Overview: Critical Thinking

Carter, Bishop and Kravitz, 2008 (see Resources) define critical thinking as "the process of gathering information, analyzing it in different ways, and evaluating it for the purposes of                   gaining understanding, solving a problem,  or making a decision." (p. 109)

 

It goes beyond just being able to learn and remember specific ideas and facts. People who are good at critical thinking begin by asking good questions, always with a goal in mind.   In everyday life you might ask yourself if now would be a good time to buy a new car.   In a college class,  you might ask yourself what a good topic for an assigned essay might be.  In this later case you would be thinking creatively.

 

Critical thinking is especially important at the present time,  when many people on line and in the news use fake information and lies to try to persuade you about this or that. 

 

The metacognitive strategies involve critical thinking, as do all of the specific learning strategies.   For example, if you are asked to make a formal presentation in front of a class,  you would ask yourself how your presentation should be organized.  That is,  what points should you make first, second, and so on.  The goal would be to make the best presentation that you possibly could.

​

Critical thinking skills are not learned in a day, but can develop over a lifetime.  As you take more college courses conscientiously, your critical thinking skills will develop. The links below lead to pages that discuss many, but not all aspects of critical thinking. Critical thinking requires such an important set of skills that you are encouraged to take a course that focuses on critical thinking.   There are several courses available at Santa Rosa Junior College that have content about critical thinking. These include:  Eng 5, Comm 3, Phil 3, and Phil 5.   As an alternative consider buying (or checking out from a library),  and studying any one of these three textbooks:

​

Critical Thinking. 13th ed. Moore, Brooke Noel and Parker, Richard. McGraw-Hill. 2021.

 

Critical Thinking: A Student's Introduction (paperback). 6th ed. Bassham, Gregory and Irwin, William and Nardone, Henry. McGraw-Hill. 2019.

 

Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking. 12th ed. Browne, M. Neil and Keeley, Stuart M. Pearson. 2018.

​

You can listen a good overview of critical thinking here.    In addition, there are a series of YouTube videos offered through Fayetteville State University on Critical Thinking.  These are lectures by Dr. Gregory Sadler and they can be found here