critical thinking facts and opinions

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An author’s purpose can influence the kind of information they choose to include.

Thinking about the reason an author produced a source can be helpful to you because that reason was what dictated the kind of information they chose to include. Depending on that purpose, the author may have chosen to include factual, analytical, and objective information. Or, instead, it may have suited their purpose to include information that was subjective and therefore less factual and analytical. The author’s reason for producing the source also determined whether they included more than one perspective or just their own.

Authors typically want to do at least one of the following:

• Inform and educate
• Sell services or products or

Combination of Purposes

Sometimes authors have a combination of purposes, as when a marketer decides they can sell more smartphones with an informative sales video that also entertains us. The same is true when a singer writes and performs a song that entertains us but that they intend to make available for sale. Other examples of authors having multiple purposes occur in most scholarly writing.

In those cases, authors certainly want to inform and educate their audiences. But they also want to persuade their audiences that what they are reporting and/or postulating is a true description of a situation, event, or phenomenon or a valid argument that their audience must take a particular action. In this blend of scholarly author’s purposes, the intent to educate and inform is considered to trump the intent to persuade.

Why Intent Matters

Authors’ intent usually matters in how useful their information can be to your research project, depending on which information need you are trying to meet. For instance, when you’re looking for resources that will help you actually decide how to answer your research question or evidence for your answer that you will share with your audience, you will want the author’s main purpose to have been to inform or educate their audience. That’s because, with that intent, they are likely to have used:

• Facts where possible.
• Multiple perspectives instead of just their own.
• Little subjective information.
• Seemingly unbiased, objective language that cites where they got the information.

The reason you want that kind of resource when trying to answer your research question or explaining that answer is that all of those characteristics will lend credibility to the argument you are making with your project. Both you and your audience will simply find it easier to believe—will have more confidence in the argument being you are making—based on your selected resources.

Resources whose authors intend only to persuade others won’t meet your information need for an answer to your research question or evidence with which to convince your audience. That’s because they don’t always confine themselves to facts. Instead, they tell us their opinions without backing them up with evidence. If you used those sources, your readers will notice and not believe your argument.

Fact vs. Opinion vs. Objective vs. Subjective

Need to brush up on the differences between fact, objective information, subjective information, and opinion?

Fact – Facts are useful to inform or make an argument.

• The United States was established in 1776.
• The pH levels in acids are lower than pH levels in alkalines.
• Beethoven had a reputation as a virtuoso pianist.

Opinion – Opinions are useful to persuade, but careful readers and listeners will notice and demand evidence to back them up.

• That was a good movie.
• Strawberries taste better than blueberries.
• George Clooney is the sexiest actor alive.
• The death penalty is wrong.
• Beethoven’s reputation as a virtuoso pianist is overrated.

Objective – Objective information reflects a research finding or multiple perspectives that are not biased.

• “Several studies show that an active lifestyle reduces the risk of heart disease and diabetes.”
• “Studies from the Brown University Medical School show that twenty-somethings eat 25 percent more fast-food meals at this age than they did as teenagers.”

Subjective – Subjective information presents one person or organization’s perspective or interpretation. Subjective information can be meant to distort, or it can reflect educated and informed thinking. All opinions are subjective, but some are backed up with facts more than others.

• “The simple truth is this: As human beings, we were meant to move.”
• “In their thirties, women should stock up on calcium to ensure strong, dense bones and to ward off osteoporosis later in life.”*

*In this quote, it’s mostly the “should” that makes it subjective. The objective version of the last quote would read: “Studies have shown that women who begin taking calcium in their 30s show stronger bone density and fewer repercussions of osteoporosis than women who did not take calcium at all.” But perhaps there are other data showing complications from taking calcium. That’s why drawing the conclusion that requires a “should” makes the statement subjective.

Critical Thinking in Academic Research Copyright © 2022 by Cindy Gruwell and Robin Ewing is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Teaching Fact and Opinion

DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN FACT AND OPINION

For higher-level reading comprehension, students must accurately distinguish between fact and opinion. To do this successfully, students must begin with solid definitions of the two concepts. Once this has been achieved, students can practice applying these definitions through activities engaging with a wide range of reading material. Let’s take a look at defining these two all-important concepts before proceeding into strategies and ideas for teaching fact and opinion in the classroom.

WHAT IS A FACT?

A fact refers to something true and can be verified as such . That is, a fact is something that can be proven to be true. 

WHAT IS AN OPINION?

An opinion refers to a personal belief. It relates to how someone feels about something. Others may agree or disagree with an opinion but cannot prove or disprove it. This is what defines it as opinion.

Common Fact Vs. Opinion Statements

• The Earth is round.
• Water freezes at 0 degrees Celsius.
• The Great Wall of China is the longest wall in the world.
• The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
• The human body has 206 bones.
• The fastest land animal is the cheetah.
• The capital of France is Paris.
• The Nile River is the longest river in the world.
• The Statue of Liberty is located in New York Harbor.
• The United States of America has 50 states.
• Pizza is the best food in the world.
• Horror movies are too scary to watch.
• Taylor Swift is the greatest musician of all time.
• Dogs are better pets than cats.
• Chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla ice cream.
• Politics is too complicated to understand.
• Exercise is essential for a healthy lifestyle.
• The internet is the greatest invention in human history.
• Living in a big city is better than living in a small town.
• The color blue is the most calming color.

IDENTIFYING FACT FROM OPINION IS AN ESSENTIAL SKILL FOR STUDENTS

The ability to distinguish between fact and opinion helps students develop critical and analytical skills in reading and listening. Fact and opinion are often woven together in texts and speeches. It is, therefore, imperative that students can unravel the threads of what is true from what is mere belief if they are to navigate the deluge of media successfully they will encounter in their lifetimes.

Whether on the news, in advertising, or in a history book, learning to distinguish between what is fact and what is opinion is crucial to becoming an autonomous consumer with the critical thinking skills to avoid being manipulated easily.

THE ULTIMATE FACT AND OPINION TEACHING UNIT

This  HUGE 120 PAGE  resource combines four different fact and opinion activities you can undertake as a  WHOLE GROUP  or as  INDEPENDENT READING GROUP TASKS  in either  DIGITAL  or  PRINTABLE TASKS.

The Language of Facts AND OpinionS: Signal Words and Phrases

Writers will liven up their facts with a sprinkling of opinions. Unfortunately, it can sometimes be challenging to extract the verifiable truths from the author’s preferences and biases. Luckily, the language used often throws up helpful clues in the forms of words and phrases that assist us in identifying statements as fact-based or opinion-based.

Let’s now take a look at some examples of those signal words and phrases being used in the sentence fragments that often precede a statement of fact or opinion:

FACT SIGNAL WORDS

• The annual report confirms …
• Scientists have recently discovered …
• According to the results of the tests…
• The investigation demonstrated …

OPINION SIGNAL WORDS

• He claimed that…
• It is the officer’s view that…
• The report argues that…
• Many scientists suspect that…

As we can see from the signal word examples, the language used to introduce fact, and opinion statements can help indicate whether it is being framed as a fact or an opinion.

Students must understand that things are not always as they appear to be. At times, writers, whether consciously or not, will frame opinion as fact and vice versa. This is why it is vital that students develop a clear understanding of what constitutes fact and opinion and are afforded ample opportunities to practice distinguishing between the two.

WHAT IS CONTEXT?

Context is the circumstances surrounding an event, statement, or idea and in terms of which it can be fully understood. Facts and opinions must be placed in context to draw conclusions, and they can significantly impact the importance we place upon statements of fact and opinion.

For example, a young boy who tells his mother, “I ate a truckload of sweets at the party last night” needs to be placed in the context of his age and audience.

We can confidently infer he never actually ate a real truckload of sweets, but we can reasonably appreciate he ate a lot of them and wanted to emphasise that point. His mother might ask a clarifying question to turn that opinion into a hard fact.

Context provides the background information or circumstances that help us understand the meaning of facts and opinions.

For instance, if we say the factual statement, “it’s raining outside” , the context may differ depending on the situation. If we’re at home, it might mean we must stay inside or find something to do indoors. If we’re at a sports game, it might affect the playing conditions or attendance.

Similarly, the context of an opinion can vary based on the situation. For example, if someone says, “I don’t like spicy food” , the context might include their previous experiences with spicy food or the cultural norms of the cuisine they’re discussing. Understanding the context helps us understand the meaning and implications of what someone is saying.

THE CHALLENGES OF TEACHING FACT AND OPINION IN THE “POST-TRUTH” ERA

Teaching students to differentiate between fact and opinion is a complex task that requires educators to navigate a number of challenges that have only accelerated in the “Post-Truth” era, in which some members of society cannot accept being wrong on a particular issue, even with an ocean of evidence stacked against them.

One of the key challenges is that students often come to the classroom with preconceived notions and biases that can make it difficult for them to accept certain facts.

This is not a new phenomenon. Throughout history, individuals and groups have clung to their beliefs despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. For example, in the 16th and 17th centuries, many people still believed that the Earth was the center of the universe, despite the mounting evidence to the contrary.

Today, we face a similar challenge when teaching students about scientific issues such as climate change. Some students may come from families or communities that deny the existence of climate change, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that supports it. In such cases, educators must find ways to engage with students respectfully and constructively, while also presenting the scientific evidence clearly and compellingly.

Another challenge educators face when teaching fact and opinion is that students may struggle to distinguish between the two when presented together. This is particularly true in news media, where news articles often include a mixture of factual information and opinions from various sources.

In such cases, educators must teach students to critically evaluate the sources of information they encounter and distinguish between factual information and opinions. This requires a deep understanding of the media landscape, as well as an ability to evaluate the information that is presented critically.

Teaching Resources

Use these resources and tools to improve your student’s media literacy skills through proven teaching strategies.

Fact Vs. Opinion TEACHING activities

Fact and Opinion Activities: Honing the Skills

To become a skilled, critical reader, a student must develop the ability to evaluate a text for facts and opinions quickly. To achieve this, they must practice distinguishing between fact and opinion to a point where it becomes a subconscious mechanism. The activities below will afford your students these necessary opportunities. They can also easily be adapted to various ages and abilities by carefully selecting the reading material.

Student Activity 1. Top 10 Facts and Opinions  

Not only does this simple activity help students hone their fact and opinion-detecting abilities but serves as a great warm-up research activity when beginning a new topic in class. 

When starting a new topic, whether on a historical period, a literary figure, or a species of animal, set students to list ten facts and opinions from their background reading and research on their new topic. Students must then form and record ten opinions based on reflection on this initial reading and research.

It may also be a valuable exercise for students to review their opinions at the end of the topic. Have they changed their opinion in any areas of the topic? Why did they change or maintain their opinion? This can work as a great review activity to wrap things up.

Student Activity 2. Evaluate an Editorial

Newspaper editorials can be a superb resource for students to practice recognizing facts and opinions. They are filled with the editor’s opinions on the day’s issues, intermingled with facts selected to support that view.

First, give students copies of a newspaper editorial. Then, working in pairs, have students go through the editorial to identify the facts by underlining them and the opinions by highlighting them. Remind them to look for the signal words we covered earlier to help identify facts and opinions.

When finished, students can compare their answers and discuss the reasons for their decisions. This will help identify any areas of confusion within the class, providing valuable data to inform your future planning on this topic.

Student Activity 3. Fact vs Opinion Survey

This activity can initially be undertaken using statements compiled on a worksheet. Later, students can work through text passages or a textbook itself directly. Students work through a series of statements marking either F or O beside each to identify that statement as a F act or an O pinion.

