Conceptual analysis of critical thinking in the 1990s

This article provides comprehensive coverage to the concept of critical thinking of one decade of the year 1990s. it will be of benefits to employers, organizations, schools, colleges, and universities. It gives a highlight of the concept of critical thinking addressed by the pioneers of this topic.

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CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS OF CRITICAL

Dr Alex Jones

Professor of Leadership and Strategy, College of Business Administration, American University in the Emirates (AUE)

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

ABSTRACT

Critical thinking has become the focus of the twenty-first century and it will become the focus of the next century The lack of critical thinkers among graduates across the world is on the rise Many educational institutions like schools, colleges and universities claim to teach critical thinking across the many disciplines The lack

of emphasis on the topic itself is prevailing Employers are raising the issue of the lack

of critical thinkers among graduates especially problem-solving skills This article provides comprehensive coverage to the concept of critical thinking of one decade of the year 1990s it will be of benefits to employers, organizations, schools, colleges, and universities It gives a highlight of the concept of critical thinking addressed by the pioneers of this topic

Keywords: Critical thinking, organizations, employers, essential characteristics,

problem-solving skills

Cite this Article: Dr Alex Jones, Conceptual Analysis of Critical Thinking in the

1990s, International Journal of Management (IJM), 11 (3), 2020, pp 278–286

http://www.iaeme.com/IJM/issues.asp?JType=IJM&VType=11&IType=3

1 INTRODUCTION

The global dilemma of graduates lacking critical thinking skills on the rise in one hand The demands of the 21st-century workplace are on the rise with the increasing complexity of more skills in the age of technology from the other hand Employers on a global scale are witnessing graduates lacking analytical thinking skills and problem-solving skills Many workplaces across the globe require talents who possess critical thinking skills and able to make a solid decision after collecting the relevant information that is based on solid evidence (Brookfield, 1987) Critical thinking is an art that requires analytical thinking skills, rational, analytical, and can make assumptions that lead to strong decision-making (Black, 2012) It is the art that requires the use of the brain and based on cognitive skills (Elder & Paul, 2002; Cottrell, 2011) It is an approach of interpretations of information after putting a strong assumption that is based on inferences, evaluations, and analysis (Facione, 1990; Black,

2012) Therefore, employers require continuous thinkers who can use their cognitive skills to analyze, resonate, and make compelling arguments continuously

2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Critical thinking is a learned skill and one of the important life skills (Ennis, 1989; Lipman, 1988; Sternberg, 1986; Case, 2005; Giancarlo, Blohm & Urdan, 2004) Different variables are impacting the learning process of critical thinking among which are the methods of teaching, classroom instructions, and class management (McMillan, 1987; Dehler, Welsh & Lewis, 2001; Ghoshal, 2005; Mintzberg, 2005; Pfeffer, 2005) Colleges and universities contribute to the development of critical thinking skills and most of it is happening through the early stages

of the college years which are considered the most significant part of learning it at this stage (Keeley, Browne, & Kreutzer, 1982; Lehmann, 1963; Pascarella, 1985) The focus, therefore, should be on active use of critical thinking, learning methods of addressing and practicing it, and exercising rational thinking through active engagements using the cognitive skills that bring thoughtful questioning methodologies (McPeck, 1981; Beyer, 1985; Halpern, 1998; Reid, 2009)

3 OBJECTIVES & METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY

The objective of this study was to shed the light on the main important parts of critical thinking covering the most aspects of it over a decade of studies Secondary research data utilized for this study over the era of the 1990 Each year was researched thoroughly and carefully Plethora of literature review conducted in the field across multiple disciplines wit the focus on mind on management and business studies There was no need to conduct primary research data analysis for this study The nature of this study is comprehensive with the focus on the field of critical thinking

4 CRITICAL THINKING IN 1990S

4.1 Facione (1990)

The focus of education reform and leaders in the education field mainly revolved around critical thinking This reform called for a movement This movement is called a critical thinking movement The goal and aim of this movement were to make sure that critical thinking is integrated in curricula and pedagogy The focus should be on fostering students‟ attention on inquiry and develop such a habit This, in turn, contributes to the reinforcement

of critical thinking skills All involve the utilization of the cognitive skills of students that require adopting specific strategies for assessments in this regard Each of which contributes

to creating an effective and meaningful education system There is a continuous debate by experts in the field whether critical thinking is a skill or set of skills that can be learned or whether it is a developmental process However, critical thinking is “purposeful, self-regulatory judgment which results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well as explanation of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criterialogical or contextual

considerations upon which judgment is based”

