Critical
Thinking
Ahmed Ata
Khan
What is Thinking?
“Some people study all their life and
at their death they have learned
everything except to THINK”
– Francois Doumergue
“Thinking is a purposeful, organized
cognitive process that we use to make
sense of our world”
“The Internal Process That Make Sense of Our
Experiences”
“The central function of the brain is to remember
and that thinking is therefore a form of "pattern-
matching" process”
-Jeff Hawkins
Types of Thinking
•
Analyzing Problem
ProblemSolving
Solving
• Decision
DecisionMaking
Making
Evaluating
•Reasonin
New
g Ideas
Critical Left Right Creative
Thinking Thinking
What is Critical
Thinking?
WARNING: THIS MAN IS NOT THINKING
CRITICALLY!!
“The objective analysis and
evaluation of an issue in order to
form a judgement”
“Critical thinking consists of a mental process
of analysing or evaluating information,
particularly statements or propositions that
people have offered as true.
It forms a process of reflecting upon the
meaning of statements, examining the offered
evidence and reasoning, and forming
judgments about the facts.”
– Wikipedia
Critical Thinking
To think critically is to examine ideas,
evaluate them against what you already
know and make decisions about their merit.
The aim of critical thinking is to try to
maintain an ‘objective’ position.
When you think critically, you weigh up all
sides of an argument and evaluate its
strengths and weaknesses.
So, critical thinking skills entail:
Actively seeking all sides of an argument
Testing the soundness of the claims made
Testing the soundness of the evidence
used to support the claims
“It is human irrationality, not
a lack of knowledge that
threatens human potential”
(Nickerson cited in Kurfiss,
1986).
Critical Thinking is the general term given to
a wide range of cognitive and intellectual skills
needed to:
Effectively identify, analyze, and evaluate
arguments.
Discover and overcome personal prejudices
and biases.
Formulate and present convincing reasons in
support of conclusions.
Make reasonable, intelligent decisions about
what to believe and what to do.
Why is Critical Thinking So Important?
Critical thinking enables you as a
reader to assess the evidence in what
you are reading and identify spurious
or illogical reasoning.
You will be able to analyse and
evaluate – and compare and contrast –
the value of particular materials,
including theories, methods, concepts
and the major debates that have been
presented.
Developing critical thinking skills will
allow you to develop more reasoned
The Thinking Triangle
Why Critical Thinking?
• Strategic thinking – what direction do
we go in and how do we get there?
• Creativity – how can we capitalise on
changes in technology?
• Problem-solving – what has got us here
won’t get us there, so now what?
• Organisation/Planning – how do we
develop informed plans?
• Openness – who do we involve others
to tap into their thinking?
• Decision-Making – what are our options
and on what basis do we decide?
Importance of Critical Thinking
Promotes Creativity
Crucial for Self-Reflection
Helps to separate Facts from
Opinions
Enhances Efficiency
Enhances Comprehension skills
Principles of Critical Thinking
1. Be Curious, Ask Questions.
2. Don't Take things at Face Value
3. Define Terms
4. Examine Evidence, Do Your
Research
5. Analyze Assumptions and Biases
(Don't Assume You're Right)
6. Avoid Emotional Reasoning
7. Don't Over simplify
8. Consider Other Interpretations
Critical Thinking Skills
Core Critical Thinking Skills?
• Interpretation
• To comprehend and express the meaning or
significance of a wide variety of experiences,
situations, data, events, judgments,
conventions, beliefs, rules, procedures, or
criteria.
• Subskills: Categorize, Decode significance,
• Analysis
Clarify meaning.
• To identify the intended and actual
inferential relationships among statements,
questions, concepts, descriptions, or other
forms of representation intended to express
belief, judgment, experiences, reasons,
information, or opinions.
• Subskills: Examine ideas, Identify
Core Critical Thinking Skills?
• Inference
• To identify and secure elements needed to draw
reasonable conclusions; to form conjectures and
hypotheses; to consider relevant information and to
reduce the consequences flowing from data,
statements, principles, evidence, judgments, beliefs,
opinions, concepts, descriptions, questions, or other
forms of representation.
•• Evaluation
Subskills: Query evidence, Conjecture alternatives,
• Draw logically
To assess thevalid or justified
credibility of conclusions.
statements or other
representations that are accounts or descriptions of a
person’s perception, experience, situation, judgment,
belief, or opinion; and to assess the logical strength of
the actual or intended inferential relationships among
statements, descriptions, questions, or other forms of
representation.
• Subskills: Assess credibility of claims, Assess
Core Critical Thinking Skills?
• Explanation
• To state and to justify that reasoning in terms of
the evidential, conceptual, methodological,
criteriological, and contextual considerations
upon which one’s results were based; and to
present one’s reasoning in the form of cogent
arguments.
• Subskill: State results, Justify procedures,
• Self
PresentRegulation
arguments.
• Self-consciously to monitor one’s cognitive
activities, the elements used in those activities,
and the results educed, particularly by applying
skills in analysis, and evaluation to one’s own
inferential judgments with a view toward
questioning, confirming, validating, or correcting
either one’s reasoning or one’s results.
Questions in Critical Thinking?
• Interpretation
• What does this mean?
• What’s happening?
• How should we understand that? (what was just
said)
• What is the best way to
characterize/categorize/classify this?
• In this context, what was intended by
• Analysis
saying/doing that?
•• Please
How cantellwe
us again
make your
sensereasons for (experience,
of this? making that
claim?
feeling….)
• What is your conclusion/What is it that you are
claiming?
• Why do you think that?
• What are the pro & con arguments?
• What assumptions must we make to accept that
Questions in Critical Thinking?
• Inference
• Given what we know so far, what conclusions
can we draw?
• Given what we know so far, what can we rule
out?
• What does this evidence imply?
• If we abandoned/accepted that assumption, how
would things change?
• What additional information do we need to
resolve this question?
• If we believed these things, what would they
imply for us going forward?
• What are the consequences of doing things that
way?
• What are some alternatives we haven’t yet
explored?
Questions in Critical Thinking?
• Evaluation
• How credible is that claim?
• Why do we think we can trust what this person
claims?
• How strong are those arguments?
• Do we have our facts right?
• How confident can we be in our conclusion,
given what we now know?
• Explanation
• What were the specific findings/results of the
investigation?
• Please tell us how you conducted that analysis.
• How did you come to that interpretation?
• Please take us through your reasoning one more
time.
• Why do you think that (was the right answer/
Questions in Critical Thinking?
• Self Regulation
• Our position on this issue is still too
vague; can we be more precise?
• How good was our methodology, and
how well did we follow it?
• Is there a way we can reconcile these
two apparently conflicting conclusions?
• How good is our evidence?
• OK, before we commit, what are we
missing?
• I’m finding some of our definitions a little
confusing; can we revisit what we mean
by certain things before making any final
Point to Ponder