This activity is a practical study preparation exercise as it helps students to filter factual content from opinion. It also makes it easier for students to work out the underlying purpose of a text , whether it is designed to inform, persuade, or entertain. Students will soon begin to recognize that passages of text that contain more facts than opinions are most likely intended to inform. In contrast, a more opinion-based text will most likely be designed to persuade or entertain.

Student Activity 4. The Great Fact or Opinion Sort

Organize students into reasonable-sized groups of four or five students. Provide each group with a jar containing a set of cards , each with a fact-based or an opinion-based statement printed on it. Students take turns picking a card from the jar and reading it to the group. The group discusses each statement before deciding if it is a fact or an opinion.

Students can then record the statements accordingly on the Fact and Opinion graphic organizer described above or sort them into two piles.

This activity effectively supports struggling students as they learn from those who have already developed a firmer grasp of the two concepts.

Extension Exercise: Identifying Bias

One reason it is so vital for our students to learn to differentiate between fact and opinion is that this ability is a stepping stone to detecting bias in a text. Students begin to evaluate a text for bias by identifying how much of the text is fact-based and how much is based on opinion.

Once this is done, students must then analyse whether the opinions expressed in the text are biased by considering whether the writer has:

• Provided incomplete information
• Intentionally ignored or left out information to persuade the reader
• Allowed their own personal experiences to cloud any sense of objectivity.

A Complete Teaching Unit on Fake News

Digital and social media have completely redefined the media landscape, making it difficult for students to identify FACTS AND OPINIONS covering:

Teach them to FIGHT FAKE NEWS with this COMPLETE 42 PAGE UNIT. No preparation is required,

FACT vs OPINION GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS

Graphic organizers are a great tool to help students sort the facts and opinions in a text. Offering, as they do, a very visual means of organizing information, graphic organizers help students drill their ability to identify differences between fact and opinion statements until they become automatic.

The Fact and Opinion Chart

This simple chart consists of two columns helpfully labelled fact and opinion beneath a topic heading. Students work through a text, sorting statements as they come across them into the appropriate column on the graphic organizer. At the end of this task, they will be left with a clear segregation of the statements of the text according to whether they are objective facts or subjective opinions.

READ OUR GREAT ARTICLE ON LITERACY GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS HERE

IN CONCLUSION

Not only is the ability to identify bias in the writing of others essential, but this knowledge will also be of great benefit to students when it comes to forming and expressing their own opinions.

Taking the time to prepare and deliver discrete lessons on recognising facts and opinions in reading is essential. No matter how confident students are in distinguishing between the two, they are still likely to benefit from further practice. Even the most reflective of us can sometimes remain ignorant of our biases!

Becoming the critical readers that our students aspire to become begins with forming clear definitions of the terms in the student’s minds. These definitions must be supported by examples and illustrations to achieve this. Student understanding must be further underpinned by classroom and home practice. The activities above serve as a good starting point, but they are not sufficient on their own.

It will be necessary to support students further to gain a deeper understanding of fact and opinion (and related concepts such as bias) by frequently referencing these concepts when engaged with students in lessons with other explicit objectives seemingly unrelated to fact and opinion. Reinforcement should be persistent to ensure students develop firm skills in this area.

With ongoing technological advances, assessing the reliability and truthfulness of the media, we consume daily has never been more challenging – or essential.

OTHER GREAT ARTICLES RELATED TO FACT AND OPINION

6 Ways To Identify Fake News: A Complete Guide for Educators

How to Write a Descriptive Text

Teaching Proofreading and Editing Skills

Information Literacy and Media Literacy for Students and Teachers

Teaching Compare and Contrast

What Is An Inference? And How To Teach It.

5 Ways to Teach Critical Thinking in Media Literacy to Fight Fake News

8.1 Information and Critical Thinking

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Distinguish between fact and opinion.
• Recognize bias in reading and in yourself.
• Ask critical thinking questions to explore an idea for a report.

Knowledge in the social and natural sciences and technical fields is often focused on data and ideas that can be verified by observing, measuring, and testing. Accordingly, writers in these fields place high value on neutral and objective case analysis and inferences based on the careful examination of data. Put another way, writers describe and analyze results as they understand them. Likewise, writers in these fields avoid subjectivity , including personal opinions, speculations, and bias. As the writer of an analytical report, you need to know the difference between fact and opinion, be able to identify bias, and think critically and analytically.

Distinguishing Fact from Opinion

An analytical report provides information based on facts. Put simply, facts are statements that can be proven or whose truth can be inferred.

It may be difficult to distinguish fact from opinion or allegation. As a writer, use a critical eye to examine what you read. The following are examples of factual statements:

• Article I, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution specifies that the legislative branch of the government consists of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
• The school board voted to approve the administration’s proposal.

Facts that use numbers are called statistics . Some numbers are stated directly:

• The earth’s average land and ocean surface temperature in March 2020 was 2.09 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the average surface temperature during the 20th century.
• The total number of ballots cast in the 2020 presidential election was approximately 159 million.
• The survey results showed that 45 percent of first-year students at this university attended every class, whether in person or online.

Other numbers are implied:

• Mercury is the planet closest to the sun.
• College tuition and fees have risen in the past decade.

Factual statements such as those above stand in contrast to opinions , which are statements of belief or value. Opinions form the basis of claims that are supported by evidence in argumentative writing, but they should be avoided in informative and analytical writing. Here are two statements of opinion about an increase in college tuition and fees:

• Although tuition and fees have risen, the value of a college education is worth the cost.
• The increase in college tuition and fees over the past 10 years has placed an unreasonably heavy financial burden on students.

Both statements indicate that the writer will make an argument. In the first, the writer will defend the increases in college tuition and fees. In the second, the writer will argue that the increases in tuition and fees have made college too expensive. In both arguments, the writer will support the argument with factual evidence. See Proposal: Writing about Problems and Solutions for more information about fact and opinion.

Want to know more about facts? Read the blog post Fact-Checking 101 by Laura McClure , posted to the TED-Ed website.

Recognizing Bias

In addition to distinguishing between fact and opinion, it is important to recognize bias. Bias is commonly defined as a preconceived opinion about something—a subject, an idea, a person, or a group of people. As the writer of a report, you will learn to recognize bias in yourself and in the information you gather.

Bias in What You Read

Some writing is intentionally biased and intended to persuade, such as the editorials and opinion pieces described above. However, a report and the evidence on which it is based should not be heavily biased. Bias becomes a problem when a source you believe to be neutral, objective, and trustworthy presents information that attempts to sway your opinion. Identifying Bias , posted by Tyler Rablin , is a helpful guide to recognizing bias.

As you consider sources for your report, the following tips can also help you spot bias and read critically:

• Determine the writer’s purpose. Is the writer simply informing you or trying to persuade you?
• Research the author. Is the writer known for taking a side on the topic of the writing? Is the writer considered an expert?
• Distinguish between fact and opinion. Take note of the number of facts and opinions throughout the source.
• Pay attention to the language and what the writer emphasizes. Does the author use emotionally loaded, inflammatory words or descriptions intended to sway readers? What do the title, introduction, and any headings tell you about the author’s approach to the subject?
• Read multiple sources on the topic. Learn whether the source is leaving out or glossing over important information and credible views.
• Look critically at the images and any media that support the writing. Do they reinforce positive or negative aspects of the subject?

Bias in Yourself

Most individuals bring what psychologists call cognitive bias to their interactions with information or with other people. Cognitive bias influences the way people gather and process new information. As you research information for a report, also be aware of confirmation bias . This is the tendency to seek out and accept information that supports (or confirms) a belief you already have and may cause you to ignore or dismiss information that challenges that belief. A related bias is the false consensus effect , which is the tendency to overestimate the extent to which other people agree with your beliefs.

For example, perhaps you believe strongly that college tuition is too high and that tuition should be free at the public colleges and universities in your state. With that belief, you are likely to be more receptive to facts and statistics showing that tuition-free college benefits students by boosting graduation rates and improving financial security after college, in part because the sources may seem more mainstream. However, if you believe strongly that tuition should not be free, you are likely to be more receptive to facts and statistics showing that students who don’t pay for college are less likely to be serious about school and take longer to graduate—again, because the sources may seem more mainstream.

Asking Critical Questions about a Topic for a Report

As you consider a topic for a report, note the ideas that occur to you, interesting information you read, and what you already know. Answer the following questions about potential topics to help you understand a topic in a suitably analytical framework for a report.

• What is/was the cause of ________?
• What is/was the effect of ________?
• How does/did ________ compare or contrast with another similar event, idea, or item?
• What makes/made ________ a problem?
• What are/were some possible solutions to ________?
• What beliefs do I have about ________?
• What aspects of ________ do I need to learn more about to write a report about it?

In the report that appears later in this chapter, student Trevor Garcia analyzes the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Trevor began thinking about his topic with the question What was the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic? Because he had lived through 2020, he was able to draw upon personal experience: his school closed, his mother was laid off, and his family’s finances were tight. As he researched his question, he moved beyond the information he gathered from his own experiences and discovered that the United States had failed in several key areas. He then answered the questions below to arrive at an analytical framework:

• What was the cause of the poor U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020?
• What was the effect of the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020?
• How did the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic compare/contrast with the responses of other countries?
• What are some possible solutions to the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic?
• What do I already believe about the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic?
• What aspects of the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic do I need to learn more about?

For his report, Trevor chose to focus on the first question: What was the cause of the poor U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020?

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Introduction

An important critical thinking skill is the ability to distinguish between statements of fact and expressions of opinion. Like many other critical thinking skills, the ability to ask question is essential. Think of questions like a flashlight that guides us through dark places or unknowns.

First, when reading written work, it is important to determine a fact from an opinion. For example, the sentence, today is a nice day is an opinion. Someone else might think, today is a terrible day because it is sunny outside and I cannot see clearly. Facts, on the other hand, are rooted in evidence. Facts create credibility in a written argument. Second, this is where questioning comes into the picture. By asking questions, we can begin to distinguish fact from fiction and gain a greater understanding of the author’s argument. Is the information objective in nature or is it subjective? These kinds of questions will begin the discovery process of evaluating written work.

Fact vs Opinion

Thinking about the reason an author produced a source can be helpful to you because that reason was what dictated the kind of information he/she chose to include. Depending on that purpose, the author may have chosen to include factual, analytical, and objective information. Or, instead, it may have suited his/her purpose to include information that was subjective and therefore less factual and analytical. The author’s reason for producing the source also determined whether he or she included more than one perspective or just his/her own.

Authors typically want to do at least one of the following:

• Inform and educate
• Sell services or products or

Combined Purposes

Sometimes authors have a combination of purposes, as when a marketer decides he can sell more smart phones with an informative sales video that also entertains us. The same is true when a singer writes and performs a song that entertains us but that she intends to make available for sale. Other examples of authors having multiple purposes occur in most scholarly writing.

In those cases, authors certainly want to inform and educate their audiences. But they also want to persuade their audiences that what they are reporting and/or postulating is a true description of a situation, event, or phenomenon or a valid argument that their audience must take a particular action. In this blend of scholarly author’s purposes, the intent to educate and inform is considered to trump the intent to persuade.

Why Intent Matters

Authors’ intent usually matters in how useful their information can be to your research project, depending on which information need you are trying to meet. For instance, when you’re looking for sources that will help you actually decide your answer to your research question or evidence for your answer that you will share with your audience, you will want the author’s main purpose to have been to inform or educate his/her audience. That’s because, with that intent, he/she is likely to have used:

• Facts where possible.
• Multiple perspectives instead of just his/her own.
• Little subjective information.
• Seemingly unbiased, objective language that cites where he/she got the information.