Our society needs critical thinkers Critical thinkers are honest in nature They are considerate, clear and diligent Their focus is on inquiry and continuously seeking information that is relevant They are persistent and precise They are inquisitive and knowledgeable The movement of critical thinking has gained a lot of support from leaders in higher education Most education leaders agreed that critical thinking skills are vital for the benefits of students and our society in general The result of it has made many leaders in higher education calls for papers and conferences that focused on the importance of and the need for critical thinking skills in education and higher education system It called for the needs to create and develop

critical thinking courses across and lesson plans should be revised to incorporate such a

change

The higher education system, as a result of such a movement, started introducing critical thinking skills in the general education programs making it the primary requirement of most courses The education system has also put a focus, as a result of this movement, on critical thinking embedding it in the frameworks of most curricula and their standardized testing programs A real example of such is the introduction of critical thinking skills in the system of California State University across the State of California This system introduced critical thinking skills as part of the general education requirements across the twenty campuses This

is reflected in their curricula framework and statewide testing programs A few years later publishing companies started publishing many textbooks with a focus on critical thinking skills The need for courses and development programs on critical thinking skills has also had

its share in the market to be in the progressing list of industries

The instructions of critical thinking skills should follow the approach of developing the skills of inquiry, questioning, and reasoning The pedagogy of critical thinking should focus

on developing the cognitive skills of students as well as affective dispositions The aim of instructions and pedagogy should mainly focus on creating good critical thinkers This can be achieved through including the six dimensions of creating good thinkers, which are: “(1) interpretation, (2) analysis, (3) evaluation, (4) inference, (5) explanation and (6) self-regulation.” These dimensions are considered the core of critical thinking skills All of which contribute to creating quality critical thinkers who are able to question how they arrived at certain answers and investigate the correctness and credibility of a given answer The proficiency of critical thinking skills comes from three components that are: confidence, inclination and good judgment If those three factors are used appropriately in everyday life as well as in classrooms it most likely is going to create a good critical thinker In contract, if those three factors are not utilized appropriately it will create non-critical thinkers‟

individuals

It is worth mentioning that the consensus list of the six dimensions of cognitive skills and sub-skills of critical thinking skills includes: (1) interpretation – which includes: (a) categorization, (b) decoding significance, and (c) clarifying meaning; (2) analysis – which includes: (a) examining ideas, (b) identifying arguments, and (c) analyzing arguments; (3) evaluation – which includes: (a) assessing claims, and (b) assessing arguments; (4) inference – which includes: (a) querying evidence, (b) conjecturing alternatives, and (c) drawing conclusions; (5) explanation – which includes: (a) stating results, (b) justifying procedures, and (c) presenting arguments; and (6) self-regulation – which includes: (a) self – examination,

and (b) self - correction

4.2 Halpern (1990)

College students should be taught how to think explicitly A fact that was not widely embraced by leaders in higher education The academic community is not opposed to the fact

of embracing critical thinking skills or thinking explicitly But it was a path that needed a lot

of clear guidance to be implemented The general education course requirements, in North America, have witnessed a drastic change This is represented through higher education institutions that started offering courses with objectivity for enhancing students‟ critical

thinking skills and creates generations who are able to think critically

Critical thinking involves the use of cognitive skills It also can involve strategies that aim

at enhancing critical thinking skills The most important thing is creating outcomes that are desirable Critical thinking is not just a concept, but it is a process that involves solving problems through which decision can be reached It involves the inference formulation

process through which probabilities and likelihood can be calculated It is a purposeful concept that puts reasons for doing things and it is directed in goals These skills are focally important in creating better thinkers whom they will be able to use critical thinking skills

most appropriately in different situations whenever relevant

Technology advancement has provided us with several ways to teach the students how to

be critical thinkers This advancement has also increased the demands for more critical thinkers There are more demands than ever to teach critical thinking skills in higher education institutions Education leaders should teach students the skills of checking the credibility and reliability of sources obtained in different ways to be able to make a sound judgment These skills are increasingly becoming an integral part of teaching critical thinking skills It has to be enforced in the teaching instructions and teach it repeatedly earlier in students‟ college life We should enforce teaching these skills to students to be able to use them Students should be taught the skills of recognition and teach them the way of using them in their daily life Teaching students, the skills to think critically without real-life applications is not that useful Critical thinking skills are more than showing students how to succeed in a specific pattern or context It is the use of attitude, disposition and mental skills

