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What is Critical Thinking ?

“The mastery of higher order thinking skills including quantatative and qualifying analysis, synthesis and evaluation of information, argumentation and creativity“.

Faculty Senate, University of Houston-Clear Lake 2003, as quated on p.6 of the UHCL Quality Enhancment Plan.

This is one of the many definitions of an intellectual process we carry out in order to challenge, examine and evaluate certain knowledge or opinions. Critical Thinking is crucial in making important life decisions and building reasonable discussion. What differs Critical Thinking from passive thinking and inherit opinions? Critical Thinking is an active process which includes finding information, raising questions, rethinking, evaluating and finding reasonable explanations for the information you have on the table. Whereas passive thinking and inherit opinions involves accepting information without questioning or challenging it, nor checking the facts behind the statement. This could be because you simply choose not to look for it. Why is Critical Thinking process is referred to as “The mastery of higher order of thinking skills“? Critical thinking process contains various analytical and creative skills such as:

Recognising problems

Gathering and marshalling pertinent information

Interpreting data

Appraising evidence and evaluating statements

Reconstructing one’s patterns of beliefs on the basis of wider experience etc.

We very often mix terms - Critical Thinking and Criticism. Even though both words sound familiar they have completely different meanings. We use criticism when expressing dissatisfaction of something using reasonable grounds or constructive advice for improvement. Critical Thinking describes intentional process of challenging information or opinions based on facts and reasoning or evaluating situations in order to take necessary actions. Critical thinking is an analytical (“quantitative and qualifying”) process and criticism is one time result, outcome, reflection/ feedback on a particular action.