What is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking (CT) is not a new concept among many educators and researchers. However, a debate has been taking place for two decades on whether or not it can be clearly defined. Some scholars assert that critical thinking is a vague notion (McPeck 1990), and that it is a tacit part of socialisation and can only be developed in unconscious social practice (Atkinson 1997). Atkinson (1997) concluded that critical thinking is not a definable educational concept, based on the finding that many professors at an American university were unable to provide a clear definition when asked to in interviews. Davidson (1998), however, insisted that such findings only reveal that we still lack a clear understanding of critical thinking, rather than presenting evidence that casts doubt on its definability. Although it is difficult to define critical thinking and there is so far no standard definition, those who consider it to be an important concept have attempted to describe what it is.

Cottrell (2005) described critical thinking as a cognitive activity, focusing on argumentation, which requires the use of the mind. Facione (2000) characterised critical thinking as a self-adjusting process involving the use of cognitive skills to make judgements and to improve the quality of judgements. This process of the use of the mind often relates to reasoning, making judgements and reflection (Sternbery et al. 2007). When engaging in critical thinking, one needs to think reasonably and reflectively in order to decide what to believe and what to do (Norris and Ennis 1989). Sigel (1998) emphasised the notion that a critical thinker should be one who is moved by reason. These definitions portray critical thinking as a self-adjusting cognitive process in which the mind is used to make reasonable judgements. They also

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emphasised the fact that reasoning, which includes the analysis of evidence and drawing conclusions from it, lies at the heart of critical thinking (Cottrell 2005).

Some scholars have defined critical thinking in terms of its most indispensable components. According to Glaser (1941, cited in Fisher 2001: 3), these components are attitudes, knowledge and skills, and he refers to ‘an attitude of being disposed to

consider in a thoughtful way the problems and subjects that come within the range of one’s experience, knowledge of the methods of logical enquiry and reasoning and some skill in applying those methods’. According to Swartz and Parks (1994), the

principal components are goals, skills and attitudes. These authors emphasised the notion that the goal of critical thinking is to make critical judgements through assessing the reasonableness of ideas. The critical thinking attitude implies that judgements should be based on sound reasoning and, in thinking critically, one needs to be open-minded. They also listed skills which can be used to generate, clarify and assess the reasonableness of ideas, and further proposed a way to teach these skills: this is the infusion approach, which is the method used in this study (see section 2.5). These definitions demonstrate that, for people to be critical thinkers, an active and open-minded attitude, relevant skills and knowledge of how to use these skills are all needed.

Many educators and researchers have also believed that engaging in critical thinking requires the relevant skills and dispositions (Giancarlo et al. 2004; Fisher 2001; Ip et al. 2000; Facione et al. 1995), and it has consequently been suggested that these skills can be taught (Abrami et al. 2008; Lipman 2003; Swartz and Parks 1994).

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‘Skills are manifest in performance. Persons with stronger skills tend to be

able to perform a range of tasks requiring those skills with fewer mistakes.’

(Facione 2000: 72)

According to Facione (2000), the possession of skills enables us to perform better. In the case of thinking skills, these can improve the quality of thinking and facilitate more effective thinking. Ennis (1991) proposed that critical thinking skills could be categorised into clarification skills, basic decision making skills, inference skills and the skills of supposition and integration. Swartz and Parks (1994) listed the skills used to assess whether or not ideas are reasonable, which include accurate observation and reliable resources for assessing basic information, the use of causal explanation, prediction, generalisation and reasoning via analogy to achieve inference, and the use of conditional reasoning to make deductions. Fisher (2001: 8) also described in detail the important critical thinking skills, which include the abilities to:

- Identify the elements in a reasoned case, especially reasons and conclusions; - Identify and evaluate assumptions;

- Clarify and interpret expressions and ideas;

- Judge the acceptability, and especially the credibility, of claims; - Evaluate arguments of different kinds;

- Analyse, evaluate and produce explanations; - Analyse, evaluate and make decisions; - Draw inferences;

- Produce arguments.

Although no consensual agreement on a taxonomy of critical thinking skills has been reached, this study adopts the core set of critical thinking skills proposed by McGregor

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(2007), of which some or all have been included in the critical thinking taxonomy provided by other researchers (Wen et al. 2009; Cottrell 2005; Fisher 2001; Halpern 1998). These are also the skills stated in the Chinese high school English curriculum. The following descriptions of these skills are summarised from the authors mentioned above:

 Explaining and reasoning: ability to explain ideas by providing supporting reasons and to clarify these reasons in rational and logical ways.

 Analysing and synthesising: ability to seek and analyse data, identify and synthesise relevant and useful data that support conclusions.

 Generalising and summarising: ability to summarise useful data, and use them to draw general conclusions.

 Evaluating and judging: ability to evaluate the data and make reasonable decisions.

To be a critical thinker, however, having the necessary skills is far from enough. According to John Chafee (cited by Facione 2000), a critical thinker is not merely someone who is able to reflect, explore and analyse, but one who chooses to ‘think in these advanced, sophisticated ways’ (p. 65). In other words, in order to become a

critical thinker, internal motivation, which is also widely known as a disposition, is needed (Miri et al. 2007; Giancarlo and Facione 2004). For the purposes of this study, a student with a strong disposition towards critical thinking is one who shows him or herself to be active and willing to ‘engage in and persist at’ challenging and complex thinking tasks (Halpern 1998). Additionally, appropriate attitudes, as proposed by Glaser (1941, in Fisher 2001) and Swartz and Parks (1994), and discussed above,

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should not be ignored. These attitudes enable learners to be open-minded with respect to different views and all sources of data, and to make sound judgements and decisions based on suitable analysis.

In Facione et al.’s study, one student stated that ‘We know how to think, thank you.

But, frankly, we’re just not interested’ (Facione et al. 1995: 10). It is immediately obvious that, without the willingness to think critically, one will be less likely to do so in practice, despite having the ability. Facione (2000) thus advocated the importance of developing dispositions toward critical thinking, because ‘knowing a person’s

disposition allows us to predict how the person is most likely to act or react in a wide variety of circumstances’ (p. 63). A person who has critical thinking skills may fail to

take the opportunity to display them, while a person with a disposition towards critical thinking will take the opportunity to engage in it even if his or her level of critical thinking skills is low (Ip et al. 2000).

In summary, critical thinking is important in the field of education, since it is an essential tool of inquiry, for solving problems and making good decisions (Simpson and Courtney 2002). Students should be actively involved in the learning activity and able to apply their knowledge to solve learning and social problems, and to analyse and organise information so they can make decisions. Moreover, through applying critical thinking in learning and social practice, students can become more open- minded and creative in finding out the best method of learning and solving problems (Tiwari et al. 2006). Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop students’ critical

thinking skills and increase their disposition towards critical thinking, both of which they would then be able to apply to their learning and social life.

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Based on the discussion above, in this study, the definition of critical thinking proposed by Facione (2000) is adopted; as discussed above, in this definition critical thinking is considered as a self-adjusting process involving the use of cognitive skills to make rational judgements and to improve the quality of judgements. The aim of the present study was not only to develop critical thinking skills, but also to cultivate the relevant dispositions and to encourage the active engagement in (Halpern 1998) and appropriate attitudes towards critical thinking (Swartz and Parks 1994).