. Once they suffer burns form the candle flame, they will never approach it again. In other words, they began to learn from their experiences. Same way we should learn from our experiences and we must develop an attitude of approaching everything on a critical mentality in order to reduce mistakes. Logical reasoning skill is another part of critical thinking. For example, in an organization, it is quite possible that a worker engage in some kind of irresponsible behaviour. An ordinary manager will punish him for his mistake whereas a manager who thinks critically will try to find out the causes of his behaviour and will try to eliminate such causes and thereby forces the employee to correct his actions in future. Application of the skills developed is the third part of critical thinking. I know a person who was a university topper in his subject and got the employment in a college as a lecturer. During his tenure itself another person who fails to pass his master degree in his first attempt (He has completed his master degree in his second attempt) also got employment in the same department. Some of my friends who studied in this college have told me that classes taken by the university topper was very poor whereas the classes taken by the other person was excellent. In short, the university topper, even though have excellent knowledge in his subject, he failed to demonstrate it in the class whereas the other person even within his limitations succeeded in using his skills cleverly. “One important component of critical thinking, is some understanding of ones starting points-who one is, what one believes, and why. Critical thinking is thus both reflective and evaluative-and raises the possibility that both the critical thinker and her milieu will be challenged, unsettled, and perhaps changed” (RETHINKING CRITICAL THINKING - VALUES AND ATTITUDES, n.d) The life of one person before and after he starts critical thinking, may not be the same. Critical thinking will help him to remove all his prejudices and superstitions. A person who analyze things lightly will seek the answer of questions starting with “What” whereas a critical thinker will ask questions like What, When, Why, and How before arriving at any conclusions. Critical and creative thinking are interrelated and complementary aspects of thinking. Almost all of the thinking which we undertake contains some critical and some creative aspects. For example, when we try to solve real life problems we move back and forth several times between creative and critical reflection as we develop solutions or weigh the consequences of any one solution. It is important, therefore, that any attempts to improve thinking abilities pay attention to both critical and creative aspects of thinking. Critical and creative thinking processes are combinations of abilities, knowledge, values, attitudes, skills and processes (Critical and Creative Thinking, n.d) Critical and creative thinking have close relationships. Creative thinking always seeks the help of critical thinking before taking decisions. The result of creative thinking will always be positive whereas the same thing cannot be said about critical thinking. The aim of creative thinking is to promote interest and divergence whereas critical thinking helps a person to identify the truth. “Empirical studies demonstrate that students with higher levels of critical thinking skills do better than peers with lower levels, both in terms of achievement, and with regard to the usage of cognitive learning strategies, such as taking a deep or surface approach to learning. Besides cognitive factors, affective factors as attitudes toward the academic subjects students are studying play an important role in the learning process” (Barskey et al, 2008) The critical thinking attitude will help a student to learn his subjects properly. A topic may have a positive side, negative side and a gray side in between these two. A student who analyses things critically always seeks all the three sides in order to develop proper learning. Otherwise they may understand things like the story of three blind persons who perceived the shape of an elephant by touching it. These three persons touched different parts of the elephant and perceived the shape of elephant as that of the parts they touched. One who touched the leg, argued that the shape of elephant is like a big tree; the second one who got the opportunity to touch the tail explained the shape as the shape of a stick ; the third one who touched the ear of elephant said that elephant is flat in shape. The knowledge of a student who fails to think critically or learn critically will be just like the story of the blind persons mentioned above. Critical thinking helps one not only in his studies, but in workplace as well. Critical thinking and its effectiveness as a tool to managers “Critical thinking is the discipline of rigorously and skilfully using information, experience, observation and reasoning to guide your decisions, actions and beliefs (Mind tools, 2009)” In an organization, manager is an important entity who acts as the bridge between the workers and the organization. The success and failures of the company mainly depends on how smartly the managers were able to take quick decisions. Only a thinking manager will able to perform the decision making task properly in quick time. In a critical situation the workers often seek advices from the manager. The manger should be able to analyse the situation correctly and should guide the workers in such situations. For example, consider a production manager is responsible for timely production of goods in an organization. Suppose some machine failure has delayed the production and meeting the deadline was not at all possible. In such cases, a critically thinking manger will calculate how soon can start production based on the available information, resources and feedbacks from the engineering people working on the machine. Then he will decide whether he can convince the client to extend the deadline or not. If he fails to convince the client, he will definitely opt for executing the job using outside resources. Thus only a critical thinking manager can take sound decisions whenever a crisis occurs in the organization. Lifelong learning and ethical implications with respect to critical thinking Critical thinking is a lifelong process. Nobody can say that they are perfect in their knowledge. New knowledge and information are pouring in from all the corners of the world, virtually at every second and hence it is foolishness to think that our knowledge is perfect. Even a teacher needs polish his knowledge in order to cater the needs of the students. The critical and creative dimensions of thought interpenetrate and interface with our capacity to reflect ethically. Each of the three is better understood in relation to the other two. Each deepens and develops one another. If we would understand the creative mind, then we must study the manner in which it is dependent on criticality. If we would understand the critical mind, then we must study the way it is dependent on creativity. If we would understand the highest levels of criticality and creativity, we must study their dependence on ethical reflection. Intellectual work is a common denominator of all three: creativity, criticality, and ethical reflection. Intellectual constructs are their shared products (constructs such as novels, editorials, critiques). Intellectual traits are what take them to higher levels of functioning. Let us consider first how to overcome the dichotomy between thought that is fundamentally creative and thought that is fundamentally critical. (Paul and Elder, 2009) Conclusions Critical thinking is an essential part of our life. It is required in almost every aspect of our life like, studying, working, playing or analysing things. Critical thinking helps a person to take sound decisions which are useful to him and to the society. A positive attitude and developed thinking skills are required for taking decisions assisted with critical thinking. Critical thinking helps one to avoid prejudices and superstitions and to transform his life. It is a never ending process which lasts till the end of one’s life. References 1. Barsky Noah P. , Clements Mike , Ravn Jakob  and Smith Kelly(2008),  Retrieved on 07 October 2009 from http://www.springerlink.com/content/t25453w3t7651526/ 2. Critical and Creative Thinking, (n.d), Retrieved on 07 October 2009 from http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/docs/policy/cels/el4.html 3. Defining Critical Thinking, (2009), Retrieved on 07 October 2009 from http://www.criticalthinking.org/aboutct/define_critical_thinking.cfm 4. Johnson Larry & Lamb Annette, (2007), Critical and Creative Thinking - Blooms Taxonomy Retrieved on 07 October 2009 from http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic69.htm 5. Mind tools,( 2009), Critical Thinking Developing the Skills for Successful Thinking Retrieved on 07 October 2009 from http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_95.htm 6. Paul Richard and Elder Linda (2009), Critical Thinking, Creativity, Ethical Reasoning: A Unity of Opposites, Retrieved on 07 October 2009 from http://www.springerlink.com/content/ut768v5488067888/ 7. RETHINKING CRITICAL THINKING - VALUES AND ATTITUDES, (n.d), Retrieved on 07 October 2009 from http://ctl.stanford.edu/Tomprof/postings/510.html Read More