The latter are the most important skills that lead to a successful critical thinker

4.3 Ennis (1991)

Critical thinking is a metacognition process It is “reasonable reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do.” This definition covers a wide range of meanings including “reflection, reasonableness (interpreted roughly as rationality), and decision making (about belief and action).” The definition also includes creative thinking, making assumptions and find possible solutions It deals with viewing things or problems from different angles It

is part of the process of problems solving The critical thing requires, on the basis of assumption, that critical thinkers think critically The working definition of critical thinking, thereafter, is “reasonable reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or

do.”

4.4 Cabrera, G A (1992)

There is a need to teach critical thinking skills in our society Teaching critical thinking is a competency that is most wanted in our society It enables students to be active intelligent thinkers Critical thinking involves activities evaluation, making sound and reasoned judgments, collecting or gathering information, and reaching final reasonable decisions Critical thinkers should possess the skills of disposition to be able to make good judgments They should be open-minded individuals They should avoid biases and prejudices They should gather information and listen to what information is given before making a judgment

and reaching a final decision

4.5 Ennis, R H (1993)

The attention on critical thinking has increased significantly since the early 1980s Critical thinking is represented in the three upper levels of Blooms‟ Taxonomy All together and each factor represents the educational goals These goals are “analysis, synthesis and evaluation.” It also involves the other two levels of the same taxonomy which are “comprehension and application.” Each of these levels is not hierarchical They are rather interdependent with each other For example, synthesis and evaluation require analysis, and analysis requires synthesis and evaluation Critical thinking is the “correct assessing of statement.” All of these leads to the fact that all of these terms are vague including Blooms‟ Taxonomy and none serve as a

proper assessment of critical thinking However, critical thinking is reasonable, reflective

thinking The goal of it is making final decisions of “what to believe or do.”

4.6 Sormunen, C., & Chalupa, M (1994)

Leaders in the business world are increasing their demands for the need of highly competitive workers who are critical thinkers with high order thinking skills Business school plays a major role in preparing graduates who possess the skills of critical thinking The definition of critical thinking is non-definite yet and it still is emerging There are two models of critical thinking: philosophical and psychological model The first focuses on using the analytical skills of students While the second is concerned with “Metacognition (knowing how one learns) and cognitive strategies (focusing on the ways students learn) are central to the psychological model.” The difference in applying the psychological model in business school instead of the philosophical one is a matter of focus on the process In other words, the psychological model focuses on “realistic application of learning to life situations and the belief that understanding how one learns can be effectively used to help students transfer training/learning from the academic world to the work world.” Therefore, using this model is

highly recommended in business schools

4.7 King, A (1995)

The inquiring mind is the distinctive feature of critical thinking skills Critical thinkers are good thinkers They ask good questions They investigate things around them every time they come across things or whenever they read something that is not satisfactory to them They do

so when they hear things that are not convincing They are constant analytical minds who are engaged continuously in analyzing things through experiences they go through and they are

on a search for explanations They try to relate things and create a connection between their knowledge and a certain experience they go through They try to find the significance in things and make it sound much more realistic than a puzzling issue Critical thinking involves the process of evaluation of our decisions It is a process of reaching logical conclusions and analyzing information or arguments It is a critically thinking process that involves making

inferences

Good thinkers who good quality of critical thinkers is always have many questions The significant questions they try to focus on are finding the meaning of why this is happening They try to investigate the nature of things They strive to find alternatives of looking at things from another perspectives They make sure there is evidence for why a certain thing is happening this way and not that way They try to understand the world around them They want to make sure things are happening for certain All of these activate the process of thinking critically between the responder and the questioner This process involves using the cognitive skills These skills are: “analysis of ideas, comparison and contrast, inference, prediction, evaluation and the like.” Therefore, it is imperative to teach our students how to think critically The way to do so is teaching them how to ask good questions The enforcement of teaching students so will enhance the skills of becoming spontaneous questioners and critical thinkers This, in turn, is going to stimulate the process of developing

their inquiring minds

4.8 Scriven, M., & Paul, R (1996)

Critical thinking requires that students‟ engagements actively in the process of

“conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, evaluating, and communicating information.” Critical thinking includes making decisions as well as the activity of self-reflection