The reason you want that kind of resource when trying to answer your research question or explaining that answer is that all of those characteristics will lend credibility to the argument you are making with your project. Both you and your audience will simply find it easier to believe—will have more confidence in the argument being made—when you include those types of sources.

Sources whose authors intend only to persuade others won’t meet your information need for an answer to your research question or evidence with which to convince your audience. That’s because they don’t always confine themselves to facts. Instead, they tell us their opinions without backing them up with evidence. If you used those sources, your readers will notice and not believe your argument.

Fact vs. Opinion vs. Objective vs. Subjective

Need to brush up on the differences between fact, objective information, subjective information, and opinion?

Fact  – Facts are useful to inform or make an argument.

• The United States was established in 1776.
• The pH levels in acids are lower than pH levels in alkalines.
• Beethoven had a reputation as a virtuoso pianist.

Opinion  – Opinions are useful to persuade, but careful readers and listeners will notice and demand evidence to back them up.

• That was a good movie.
• Strawberries taste better blueberries.
• George Clooney is the sexiest actor alive.
• The death penalty is wrong.
• Beethoven’s reputation as a virtuoso pianist is overrated.

Objective  – Objective information reflects a research finding or multiple perspectives that are not biased.

• “Several studies show that an active lifestyle reduces the risk of heart disease and diabetes.”
• “Studies from the Brown University Medical School show that twenty-somethings eat 25 percent more fast-food meals at this age than they did as teenagers.”

Subjective  – Subjective information presents one person or organization’s perspective or interpretation. Subjective information can be meant to distort, or it can reflect educated and informed thinking. All opinions are subjective, but some are backed up with facts more than others.

“The simple truth is this: As human beings, we were meant to move.”

“In their thirties, women should stock up on calcium to ensure strong, dense bones and to ward off osteoporosis later in life.”*

*In this quote, it’s mostly the “should” that makes it subjective. The objective version of the last quote would read: “Studies have shown that women who begin taking calcium in their 30s show stronger bone density and fewer repercussions of osteoporosis than women who did not take calcium at all.” But perhaps there are other data showing complications from taking calcium. That’s why drawing the conclusion that requires a “should” makes the statement subjective.

In order to be a critical thinker, one must sharpen their skills to distinguish between statements of fact and expressions of opinion. Facts, rather than opinions, provide the strongest support for a claim.

To begin, facts are subjective and can be verified. For instance, the color of your car (or bike or the bus) is a fact. My bike is gray in color and that is a fact. When determining facts behind a claim, it’s important to look for data and statistics that support your view.

On the other hand, opinions are subjective and based on feelings. For instance, I like my bike and I think it is a good bike. That is a statement about how I feel about my bike. If I were to define what a good bike is, we are now moving into facts. The factual evidence may include the weight, tires and overall sturdiness of my bike.

It is very important to be able to distinguish what is fact and what is opinion. In this way, we are able to judge things more carefully and make decisions based on evidence.

“Fact vs Opinion.” By The Ohio State University Libraries . Retrieved from: https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/choosingsources/chapter/fact-or-opinion/ Licensed under: CC-BY

ENG114 KnowledgePath – Critical Reading and Response Copyright © by The American Women's College and Jessica Egan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Critical Thinking

Developing the right mindset and skills.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

We make hundreds of decisions every day and, whether we realize it or not, we're all critical thinkers.

We use critical thinking each time we weigh up our options, prioritize our responsibilities, or think about the likely effects of our actions. It's a crucial skill that helps us to cut out misinformation and make wise decisions. The trouble is, we're not always very good at it!

In this article, we'll explore the key skills that you need to develop your critical thinking skills, and how to adopt a critical thinking mindset, so that you can make well-informed decisions.

What Is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is the discipline of rigorously and skillfully using information, experience, observation, and reasoning to guide your decisions, actions, and beliefs. You'll need to actively question every step of your thinking process to do it well.

Collecting, analyzing and evaluating information is an important skill in life, and a highly valued asset in the workplace. People who score highly in critical thinking assessments are also rated by their managers as having good problem-solving skills, creativity, strong decision-making skills, and good overall performance. [1]

Key Critical Thinking Skills

Critical thinkers possess a set of key characteristics which help them to question information and their own thinking. Focus on the following areas to develop your critical thinking skills:

Being willing and able to explore alternative approaches and experimental ideas is crucial. Can you think through "what if" scenarios, create plausible options, and test out your theories? If not, you'll tend to write off ideas and options too soon, so you may miss the best answer to your situation.

To nurture your curiosity, stay up to date with facts and trends. You'll overlook important information if you allow yourself to become "blinkered," so always be open to new information.

But don't stop there! Look for opposing views or evidence to challenge your information, and seek clarification when things are unclear. This will help you to reassess your beliefs and make a well-informed decision later. Read our article, Opening Closed Minds , for more ways to stay receptive.

Logical Thinking

You must be skilled at reasoning and extending logic to come up with plausible options or outcomes.

It's also important to emphasize logic over emotion. Emotion can be motivating but it can also lead you to take hasty and unwise action, so control your emotions and be cautious in your judgments. Know when a conclusion is "fact" and when it is not. "Could-be-true" conclusions are based on assumptions and must be tested further. Read our article, Logical Fallacies , for help with this.

Use creative problem solving to balance cold logic. By thinking outside of the box you can identify new possible outcomes by using pieces of information that you already have.

Self-Awareness

Many of the decisions we make in life are subtly informed by our values and beliefs. These influences are called cognitive biases and it can be difficult to identify them in ourselves because they're often subconscious.

Practicing self-awareness will allow you to reflect on the beliefs you have and the choices you make. You'll then be better equipped to challenge your own thinking and make improved, unbiased decisions.

One particularly useful tool for critical thinking is the Ladder of Inference . It allows you to test and validate your thinking process, rather than jumping to poorly supported conclusions.

Developing a Critical Thinking Mindset

Combine the above skills with the right mindset so that you can make better decisions and adopt more effective courses of action. You can develop your critical thinking mindset by following this process:

Gather Information

First, collect data, opinions and facts on the issue that you need to solve. Draw on what you already know, and turn to new sources of information to help inform your understanding. Consider what gaps there are in your knowledge and seek to fill them. And look for information that challenges your assumptions and beliefs.

Be sure to verify the authority and authenticity of your sources. Not everything you read is true! Use this checklist to ensure that your information is valid:

• Are your information sources trustworthy ? (For example, well-respected authors, trusted colleagues or peers, recognized industry publications, websites, blogs, etc.)
• Is the information you have gathered up to date ?
• Has the information received any direct criticism ?
• Does the information have any errors or inaccuracies ?
• Is there any evidence to support or corroborate the information you have gathered?
• Is the information you have gathered subjective or biased in any way? (For example, is it based on opinion, rather than fact? Is any of the information you have gathered designed to promote a particular service or organization?)

If any information appears to be irrelevant or invalid, don't include it in your decision making. But don't omit information just because you disagree with it, or your final decision will be flawed and bias.

Now observe the information you have gathered, and interpret it. What are the key findings and main takeaways? What does the evidence point to? Start to build one or two possible arguments based on what you have found.

You'll need to look for the details within the mass of information, so use your powers of observation to identify any patterns or similarities. You can then analyze and extend these trends to make sensible predictions about the future.

To help you to sift through the multiple ideas and theories, it can be useful to group and order items according to their characteristics. From here, you can compare and contrast the different items. And once you've determined how similar or different things are from one another, Paired Comparison Analysis can help you to analyze them.

The final step involves challenging the information and rationalizing its arguments.

Apply the laws of reason (induction, deduction, analogy) to judge an argument and determine its merits. To do this, it's essential that you can determine the significance and validity of an argument to put it in the correct perspective. Take a look at our article, Rational Thinking , for more information about how to do this.

Once you have considered all of the arguments and options rationally, you can finally make an informed decision.

Afterward, take time to reflect on what you have learned and what you found challenging. Step back from the detail of your decision or problem, and look at the bigger picture. Record what you've learned from your observations and experience.

Critical thinking involves rigorously and skilfully using information, experience, observation, and reasoning to guide your decisions, actions and beliefs. It's a useful skill in the workplace and in life.

You'll need to be curious and creative to explore alternative possibilities, but rational to apply logic, and self-aware to identify when your beliefs could affect your decisions or actions.

You can demonstrate a high level of critical thinking by validating your information, analyzing its meaning, and finally evaluating the argument.

Critical Thinking Infographic

See Critical Thinking represented in our infographic: An Elementary Guide to Critical Thinking .

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Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is a widely accepted educational goal. Its definition is contested, but the competing definitions can be understood as differing conceptions of the same basic concept: careful thinking directed to a goal. Conceptions differ with respect to the scope of such thinking, the type of goal, the criteria and norms for thinking carefully, and the thinking components on which they focus. Its adoption as an educational goal has been recommended on the basis of respect for students’ autonomy and preparing students for success in life and for democratic citizenship. “Critical thinkers” have the dispositions and abilities that lead them to think critically when appropriate. The abilities can be identified directly; the dispositions indirectly, by considering what factors contribute to or impede exercise of the abilities. Standardized tests have been developed to assess the degree to which a person possesses such dispositions and abilities. Educational intervention has been shown experimentally to improve them, particularly when it includes dialogue, anchored instruction, and mentoring. Controversies have arisen over the generalizability of critical thinking across domains, over alleged bias in critical thinking theories and instruction, and over the relationship of critical thinking to other types of thinking.

2.1 Dewey’s Three Main Examples

2.2 dewey’s other examples, 2.3 further examples, 2.4 non-examples, 3. the definition of critical thinking, 4. its value, 5. the process of thinking critically, 6. components of the process, 7. contributory dispositions and abilities, 8.1 initiating dispositions, 8.2 internal dispositions, 9. critical thinking abilities, 10. required knowledge, 11. educational methods, 12.1 the generalizability of critical thinking, 12.2 bias in critical thinking theory and pedagogy, 12.3 relationship of critical thinking to other types of thinking, other internet resources, related entries.

Use of the term ‘critical thinking’ to describe an educational goal goes back to the American philosopher John Dewey (1910), who more commonly called it ‘reflective thinking’. He defined it as

active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends. (Dewey 1910: 6; 1933: 9)

and identified a habit of such consideration with a scientific attitude of mind. His lengthy quotations of Francis Bacon, John Locke, and John Stuart Mill indicate that he was not the first person to propose development of a scientific attitude of mind as an educational goal.

In the 1930s, many of the schools that participated in the Eight-Year Study of the Progressive Education Association (Aikin 1942) adopted critical thinking as an educational goal, for whose achievement the study’s Evaluation Staff developed tests (Smith, Tyler, & Evaluation Staff 1942). Glaser (1941) showed experimentally that it was possible to improve the critical thinking of high school students. Bloom’s influential taxonomy of cognitive educational objectives (Bloom et al. 1956) incorporated critical thinking abilities. Ennis (1962) proposed 12 aspects of critical thinking as a basis for research on the teaching and evaluation of critical thinking ability.

Since 1980, an annual international conference in California on critical thinking and educational reform has attracted tens of thousands of educators from all levels of education and from many parts of the world. Also since 1980, the state university system in California has required all undergraduate students to take a critical thinking course. Since 1983, the Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking has sponsored sessions in conjunction with the divisional meetings of the American Philosophical Association (APA). In 1987, the APA’s Committee on Pre-College Philosophy commissioned a consensus statement on critical thinking for purposes of educational assessment and instruction (Facione 1990a). Researchers have developed standardized tests of critical thinking abilities and dispositions; for details, see the Supplement on Assessment . Educational jurisdictions around the world now include critical thinking in guidelines for curriculum and assessment.

For details on this history, see the Supplement on History .