4.9 Paul, R., Elder, L., & Bartell, T (1997)

Critical thinking has its ancient roots in the history and it is derived from Greek roots The term means “"kriticos" (meaning discerning judgment) and "kriterion" (meaning standards).” The term itself implies that sound judgment is based on standards According to Webster's New World Dictionary, it is "characterized by careful analysis and judgment" and is followed

by the gloss: "critical, in its strictest sense, implies an attempt at objective judgment to determine both merits and faults." Accordingly, we can define critical thinking as the type of thinking that is uses sound judgments as its explicit meaning It, therefore, uses the appropriate standards to reach a determined evaluation as a step to value things and reach a

worthiness of meriting it

The human nature is making mistakes, over uses generalization, attempt to be prejudice sometimes and narrow in thinking The tradition of critical thinking is finding ways of reaching a better understanding to human mind It, then, train the mind to avoid mistakes or minimizes them and thinks intellectually instead This tradition assumes that human brains can be trained through educational process to reason well Another assumption of this tradition is that critical thinking aim is to make us avoid mistakes as much as possible and focus our attention on thinking logically and rationally to become better problem solvers as

well as enabling us to prioritize things based on importance

The concept of critical thinking refers to the fact that intellectual thinking is a practice conducted by those who attempt to think critically Those who think critically are usually engaged in activities such as “monitoring, reviewing, and assessing: goals and purposes.” The investigate problems and the way they are formulated They examine the evidence presented from information or interpretation They attempt to check the quality of evidence and make sure there is a solid reasoning developed They take charge of the consequences They present their points of views with appropriate references The focus of intellectual thinkers, referred to

as modes of thinking, is on “clarity, precision, accuracy, relevance, depth, breadth, and logicalness.” These modes help us reach the ultimate solution for problems and reach the

successful end of accomplishment

4.10 Jenkins, E.K (1998)

The accounting profession considers critical thinking as an intellectual skill that increases the ability of individuals to solve non-deterministic problems It is a skill the develops the ability

to reach to sound judgments and be able to detect errors and irregularities especially of accountant who needs those skills the most It requires the use of skills that enables individuals to ask good question It promotes the skills of questioning things and when to question it It utilizes the use skepticism and experience to reach a satisfactory solution and be

able to solve problems or find a thorough insight into them from different perspectives

4.11 Halpern, 1999

Critical thinking is defined as the “purposeful, reasoned, and goal-directed” use of cognitive skills and strategies (Halpern 1999, p 70) For students to be able to solve complex problems, students must be engaged actively in the process of critical thinking This process is

“purposeful, reasoned, and goal directed higher-order thinking.” It is a metacognition process

It is simply the evaluation of our thoughts, problems we solved, and decisions made Critical thinking is a principal goal assumed to be a desirable one of higher education institutions

towards shaping three factors: “curriculum, pedagogy, and policy.”

5 CONCLUSION

The concept of critical thinking skills is on the rise on a global scale Employers are faced with a significant dilemma for graduates who are lacking critical thinking skills and problem-solving skills Schools claim to teach critical thinking skills So do colleges and universities The teaching claim of such a skill is happening from one hand and the lack of graduates who are equipped with critical thinking skills is on the rise on the other hand So it is a paradoxical issue that is based on controversial claims

Nevertheless, critical thinking is a must-learn skill of leaders of today It is considered one

of the critical skills that are required to meet the demands of the complex world we live in especially in the age of artificial intelligence They are five essential characteristics of critical thinkers:

Figure 1 DDDIR Model of Five Essential Characteristics of Critical Thinkers

The model of DDDRI above sheds light on the important five characteristics critical thinkers must possess They are (1) Distinguishing, (2) Determining, (3) Detecting, (4) Identifying, and (5) Recognizing They should be able to distinguish between facts and claims The process that leads to determining the reliability of sources found after gathering information The accuracy of information is based on the previous two steps where accuracy and relevance of information found determined by the degree of relevance and irrelevance of any given statement The third step will complete the previous two by detecting the bias and non-bias facts, and assumptions through the fourth step interference of identification of the ambiguous through predictability based on collected facts The fifth step completes the chain

by recognizing the fallacies, consistencies, and inconsistencies, logical, illogical, strengths and weakness of stated facts

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