2. Examples and Non-Examples

Before considering the definition of critical thinking, it will be helpful to have in mind some examples of critical thinking, as well as some examples of kinds of thinking that would apparently not count as critical thinking.

Dewey (1910: 68–71; 1933: 91–94) takes as paradigms of reflective thinking three class papers of students in which they describe their thinking. The examples range from the everyday to the scientific.

Transit : “The other day, when I was down town on 16th Street, a clock caught my eye. I saw that the hands pointed to 12:20. This suggested that I had an engagement at 124th Street, at one o’clock. I reasoned that as it had taken me an hour to come down on a surface car, I should probably be twenty minutes late if I returned the same way. I might save twenty minutes by a subway express. But was there a station near? If not, I might lose more than twenty minutes in looking for one. Then I thought of the elevated, and I saw there was such a line within two blocks. But where was the station? If it were several blocks above or below the street I was on, I should lose time instead of gaining it. My mind went back to the subway express as quicker than the elevated; furthermore, I remembered that it went nearer than the elevated to the part of 124th Street I wished to reach, so that time would be saved at the end of the journey. I concluded in favor of the subway, and reached my destination by one o’clock.” (Dewey 1910: 68–69; 1933: 91–92)

Ferryboat : “Projecting nearly horizontally from the upper deck of the ferryboat on which I daily cross the river is a long white pole, having a gilded ball at its tip. It suggested a flagpole when I first saw it; its color, shape, and gilded ball agreed with this idea, and these reasons seemed to justify me in this belief. But soon difficulties presented themselves. The pole was nearly horizontal, an unusual position for a flagpole; in the next place, there was no pulley, ring, or cord by which to attach a flag; finally, there were elsewhere on the boat two vertical staffs from which flags were occasionally flown. It seemed probable that the pole was not there for flag-flying.

“I then tried to imagine all possible purposes of the pole, and to consider for which of these it was best suited: (a) Possibly it was an ornament. But as all the ferryboats and even the tugboats carried poles, this hypothesis was rejected. (b) Possibly it was the terminal of a wireless telegraph. But the same considerations made this improbable. Besides, the more natural place for such a terminal would be the highest part of the boat, on top of the pilot house. (c) Its purpose might be to point out the direction in which the boat is moving.

“In support of this conclusion, I discovered that the pole was lower than the pilot house, so that the steersman could easily see it. Moreover, the tip was enough higher than the base, so that, from the pilot’s position, it must appear to project far out in front of the boat. Moreover, the pilot being near the front of the boat, he would need some such guide as to its direction. Tugboats would also need poles for such a purpose. This hypothesis was so much more probable than the others that I accepted it. I formed the conclusion that the pole was set up for the purpose of showing the pilot the direction in which the boat pointed, to enable him to steer correctly.” (Dewey 1910: 69–70; 1933: 92–93)

Bubbles : “In washing tumblers in hot soapsuds and placing them mouth downward on a plate, bubbles appeared on the outside of the mouth of the tumblers and then went inside. Why? The presence of bubbles suggests air, which I note must come from inside the tumbler. I see that the soapy water on the plate prevents escape of the air save as it may be caught in bubbles. But why should air leave the tumbler? There was no substance entering to force it out. It must have expanded. It expands by increase of heat, or by decrease of pressure, or both. Could the air have become heated after the tumbler was taken from the hot suds? Clearly not the air that was already entangled in the water. If heated air was the cause, cold air must have entered in transferring the tumblers from the suds to the plate. I test to see if this supposition is true by taking several more tumblers out. Some I shake so as to make sure of entrapping cold air in them. Some I take out holding mouth downward in order to prevent cold air from entering. Bubbles appear on the outside of every one of the former and on none of the latter. I must be right in my inference. Air from the outside must have been expanded by the heat of the tumbler, which explains the appearance of the bubbles on the outside. But why do they then go inside? Cold contracts. The tumbler cooled and also the air inside it. Tension was removed, and hence bubbles appeared inside. To be sure of this, I test by placing a cup of ice on the tumbler while the bubbles are still forming outside. They soon reverse” (Dewey 1910: 70–71; 1933: 93–94).

Dewey (1910, 1933) sprinkles his book with other examples of critical thinking. We will refer to the following.

Weather : A man on a walk notices that it has suddenly become cool, thinks that it is probably going to rain, looks up and sees a dark cloud obscuring the sun, and quickens his steps (1910: 6–10; 1933: 9–13).

Disorder : A man finds his rooms on his return to them in disorder with his belongings thrown about, thinks at first of burglary as an explanation, then thinks of mischievous children as being an alternative explanation, then looks to see whether valuables are missing, and discovers that they are (1910: 82–83; 1933: 166–168).

Typhoid : A physician diagnosing a patient whose conspicuous symptoms suggest typhoid avoids drawing a conclusion until more data are gathered by questioning the patient and by making tests (1910: 85–86; 1933: 170).

Blur : A moving blur catches our eye in the distance, we ask ourselves whether it is a cloud of whirling dust or a tree moving its branches or a man signaling to us, we think of other traits that should be found on each of those possibilities, and we look and see if those traits are found (1910: 102, 108; 1933: 121, 133).

Suction pump : In thinking about the suction pump, the scientist first notes that it will draw water only to a maximum height of 33 feet at sea level and to a lesser maximum height at higher elevations, selects for attention the differing atmospheric pressure at these elevations, sets up experiments in which the air is removed from a vessel containing water (when suction no longer works) and in which the weight of air at various levels is calculated, compares the results of reasoning about the height to which a given weight of air will allow a suction pump to raise water with the observed maximum height at different elevations, and finally assimilates the suction pump to such apparently different phenomena as the siphon and the rising of a balloon (1910: 150–153; 1933: 195–198).

Diamond : A passenger in a car driving in a diamond lane reserved for vehicles with at least one passenger notices that the diamond marks on the pavement are far apart in some places and close together in others. Why? The driver suggests that the reason may be that the diamond marks are not needed where there is a solid double line separating the diamond lane from the adjoining lane, but are needed when there is a dotted single line permitting crossing into the diamond lane. Further observation confirms that the diamonds are close together when a dotted line separates the diamond lane from its neighbour, but otherwise far apart.

Rash : A woman suddenly develops a very itchy red rash on her throat and upper chest. She recently noticed a mark on the back of her right hand, but was not sure whether the mark was a rash or a scrape. She lies down in bed and thinks about what might be causing the rash and what to do about it. About two weeks before, she began taking blood pressure medication that contained a sulfa drug, and the pharmacist had warned her, in view of a previous allergic reaction to a medication containing a sulfa drug, to be on the alert for an allergic reaction; however, she had been taking the medication for two weeks with no such effect. The day before, she began using a new cream on her neck and upper chest; against the new cream as the cause was mark on the back of her hand, which had not been exposed to the cream. She began taking probiotics about a month before. She also recently started new eye drops, but she supposed that manufacturers of eye drops would be careful not to include allergy-causing components in the medication. The rash might be a heat rash, since she recently was sweating profusely from her upper body. Since she is about to go away on a short vacation, where she would not have access to her usual physician, she decides to keep taking the probiotics and using the new eye drops but to discontinue the blood pressure medication and to switch back to the old cream for her neck and upper chest. She forms a plan to consult her regular physician on her return about the blood pressure medication.

Candidate : Although Dewey included no examples of thinking directed at appraising the arguments of others, such thinking has come to be considered a kind of critical thinking. We find an example of such thinking in the performance task on the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA+), which its sponsoring organization describes as

a performance-based assessment that provides a measure of an institution’s contribution to the development of critical-thinking and written communication skills of its students. (Council for Aid to Education 2017)

A sample task posted on its website requires the test-taker to write a report for public distribution evaluating a fictional candidate’s policy proposals and their supporting arguments, using supplied background documents, with a recommendation on whether to endorse the candidate.

Immediate acceptance of an idea that suggests itself as a solution to a problem (e.g., a possible explanation of an event or phenomenon, an action that seems likely to produce a desired result) is “uncritical thinking, the minimum of reflection” (Dewey 1910: 13). On-going suspension of judgment in the light of doubt about a possible solution is not critical thinking (Dewey 1910: 108). Critique driven by a dogmatically held political or religious ideology is not critical thinking; thus Paulo Freire (1968 [1970]) is using the term (e.g., at 1970: 71, 81, 100, 146) in a more politically freighted sense that includes not only reflection but also revolutionary action against oppression. Derivation of a conclusion from given data using an algorithm is not critical thinking.

What is critical thinking? There are many definitions. Ennis (2016) lists 14 philosophically oriented scholarly definitions and three dictionary definitions. Following Rawls (1971), who distinguished his conception of justice from a utilitarian conception but regarded them as rival conceptions of the same concept, Ennis maintains that the 17 definitions are different conceptions of the same concept. Rawls articulated the shared concept of justice as

a characteristic set of principles for assigning basic rights and duties and for determining… the proper distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation. (Rawls 1971: 5)

Bailin et al. (1999b) claim that, if one considers what sorts of thinking an educator would take not to be critical thinking and what sorts to be critical thinking, one can conclude that educators typically understand critical thinking to have at least three features.

• It is done for the purpose of making up one’s mind about what to believe or do.
• The person engaging in the thinking is trying to fulfill standards of adequacy and accuracy appropriate to the thinking.
• The thinking fulfills the relevant standards to some threshold level.

One could sum up the core concept that involves these three features by saying that critical thinking is careful goal-directed thinking. This core concept seems to apply to all the examples of critical thinking described in the previous section. As for the non-examples, their exclusion depends on construing careful thinking as excluding jumping immediately to conclusions, suspending judgment no matter how strong the evidence, reasoning from an unquestioned ideological or religious perspective, and routinely using an algorithm to answer a question.

If the core of critical thinking is careful goal-directed thinking, conceptions of it can vary according to its presumed scope, its presumed goal, one’s criteria and threshold for being careful, and the thinking component on which one focuses. As to its scope, some conceptions (e.g., Dewey 1910, 1933) restrict it to constructive thinking on the basis of one’s own observations and experiments, others (e.g., Ennis 1962; Fisher & Scriven 1997; Johnson 1992) to appraisal of the products of such thinking. Ennis (1991) and Bailin et al. (1999b) take it to cover both construction and appraisal. As to its goal, some conceptions restrict it to forming a judgment (Dewey 1910, 1933; Lipman 1987; Facione 1990a). Others allow for actions as well as beliefs as the end point of a process of critical thinking (Ennis 1991; Bailin et al. 1999b). As to the criteria and threshold for being careful, definitions vary in the term used to indicate that critical thinking satisfies certain norms: “intellectually disciplined” (Scriven & Paul 1987), “reasonable” (Ennis 1991), “skillful” (Lipman 1987), “skilled” (Fisher & Scriven 1997), “careful” (Bailin & Battersby 2009). Some definitions specify these norms, referring variously to “consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends” (Dewey 1910, 1933); “the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning” (Glaser 1941); “conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication” (Scriven & Paul 1987); the requirement that “it is sensitive to context, relies on criteria, and is self-correcting” (Lipman 1987); “evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations” (Facione 1990a); and “plus-minus considerations of the product in terms of appropriate standards (or criteria)” (Johnson 1992). Stanovich and Stanovich (2010) propose to ground the concept of critical thinking in the concept of rationality, which they understand as combining epistemic rationality (fitting one’s beliefs to the world) and instrumental rationality (optimizing goal fulfillment); a critical thinker, in their view, is someone with “a propensity to override suboptimal responses from the autonomous mind” (2010: 227). These variant specifications of norms for critical thinking are not necessarily incompatible with one another, and in any case presuppose the core notion of thinking carefully. As to the thinking component singled out, some definitions focus on suspension of judgment during the thinking (Dewey 1910; McPeck 1981), others on inquiry while judgment is suspended (Bailin & Battersby 2009, 2021), others on the resulting judgment (Facione 1990a), and still others on responsiveness to reasons (Siegel 1988). Kuhn (2019) takes critical thinking to be more a dialogic practice of advancing and responding to arguments than an individual ability.

In educational contexts, a definition of critical thinking is a “programmatic definition” (Scheffler 1960: 19). It expresses a practical program for achieving an educational goal. For this purpose, a one-sentence formulaic definition is much less useful than articulation of a critical thinking process, with criteria and standards for the kinds of thinking that the process may involve. The real educational goal is recognition, adoption and implementation by students of those criteria and standards. That adoption and implementation in turn consists in acquiring the knowledge, abilities and dispositions of a critical thinker.

Conceptions of critical thinking generally do not include moral integrity as part of the concept. Dewey, for example, took critical thinking to be the ultimate intellectual goal of education, but distinguished it from the development of social cooperation among school children, which he took to be the central moral goal. Ennis (1996, 2011) added to his previous list of critical thinking dispositions a group of dispositions to care about the dignity and worth of every person, which he described as a “correlative” (1996) disposition without which critical thinking would be less valuable and perhaps harmful. An educational program that aimed at developing critical thinking but not the correlative disposition to care about the dignity and worth of every person, he asserted, “would be deficient and perhaps dangerous” (Ennis 1996: 172).

Dewey thought that education for reflective thinking would be of value to both the individual and society; recognition in educational practice of the kinship to the scientific attitude of children’s native curiosity, fertile imagination and love of experimental inquiry “would make for individual happiness and the reduction of social waste” (Dewey 1910: iii). Schools participating in the Eight-Year Study took development of the habit of reflective thinking and skill in solving problems as a means to leading young people to understand, appreciate and live the democratic way of life characteristic of the United States (Aikin 1942: 17–18, 81). Harvey Siegel (1988: 55–61) has offered four considerations in support of adopting critical thinking as an educational ideal. (1) Respect for persons requires that schools and teachers honour students’ demands for reasons and explanations, deal with students honestly, and recognize the need to confront students’ independent judgment; these requirements concern the manner in which teachers treat students. (2) Education has the task of preparing children to be successful adults, a task that requires development of their self-sufficiency. (3) Education should initiate children into the rational traditions in such fields as history, science and mathematics. (4) Education should prepare children to become democratic citizens, which requires reasoned procedures and critical talents and attitudes. To supplement these considerations, Siegel (1988: 62–90) responds to two objections: the ideology objection that adoption of any educational ideal requires a prior ideological commitment and the indoctrination objection that cultivation of critical thinking cannot escape being a form of indoctrination.

Despite the diversity of our 11 examples, one can recognize a common pattern. Dewey analyzed it as consisting of five phases:

• suggestions , in which the mind leaps forward to a possible solution;
• an intellectualization of the difficulty or perplexity into a problem to be solved, a question for which the answer must be sought;
• the use of one suggestion after another as a leading idea, or hypothesis , to initiate and guide observation and other operations in collection of factual material;
• the mental elaboration of the idea or supposition as an idea or supposition ( reasoning , in the sense on which reasoning is a part, not the whole, of inference); and
• testing the hypothesis by overt or imaginative action. (Dewey 1933: 106–107; italics in original)

The process of reflective thinking consisting of these phases would be preceded by a perplexed, troubled or confused situation and followed by a cleared-up, unified, resolved situation (Dewey 1933: 106). The term ‘phases’ replaced the term ‘steps’ (Dewey 1910: 72), thus removing the earlier suggestion of an invariant sequence. Variants of the above analysis appeared in (Dewey 1916: 177) and (Dewey 1938: 101–119).

The variant formulations indicate the difficulty of giving a single logical analysis of such a varied process. The process of critical thinking may have a spiral pattern, with the problem being redefined in the light of obstacles to solving it as originally formulated. For example, the person in Transit might have concluded that getting to the appointment at the scheduled time was impossible and have reformulated the problem as that of rescheduling the appointment for a mutually convenient time. Further, defining a problem does not always follow after or lead immediately to an idea of a suggested solution. Nor should it do so, as Dewey himself recognized in describing the physician in Typhoid as avoiding any strong preference for this or that conclusion before getting further information (Dewey 1910: 85; 1933: 170). People with a hypothesis in mind, even one to which they have a very weak commitment, have a so-called “confirmation bias” (Nickerson 1998): they are likely to pay attention to evidence that confirms the hypothesis and to ignore evidence that counts against it or for some competing hypothesis. Detectives, intelligence agencies, and investigators of airplane accidents are well advised to gather relevant evidence systematically and to postpone even tentative adoption of an explanatory hypothesis until the collected evidence rules out with the appropriate degree of certainty all but one explanation. Dewey’s analysis of the critical thinking process can be faulted as well for requiring acceptance or rejection of a possible solution to a defined problem, with no allowance for deciding in the light of the available evidence to suspend judgment. Further, given the great variety of kinds of problems for which reflection is appropriate, there is likely to be variation in its component events. Perhaps the best way to conceptualize the critical thinking process is as a checklist whose component events can occur in a variety of orders, selectively, and more than once. These component events might include (1) noticing a difficulty, (2) defining the problem, (3) dividing the problem into manageable sub-problems, (4) formulating a variety of possible solutions to the problem or sub-problem, (5) determining what evidence is relevant to deciding among possible solutions to the problem or sub-problem, (6) devising a plan of systematic observation or experiment that will uncover the relevant evidence, (7) carrying out the plan of systematic observation or experimentation, (8) noting the results of the systematic observation or experiment, (9) gathering relevant testimony and information from others, (10) judging the credibility of testimony and information gathered from others, (11) drawing conclusions from gathered evidence and accepted testimony, and (12) accepting a solution that the evidence adequately supports (cf. Hitchcock 2017: 485).

Checklist conceptions of the process of critical thinking are open to the objection that they are too mechanical and procedural to fit the multi-dimensional and emotionally charged issues for which critical thinking is urgently needed (Paul 1984). For such issues, a more dialectical process is advocated, in which competing relevant world views are identified, their implications explored, and some sort of creative synthesis attempted.

If one considers the critical thinking process illustrated by the 11 examples, one can identify distinct kinds of mental acts and mental states that form part of it. To distinguish, label and briefly characterize these components is a useful preliminary to identifying abilities, skills, dispositions, attitudes, habits and the like that contribute causally to thinking critically. Identifying such abilities and habits is in turn a useful preliminary to setting educational goals. Setting the goals is in its turn a useful preliminary to designing strategies for helping learners to achieve the goals and to designing ways of measuring the extent to which learners have done so. Such measures provide both feedback to learners on their achievement and a basis for experimental research on the effectiveness of various strategies for educating people to think critically. Let us begin, then, by distinguishing the kinds of mental acts and mental events that can occur in a critical thinking process.

• Observing : One notices something in one’s immediate environment (sudden cooling of temperature in Weather , bubbles forming outside a glass and then going inside in Bubbles , a moving blur in the distance in Blur , a rash in Rash ). Or one notes the results of an experiment or systematic observation (valuables missing in Disorder , no suction without air pressure in Suction pump )
• Feeling : One feels puzzled or uncertain about something (how to get to an appointment on time in Transit , why the diamonds vary in spacing in Diamond ). One wants to resolve this perplexity. One feels satisfaction once one has worked out an answer (to take the subway express in Transit , diamonds closer when needed as a warning in Diamond ).
• Wondering : One formulates a question to be addressed (why bubbles form outside a tumbler taken from hot water in Bubbles , how suction pumps work in Suction pump , what caused the rash in Rash ).
• Imagining : One thinks of possible answers (bus or subway or elevated in Transit , flagpole or ornament or wireless communication aid or direction indicator in Ferryboat , allergic reaction or heat rash in Rash ).
• Inferring : One works out what would be the case if a possible answer were assumed (valuables missing if there has been a burglary in Disorder , earlier start to the rash if it is an allergic reaction to a sulfa drug in Rash ). Or one draws a conclusion once sufficient relevant evidence is gathered (take the subway in Transit , burglary in Disorder , discontinue blood pressure medication and new cream in Rash ).
• Knowledge : One uses stored knowledge of the subject-matter to generate possible answers or to infer what would be expected on the assumption of a particular answer (knowledge of a city’s public transit system in Transit , of the requirements for a flagpole in Ferryboat , of Boyle’s law in Bubbles , of allergic reactions in Rash ).
• Experimenting : One designs and carries out an experiment or a systematic observation to find out whether the results deduced from a possible answer will occur (looking at the location of the flagpole in relation to the pilot’s position in Ferryboat , putting an ice cube on top of a tumbler taken from hot water in Bubbles , measuring the height to which a suction pump will draw water at different elevations in Suction pump , noticing the spacing of diamonds when movement to or from a diamond lane is allowed in Diamond ).
• Consulting : One finds a source of information, gets the information from the source, and makes a judgment on whether to accept it. None of our 11 examples include searching for sources of information. In this respect they are unrepresentative, since most people nowadays have almost instant access to information relevant to answering any question, including many of those illustrated by the examples. However, Candidate includes the activities of extracting information from sources and evaluating its credibility.
• Identifying and analyzing arguments : One notices an argument and works out its structure and content as a preliminary to evaluating its strength. This activity is central to Candidate . It is an important part of a critical thinking process in which one surveys arguments for various positions on an issue.
• Judging : One makes a judgment on the basis of accumulated evidence and reasoning, such as the judgment in Ferryboat that the purpose of the pole is to provide direction to the pilot.
• Deciding : One makes a decision on what to do or on what policy to adopt, as in the decision in Transit to take the subway.

By definition, a person who does something voluntarily is both willing and able to do that thing at that time. Both the willingness and the ability contribute causally to the person’s action, in the sense that the voluntary action would not occur if either (or both) of these were lacking. For example, suppose that one is standing with one’s arms at one’s sides and one voluntarily lifts one’s right arm to an extended horizontal position. One would not do so if one were unable to lift one’s arm, if for example one’s right side was paralyzed as the result of a stroke. Nor would one do so if one were unwilling to lift one’s arm, if for example one were participating in a street demonstration at which a white supremacist was urging the crowd to lift their right arm in a Nazi salute and one were unwilling to express support in this way for the racist Nazi ideology. The same analysis applies to a voluntary mental process of thinking critically. It requires both willingness and ability to think critically, including willingness and ability to perform each of the mental acts that compose the process and to coordinate those acts in a sequence that is directed at resolving the initiating perplexity.

Consider willingness first. We can identify causal contributors to willingness to think critically by considering factors that would cause a person who was able to think critically about an issue nevertheless not to do so (Hamby 2014). For each factor, the opposite condition thus contributes causally to willingness to think critically on a particular occasion. For example, people who habitually jump to conclusions without considering alternatives will not think critically about issues that arise, even if they have the required abilities. The contrary condition of willingness to suspend judgment is thus a causal contributor to thinking critically.

Now consider ability. In contrast to the ability to move one’s arm, which can be completely absent because a stroke has left the arm paralyzed, the ability to think critically is a developed ability, whose absence is not a complete absence of ability to think but absence of ability to think well. We can identify the ability to think well directly, in terms of the norms and standards for good thinking. In general, to be able do well the thinking activities that can be components of a critical thinking process, one needs to know the concepts and principles that characterize their good performance, to recognize in particular cases that the concepts and principles apply, and to apply them. The knowledge, recognition and application may be procedural rather than declarative. It may be domain-specific rather than widely applicable, and in either case may need subject-matter knowledge, sometimes of a deep kind.

Reflections of the sort illustrated by the previous two paragraphs have led scholars to identify the knowledge, abilities and dispositions of a “critical thinker”, i.e., someone who thinks critically whenever it is appropriate to do so. We turn now to these three types of causal contributors to thinking critically. We start with dispositions, since arguably these are the most powerful contributors to being a critical thinker, can be fostered at an early stage of a child’s development, and are susceptible to general improvement (Glaser 1941: 175)

8. Critical Thinking Dispositions

Educational researchers use the term ‘dispositions’ broadly for the habits of mind and attitudes that contribute causally to being a critical thinker. Some writers (e.g., Paul & Elder 2006; Hamby 2014; Bailin & Battersby 2016a) propose to use the term ‘virtues’ for this dimension of a critical thinker. The virtues in question, although they are virtues of character, concern the person’s ways of thinking rather than the person’s ways of behaving towards others. They are not moral virtues but intellectual virtues, of the sort articulated by Zagzebski (1996) and discussed by Turri, Alfano, and Greco (2017).

On a realistic conception, thinking dispositions or intellectual virtues are real properties of thinkers. They are general tendencies, propensities, or inclinations to think in particular ways in particular circumstances, and can be genuinely explanatory (Siegel 1999). Sceptics argue that there is no evidence for a specific mental basis for the habits of mind that contribute to thinking critically, and that it is pedagogically misleading to posit such a basis (Bailin et al. 1999a). Whatever their status, critical thinking dispositions need motivation for their initial formation in a child—motivation that may be external or internal. As children develop, the force of habit will gradually become important in sustaining the disposition (Nieto & Valenzuela 2012). Mere force of habit, however, is unlikely to sustain critical thinking dispositions. Critical thinkers must value and enjoy using their knowledge and abilities to think things through for themselves. They must be committed to, and lovers of, inquiry.

A person may have a critical thinking disposition with respect to only some kinds of issues. For example, one could be open-minded about scientific issues but not about religious issues. Similarly, one could be confident in one’s ability to reason about the theological implications of the existence of evil in the world but not in one’s ability to reason about the best design for a guided ballistic missile.

Facione (1990a: 25) divides “affective dispositions” of critical thinking into approaches to life and living in general and approaches to specific issues, questions or problems. Adapting this distinction, one can usefully divide critical thinking dispositions into initiating dispositions (those that contribute causally to starting to think critically about an issue) and internal dispositions (those that contribute causally to doing a good job of thinking critically once one has started). The two categories are not mutually exclusive. For example, open-mindedness, in the sense of willingness to consider alternative points of view to one’s own, is both an initiating and an internal disposition.

Using the strategy of considering factors that would block people with the ability to think critically from doing so, we can identify as initiating dispositions for thinking critically attentiveness, a habit of inquiry, self-confidence, courage, open-mindedness, willingness to suspend judgment, trust in reason, wanting evidence for one’s beliefs, and seeking the truth. We consider briefly what each of these dispositions amounts to, in each case citing sources that acknowledge them.

• Attentiveness : One will not think critically if one fails to recognize an issue that needs to be thought through. For example, the pedestrian in Weather would not have looked up if he had not noticed that the air was suddenly cooler. To be a critical thinker, then, one needs to be habitually attentive to one’s surroundings, noticing not only what one senses but also sources of perplexity in messages received and in one’s own beliefs and attitudes (Facione 1990a: 25; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001).
• Habit of inquiry : Inquiry is effortful, and one needs an internal push to engage in it. For example, the student in Bubbles could easily have stopped at idle wondering about the cause of the bubbles rather than reasoning to a hypothesis, then designing and executing an experiment to test it. Thus willingness to think critically needs mental energy and initiative. What can supply that energy? Love of inquiry, or perhaps just a habit of inquiry. Hamby (2015) has argued that willingness to inquire is the central critical thinking virtue, one that encompasses all the others. It is recognized as a critical thinking disposition by Dewey (1910: 29; 1933: 35), Glaser (1941: 5), Ennis (1987: 12; 1991: 8), Facione (1990a: 25), Bailin et al. (1999b: 294), Halpern (1998: 452), and Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo (2001).
• Self-confidence : Lack of confidence in one’s abilities can block critical thinking. For example, if the woman in Rash lacked confidence in her ability to figure things out for herself, she might just have assumed that the rash on her chest was the allergic reaction to her medication against which the pharmacist had warned her. Thus willingness to think critically requires confidence in one’s ability to inquire (Facione 1990a: 25; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001).
• Courage : Fear of thinking for oneself can stop one from doing it. Thus willingness to think critically requires intellectual courage (Paul & Elder 2006: 16).
• Open-mindedness : A dogmatic attitude will impede thinking critically. For example, a person who adheres rigidly to a “pro-choice” position on the issue of the legal status of induced abortion is likely to be unwilling to consider seriously the issue of when in its development an unborn child acquires a moral right to life. Thus willingness to think critically requires open-mindedness, in the sense of a willingness to examine questions to which one already accepts an answer but which further evidence or reasoning might cause one to answer differently (Dewey 1933; Facione 1990a; Ennis 1991; Bailin et al. 1999b; Halpern 1998, Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001). Paul (1981) emphasizes open-mindedness about alternative world-views, and recommends a dialectical approach to integrating such views as central to what he calls “strong sense” critical thinking. In three studies, Haran, Ritov, & Mellers (2013) found that actively open-minded thinking, including “the tendency to weigh new evidence against a favored belief, to spend sufficient time on a problem before giving up, and to consider carefully the opinions of others in forming one’s own”, led study participants to acquire information and thus to make accurate estimations.
• Willingness to suspend judgment : Premature closure on an initial solution will block critical thinking. Thus willingness to think critically requires a willingness to suspend judgment while alternatives are explored (Facione 1990a; Ennis 1991; Halpern 1998).
• Trust in reason : Since distrust in the processes of reasoned inquiry will dissuade one from engaging in it, trust in them is an initiating critical thinking disposition (Facione 1990a, 25; Bailin et al. 1999b: 294; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001; Paul & Elder 2006). In reaction to an allegedly exclusive emphasis on reason in critical thinking theory and pedagogy, Thayer-Bacon (2000) argues that intuition, imagination, and emotion have important roles to play in an adequate conception of critical thinking that she calls “constructive thinking”. From her point of view, critical thinking requires trust not only in reason but also in intuition, imagination, and emotion.
• Seeking the truth : If one does not care about the truth but is content to stick with one’s initial bias on an issue, then one will not think critically about it. Seeking the truth is thus an initiating critical thinking disposition (Bailin et al. 1999b: 294; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001). A disposition to seek the truth is implicit in more specific critical thinking dispositions, such as trying to be well-informed, considering seriously points of view other than one’s own, looking for alternatives, suspending judgment when the evidence is insufficient, and adopting a position when the evidence supporting it is sufficient.

Some of the initiating dispositions, such as open-mindedness and willingness to suspend judgment, are also internal critical thinking dispositions, in the sense of mental habits or attitudes that contribute causally to doing a good job of critical thinking once one starts the process. But there are many other internal critical thinking dispositions. Some of them are parasitic on one’s conception of good thinking. For example, it is constitutive of good thinking about an issue to formulate the issue clearly and to maintain focus on it. For this purpose, one needs not only the corresponding ability but also the corresponding disposition. Ennis (1991: 8) describes it as the disposition “to determine and maintain focus on the conclusion or question”, Facione (1990a: 25) as “clarity in stating the question or concern”. Other internal dispositions are motivators to continue or adjust the critical thinking process, such as willingness to persist in a complex task and willingness to abandon nonproductive strategies in an attempt to self-correct (Halpern 1998: 452). For a list of identified internal critical thinking dispositions, see the Supplement on Internal Critical Thinking Dispositions .

Some theorists postulate skills, i.e., acquired abilities, as operative in critical thinking. It is not obvious, however, that a good mental act is the exercise of a generic acquired skill. Inferring an expected time of arrival, as in Transit , has some generic components but also uses non-generic subject-matter knowledge. Bailin et al. (1999a) argue against viewing critical thinking skills as generic and discrete, on the ground that skilled performance at a critical thinking task cannot be separated from knowledge of concepts and from domain-specific principles of good thinking. Talk of skills, they concede, is unproblematic if it means merely that a person with critical thinking skills is capable of intelligent performance.

Despite such scepticism, theorists of critical thinking have listed as general contributors to critical thinking what they variously call abilities (Glaser 1941; Ennis 1962, 1991), skills (Facione 1990a; Halpern 1998) or competencies (Fisher & Scriven 1997). Amalgamating these lists would produce a confusing and chaotic cornucopia of more than 50 possible educational objectives, with only partial overlap among them. It makes sense instead to try to understand the reasons for the multiplicity and diversity, and to make a selection according to one’s own reasons for singling out abilities to be developed in a critical thinking curriculum. Two reasons for diversity among lists of critical thinking abilities are the underlying conception of critical thinking and the envisaged educational level. Appraisal-only conceptions, for example, involve a different suite of abilities than constructive-only conceptions. Some lists, such as those in (Glaser 1941), are put forward as educational objectives for secondary school students, whereas others are proposed as objectives for college students (e.g., Facione 1990a).

The abilities described in the remaining paragraphs of this section emerge from reflection on the general abilities needed to do well the thinking activities identified in section 6 as components of the critical thinking process described in section 5 . The derivation of each collection of abilities is accompanied by citation of sources that list such abilities and of standardized tests that claim to test them.

Observational abilities : Careful and accurate observation sometimes requires specialist expertise and practice, as in the case of observing birds and observing accident scenes. However, there are general abilities of noticing what one’s senses are picking up from one’s environment and of being able to articulate clearly and accurately to oneself and others what one has observed. It helps in exercising them to be able to recognize and take into account factors that make one’s observation less trustworthy, such as prior framing of the situation, inadequate time, deficient senses, poor observation conditions, and the like. It helps as well to be skilled at taking steps to make one’s observation more trustworthy, such as moving closer to get a better look, measuring something three times and taking the average, and checking what one thinks one is observing with someone else who is in a good position to observe it. It also helps to be skilled at recognizing respects in which one’s report of one’s observation involves inference rather than direct observation, so that one can then consider whether the inference is justified. These abilities come into play as well when one thinks about whether and with what degree of confidence to accept an observation report, for example in the study of history or in a criminal investigation or in assessing news reports. Observational abilities show up in some lists of critical thinking abilities (Ennis 1962: 90; Facione 1990a: 16; Ennis 1991: 9). There are items testing a person’s ability to judge the credibility of observation reports in the Cornell Critical Thinking Tests, Levels X and Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005). Norris and King (1983, 1985, 1990a, 1990b) is a test of ability to appraise observation reports.

Emotional abilities : The emotions that drive a critical thinking process are perplexity or puzzlement, a wish to resolve it, and satisfaction at achieving the desired resolution. Children experience these emotions at an early age, without being trained to do so. Education that takes critical thinking as a goal needs only to channel these emotions and to make sure not to stifle them. Collaborative critical thinking benefits from ability to recognize one’s own and others’ emotional commitments and reactions.

Questioning abilities : A critical thinking process needs transformation of an inchoate sense of perplexity into a clear question. Formulating a question well requires not building in questionable assumptions, not prejudging the issue, and using language that in context is unambiguous and precise enough (Ennis 1962: 97; 1991: 9).

Imaginative abilities : Thinking directed at finding the correct causal explanation of a general phenomenon or particular event requires an ability to imagine possible explanations. Thinking about what policy or plan of action to adopt requires generation of options and consideration of possible consequences of each option. Domain knowledge is required for such creative activity, but a general ability to imagine alternatives is helpful and can be nurtured so as to become easier, quicker, more extensive, and deeper (Dewey 1910: 34–39; 1933: 40–47). Facione (1990a) and Halpern (1998) include the ability to imagine alternatives as a critical thinking ability.

Inferential abilities : The ability to draw conclusions from given information, and to recognize with what degree of certainty one’s own or others’ conclusions follow, is universally recognized as a general critical thinking ability. All 11 examples in section 2 of this article include inferences, some from hypotheses or options (as in Transit , Ferryboat and Disorder ), others from something observed (as in Weather and Rash ). None of these inferences is formally valid. Rather, they are licensed by general, sometimes qualified substantive rules of inference (Toulmin 1958) that rest on domain knowledge—that a bus trip takes about the same time in each direction, that the terminal of a wireless telegraph would be located on the highest possible place, that sudden cooling is often followed by rain, that an allergic reaction to a sulfa drug generally shows up soon after one starts taking it. It is a matter of controversy to what extent the specialized ability to deduce conclusions from premisses using formal rules of inference is needed for critical thinking. Dewey (1933) locates logical forms in setting out the products of reflection rather than in the process of reflection. Ennis (1981a), on the other hand, maintains that a liberally-educated person should have the following abilities: to translate natural-language statements into statements using the standard logical operators, to use appropriately the language of necessary and sufficient conditions, to deal with argument forms and arguments containing symbols, to determine whether in virtue of an argument’s form its conclusion follows necessarily from its premisses, to reason with logically complex propositions, and to apply the rules and procedures of deductive logic. Inferential abilities are recognized as critical thinking abilities by Glaser (1941: 6), Facione (1990a: 9), Ennis (1991: 9), Fisher & Scriven (1997: 99, 111), and Halpern (1998: 452). Items testing inferential abilities constitute two of the five subtests of the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (Watson & Glaser 1980a, 1980b, 1994), two of the four sections in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level X (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005), three of the seven sections in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005), 11 of the 34 items on Forms A and B of the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (Facione 1990b, 1992), and a high but variable proportion of the 25 selected-response questions in the Collegiate Learning Assessment (Council for Aid to Education 2017).

Experimenting abilities : Knowing how to design and execute an experiment is important not just in scientific research but also in everyday life, as in Rash . Dewey devoted a whole chapter of his How We Think (1910: 145–156; 1933: 190–202) to the superiority of experimentation over observation in advancing knowledge. Experimenting abilities come into play at one remove in appraising reports of scientific studies. Skill in designing and executing experiments includes the acknowledged abilities to appraise evidence (Glaser 1941: 6), to carry out experiments and to apply appropriate statistical inference techniques (Facione 1990a: 9), to judge inductions to an explanatory hypothesis (Ennis 1991: 9), and to recognize the need for an adequately large sample size (Halpern 1998). The Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005) includes four items (out of 52) on experimental design. The Collegiate Learning Assessment (Council for Aid to Education 2017) makes room for appraisal of study design in both its performance task and its selected-response questions.

Consulting abilities : Skill at consulting sources of information comes into play when one seeks information to help resolve a problem, as in Candidate . Ability to find and appraise information includes ability to gather and marshal pertinent information (Glaser 1941: 6), to judge whether a statement made by an alleged authority is acceptable (Ennis 1962: 84), to plan a search for desired information (Facione 1990a: 9), and to judge the credibility of a source (Ennis 1991: 9). Ability to judge the credibility of statements is tested by 24 items (out of 76) in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level X (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005) and by four items (out of 52) in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005). The College Learning Assessment’s performance task requires evaluation of whether information in documents is credible or unreliable (Council for Aid to Education 2017).

Argument analysis abilities : The ability to identify and analyze arguments contributes to the process of surveying arguments on an issue in order to form one’s own reasoned judgment, as in Candidate . The ability to detect and analyze arguments is recognized as a critical thinking skill by Facione (1990a: 7–8), Ennis (1991: 9) and Halpern (1998). Five items (out of 34) on the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (Facione 1990b, 1992) test skill at argument analysis. The College Learning Assessment (Council for Aid to Education 2017) incorporates argument analysis in its selected-response tests of critical reading and evaluation and of critiquing an argument.

Judging skills and deciding skills : Skill at judging and deciding is skill at recognizing what judgment or decision the available evidence and argument supports, and with what degree of confidence. It is thus a component of the inferential skills already discussed.

Lists and tests of critical thinking abilities often include two more abilities: identifying assumptions and constructing and evaluating definitions.

In addition to dispositions and abilities, critical thinking needs knowledge: of critical thinking concepts, of critical thinking principles, and of the subject-matter of the thinking.

We can derive a short list of concepts whose understanding contributes to critical thinking from the critical thinking abilities described in the preceding section. Observational abilities require an understanding of the difference between observation and inference. Questioning abilities require an understanding of the concepts of ambiguity and vagueness. Inferential abilities require an understanding of the difference between conclusive and defeasible inference (traditionally, between deduction and induction), as well as of the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions. Experimenting abilities require an understanding of the concepts of hypothesis, null hypothesis, assumption and prediction, as well as of the concept of statistical significance and of its difference from importance. They also require an understanding of the difference between an experiment and an observational study, and in particular of the difference between a randomized controlled trial, a prospective correlational study and a retrospective (case-control) study. Argument analysis abilities require an understanding of the concepts of argument, premiss, assumption, conclusion and counter-consideration. Additional critical thinking concepts are proposed by Bailin et al. (1999b: 293), Fisher & Scriven (1997: 105–106), Black (2012), and Blair (2021).

According to Glaser (1941: 25), ability to think critically requires knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning. If we review the list of abilities in the preceding section, however, we can see that some of them can be acquired and exercised merely through practice, possibly guided in an educational setting, followed by feedback. Searching intelligently for a causal explanation of some phenomenon or event requires that one consider a full range of possible causal contributors, but it seems more important that one implements this principle in one’s practice than that one is able to articulate it. What is important is “operational knowledge” of the standards and principles of good thinking (Bailin et al. 1999b: 291–293). But the development of such critical thinking abilities as designing an experiment or constructing an operational definition can benefit from learning their underlying theory. Further, explicit knowledge of quirks of human thinking seems useful as a cautionary guide. Human memory is not just fallible about details, as people learn from their own experiences of misremembering, but is so malleable that a detailed, clear and vivid recollection of an event can be a total fabrication (Loftus 2017). People seek or interpret evidence in ways that are partial to their existing beliefs and expectations, often unconscious of their “confirmation bias” (Nickerson 1998). Not only are people subject to this and other cognitive biases (Kahneman 2011), of which they are typically unaware, but it may be counter-productive for one to make oneself aware of them and try consciously to counteract them or to counteract social biases such as racial or sexual stereotypes (Kenyon & Beaulac 2014). It is helpful to be aware of these facts and of the superior effectiveness of blocking the operation of biases—for example, by making an immediate record of one’s observations, refraining from forming a preliminary explanatory hypothesis, blind refereeing, double-blind randomized trials, and blind grading of students’ work. It is also helpful to be aware of the prevalence of “noise” (unwanted unsystematic variability of judgments), of how to detect noise (through a noise audit), and of how to reduce noise: make accuracy the goal, think statistically, break a process of arriving at a judgment into independent tasks, resist premature intuitions, in a group get independent judgments first, favour comparative judgments and scales (Kahneman, Sibony, & Sunstein 2021). It is helpful as well to be aware of the concept of “bounded rationality” in decision-making and of the related distinction between “satisficing” and optimizing (Simon 1956; Gigerenzer 2001).

Critical thinking about an issue requires substantive knowledge of the domain to which the issue belongs. Critical thinking abilities are not a magic elixir that can be applied to any issue whatever by somebody who has no knowledge of the facts relevant to exploring that issue. For example, the student in Bubbles needed to know that gases do not penetrate solid objects like a glass, that air expands when heated, that the volume of an enclosed gas varies directly with its temperature and inversely with its pressure, and that hot objects will spontaneously cool down to the ambient temperature of their surroundings unless kept hot by insulation or a source of heat. Critical thinkers thus need a rich fund of subject-matter knowledge relevant to the variety of situations they encounter. This fact is recognized in the inclusion among critical thinking dispositions of a concern to become and remain generally well informed.

Experimental educational interventions, with control groups, have shown that education can improve critical thinking skills and dispositions, as measured by standardized tests. For information about these tests, see the Supplement on Assessment .

What educational methods are most effective at developing the dispositions, abilities and knowledge of a critical thinker? In a comprehensive meta-analysis of experimental and quasi-experimental studies of strategies for teaching students to think critically, Abrami et al. (2015) found that dialogue, anchored instruction, and mentoring each increased the effectiveness of the educational intervention, and that they were most effective when combined. They also found that in these studies a combination of separate instruction in critical thinking with subject-matter instruction in which students are encouraged to think critically was more effective than either by itself. However, the difference was not statistically significant; that is, it might have arisen by chance.

Most of these studies lack the longitudinal follow-up required to determine whether the observed differential improvements in critical thinking abilities or dispositions continue over time, for example until high school or college graduation. For details on studies of methods of developing critical thinking skills and dispositions, see the Supplement on Educational Methods .

12. Controversies

Scholars have denied the generalizability of critical thinking abilities across subject domains, have alleged bias in critical thinking theory and pedagogy, and have investigated the relationship of critical thinking to other kinds of thinking.

McPeck (1981) attacked the thinking skills movement of the 1970s, including the critical thinking movement. He argued that there are no general thinking skills, since thinking is always thinking about some subject-matter. It is futile, he claimed, for schools and colleges to teach thinking as if it were a separate subject. Rather, teachers should lead their pupils to become autonomous thinkers by teaching school subjects in a way that brings out their cognitive structure and that encourages and rewards discussion and argument. As some of his critics (e.g., Paul 1985; Siegel 1985) pointed out, McPeck’s central argument needs elaboration, since it has obvious counter-examples in writing and speaking, for which (up to a certain level of complexity) there are teachable general abilities even though they are always about some subject-matter. To make his argument convincing, McPeck needs to explain how thinking differs from writing and speaking in a way that does not permit useful abstraction of its components from the subject-matters with which it deals. He has not done so. Nevertheless, his position that the dispositions and abilities of a critical thinker are best developed in the context of subject-matter instruction is shared by many theorists of critical thinking, including Dewey (1910, 1933), Glaser (1941), Passmore (1980), Weinstein (1990), Bailin et al. (1999b), and Willingham (2019).

McPeck’s challenge prompted reflection on the extent to which critical thinking is subject-specific. McPeck argued for a strong subject-specificity thesis, according to which it is a conceptual truth that all critical thinking abilities are specific to a subject. (He did not however extend his subject-specificity thesis to critical thinking dispositions. In particular, he took the disposition to suspend judgment in situations of cognitive dissonance to be a general disposition.) Conceptual subject-specificity is subject to obvious counter-examples, such as the general ability to recognize confusion of necessary and sufficient conditions. A more modest thesis, also endorsed by McPeck, is epistemological subject-specificity, according to which the norms of good thinking vary from one field to another. Epistemological subject-specificity clearly holds to a certain extent; for example, the principles in accordance with which one solves a differential equation are quite different from the principles in accordance with which one determines whether a painting is a genuine Picasso. But the thesis suffers, as Ennis (1989) points out, from vagueness of the concept of a field or subject and from the obvious existence of inter-field principles, however broadly the concept of a field is construed. For example, the principles of hypothetico-deductive reasoning hold for all the varied fields in which such reasoning occurs. A third kind of subject-specificity is empirical subject-specificity, according to which as a matter of empirically observable fact a person with the abilities and dispositions of a critical thinker in one area of investigation will not necessarily have them in another area of investigation.

The thesis of empirical subject-specificity raises the general problem of transfer. If critical thinking abilities and dispositions have to be developed independently in each school subject, how are they of any use in dealing with the problems of everyday life and the political and social issues of contemporary society, most of which do not fit into the framework of a traditional school subject? Proponents of empirical subject-specificity tend to argue that transfer is more likely to occur if there is critical thinking instruction in a variety of domains, with explicit attention to dispositions and abilities that cut across domains. But evidence for this claim is scanty. There is a need for well-designed empirical studies that investigate the conditions that make transfer more likely.

It is common ground in debates about the generality or subject-specificity of critical thinking dispositions and abilities that critical thinking about any topic requires background knowledge about the topic. For example, the most sophisticated understanding of the principles of hypothetico-deductive reasoning is of no help unless accompanied by some knowledge of what might be plausible explanations of some phenomenon under investigation.

Critics have objected to bias in the theory, pedagogy and practice of critical thinking. Commentators (e.g., Alston 1995; Ennis 1998) have noted that anyone who takes a position has a bias in the neutral sense of being inclined in one direction rather than others. The critics, however, are objecting to bias in the pejorative sense of an unjustified favoring of certain ways of knowing over others, frequently alleging that the unjustly favoured ways are those of a dominant sex or culture (Bailin 1995). These ways favour:

• reinforcement of egocentric and sociocentric biases over dialectical engagement with opposing world-views (Paul 1981, 1984; Warren 1998)
• distancing from the object of inquiry over closeness to it (Martin 1992; Thayer-Bacon 1992)
• indifference to the situation of others over care for them (Martin 1992)
• orientation to thought over orientation to action (Martin 1992)
• being reasonable over caring to understand people’s ideas (Thayer-Bacon 1993)
• being neutral and objective over being embodied and situated (Thayer-Bacon 1995a)
• doubting over believing (Thayer-Bacon 1995b)
• reason over emotion, imagination and intuition (Thayer-Bacon 2000)
• solitary thinking over collaborative thinking (Thayer-Bacon 2000)
• written and spoken assignments over other forms of expression (Alston 2001)
• attention to written and spoken communications over attention to human problems (Alston 2001)
• winning debates in the public sphere over making and understanding meaning (Alston 2001)

A common thread in this smorgasbord of accusations is dissatisfaction with focusing on the logical analysis and evaluation of reasoning and arguments. While these authors acknowledge that such analysis and evaluation is part of critical thinking and should be part of its conceptualization and pedagogy, they insist that it is only a part. Paul (1981), for example, bemoans the tendency of atomistic teaching of methods of analyzing and evaluating arguments to turn students into more able sophists, adept at finding fault with positions and arguments with which they disagree but even more entrenched in the egocentric and sociocentric biases with which they began. Martin (1992) and Thayer-Bacon (1992) cite with approval the self-reported intimacy with their subject-matter of leading researchers in biology and medicine, an intimacy that conflicts with the distancing allegedly recommended in standard conceptions and pedagogy of critical thinking. Thayer-Bacon (2000) contrasts the embodied and socially embedded learning of her elementary school students in a Montessori school, who used their imagination, intuition and emotions as well as their reason, with conceptions of critical thinking as

thinking that is used to critique arguments, offer justifications, and make judgments about what are the good reasons, or the right answers. (Thayer-Bacon 2000: 127–128)

Alston (2001) reports that her students in a women’s studies class were able to see the flaws in the Cinderella myth that pervades much romantic fiction but in their own romantic relationships still acted as if all failures were the woman’s fault and still accepted the notions of love at first sight and living happily ever after. Students, she writes, should

be able to connect their intellectual critique to a more affective, somatic, and ethical account of making risky choices that have sexist, racist, classist, familial, sexual, or other consequences for themselves and those both near and far… critical thinking that reads arguments, texts, or practices merely on the surface without connections to feeling/desiring/doing or action lacks an ethical depth that should infuse the difference between mere cognitive activity and something we want to call critical thinking. (Alston 2001: 34)

Some critics portray such biases as unfair to women. Thayer-Bacon (1992), for example, has charged modern critical thinking theory with being sexist, on the ground that it separates the self from the object and causes one to lose touch with one’s inner voice, and thus stigmatizes women, who (she asserts) link self to object and listen to their inner voice. Her charge does not imply that women as a group are on average less able than men to analyze and evaluate arguments. Facione (1990c) found no difference by sex in performance on his California Critical Thinking Skills Test. Kuhn (1991: 280–281) found no difference by sex in either the disposition or the competence to engage in argumentative thinking.

The critics propose a variety of remedies for the biases that they allege. In general, they do not propose to eliminate or downplay critical thinking as an educational goal. Rather, they propose to conceptualize critical thinking differently and to change its pedagogy accordingly. Their pedagogical proposals arise logically from their objections. They can be summarized as follows:

• Focus on argument networks with dialectical exchanges reflecting contesting points of view rather than on atomic arguments, so as to develop “strong sense” critical thinking that transcends egocentric and sociocentric biases (Paul 1981, 1984).
• Foster closeness to the subject-matter and feeling connected to others in order to inform a humane democracy (Martin 1992).
• Develop “constructive thinking” as a social activity in a community of physically embodied and socially embedded inquirers with personal voices who value not only reason but also imagination, intuition and emotion (Thayer-Bacon 2000).
• In developing critical thinking in school subjects, treat as important neither skills nor dispositions but opening worlds of meaning (Alston 2001).
• Attend to the development of critical thinking dispositions as well as skills, and adopt the “critical pedagogy” practised and advocated by Freire (1968 [1970]) and hooks (1994) (Dalgleish, Girard, & Davies 2017).

A common thread in these proposals is treatment of critical thinking as a social, interactive, personally engaged activity like that of a quilting bee or a barn-raising (Thayer-Bacon 2000) rather than as an individual, solitary, distanced activity symbolized by Rodin’s The Thinker . One can get a vivid description of education with the former type of goal from the writings of bell hooks (1994, 2010). Critical thinking for her is open-minded dialectical exchange across opposing standpoints and from multiple perspectives, a conception similar to Paul’s “strong sense” critical thinking (Paul 1981). She abandons the structure of domination in the traditional classroom. In an introductory course on black women writers, for example, she assigns students to write an autobiographical paragraph about an early racial memory, then to read it aloud as the others listen, thus affirming the uniqueness and value of each voice and creating a communal awareness of the diversity of the group’s experiences (hooks 1994: 84). Her “engaged pedagogy” is thus similar to the “freedom under guidance” implemented in John Dewey’s Laboratory School of Chicago in the late 1890s and early 1900s. It incorporates the dialogue, anchored instruction, and mentoring that Abrami (2015) found to be most effective in improving critical thinking skills and dispositions.

What is the relationship of critical thinking to problem solving, decision-making, higher-order thinking, creative thinking, and other recognized types of thinking? One’s answer to this question obviously depends on how one defines the terms used in the question. If critical thinking is conceived broadly to cover any careful thinking about any topic for any purpose, then problem solving and decision making will be kinds of critical thinking, if they are done carefully. Historically, ‘critical thinking’ and ‘problem solving’ were two names for the same thing. If critical thinking is conceived more narrowly as consisting solely of appraisal of intellectual products, then it will be disjoint with problem solving and decision making, which are constructive.

Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives used the phrase “intellectual abilities and skills” for what had been labeled “critical thinking” by some, “reflective thinking” by Dewey and others, and “problem solving” by still others (Bloom et al. 1956: 38). Thus, the so-called “higher-order thinking skills” at the taxonomy’s top levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation are just critical thinking skills, although they do not come with general criteria for their assessment (Ennis 1981b). The revised version of Bloom’s taxonomy (Anderson et al. 2001) likewise treats critical thinking as cutting across those types of cognitive process that involve more than remembering (Anderson et al. 2001: 269–270). For details, see the Supplement on History .

As to creative thinking, it overlaps with critical thinking (Bailin 1987, 1988). Thinking about the explanation of some phenomenon or event, as in Ferryboat , requires creative imagination in constructing plausible explanatory hypotheses. Likewise, thinking about a policy question, as in Candidate , requires creativity in coming up with options. Conversely, creativity in any field needs to be balanced by critical appraisal of the draft painting or novel or mathematical theory.

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• Smith, B. Othanel, 1953, “The Improvement of Critical Thinking”, Progressive Education , 30(5): 129–134.
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• Splitter, Laurance J., 1987, “Educational Reform through Philosophy for Children”, Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children , 7(2): 32–39. doi:10.5840/thinking1987729
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Critical Thinking and Decision-Making  - What is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking and decision-making  -, what is critical thinking, critical thinking and decision-making what is critical thinking.

Critical Thinking and Decision-Making: What is Critical Thinking?

Lesson 1: what is critical thinking, what is critical thinking.

Critical thinking is a term that gets thrown around a lot. You've probably heard it used often throughout the years whether it was in school, at work, or in everyday conversation. But when you stop to think about it, what exactly is critical thinking and how do you do it ?

Watch the video below to learn more about critical thinking.

Simply put, critical thinking is the act of deliberately analyzing information so that you can make better judgements and decisions . It involves using things like logic, reasoning, and creativity, to draw conclusions and generally understand things better.

This may sound like a pretty broad definition, and that's because critical thinking is a broad skill that can be applied to so many different situations. You can use it to prepare for a job interview, manage your time better, make decisions about purchasing things, and so much more.

The process

As humans, we are constantly thinking . It's something we can't turn off. But not all of it is critical thinking. No one thinks critically 100% of the time... that would be pretty exhausting! Instead, it's an intentional process , something that we consciously use when we're presented with difficult problems or important decisions.

Improving your critical thinking

In order to become a better critical thinker, it's important to ask questions when you're presented with a problem or decision, before jumping to any conclusions. You can start with simple ones like What do I currently know? and How do I know this? These can help to give you a better idea of what you're working with and, in some cases, simplify more complex issues.  

Real-world applications

Let's take a look at how we can use critical thinking to evaluate online information . Say a friend of yours posts a news article on social media and you're drawn to its headline. If you were to use your everyday automatic thinking, you might accept it as fact and move on. But if you were thinking critically, you would first analyze the available information and ask some questions :

• What's the source of this article?
• Is the headline potentially misleading?
• What are my friend's general beliefs?
• Do their beliefs inform why they might have shared this?

After analyzing all of this information, you can draw a conclusion about whether or not you think the article is trustworthy.

Critical thinking has a wide range of real-world applications . It can help you to make better decisions, become more hireable, and generally better understand the world around you.

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1.4 Facts and opinions

1.4.1 fact or opinion (1).

Some of the texts you read at university will be factual, others will be more opinion-based and some will be a mixture of facts and opinions. An important aspect of critical reading is to be able to distinguish between facts and opinions because opinions are not reliable unless supported by references to other writers, research or evidence.

A fact is something that everyone knows is true – there is no argument. On the other hand, an opinion is a viewpoint that other people might not share; they might argue about it.

The next activity helps you to discriminate between facts and opinions in Text 3.

Activity 4 Part 1

Read the following statements. Which are facts and which are opinions? Choose Fact or Opinion for each statement.

1. Water boils at 100 °C.

The correct answer is a.

Question 1b

2. Overweight people are lazy.

The correct answer is b.

Question 1c

3. The Earth is a sphere.

Question 1d

4. It snows a lot in Canada in the winter.

Question 1e

5. A vegan diet will damage your health.

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Chapter 16: Distinguishing Between Facts and Opinions

What is the difference between fact and opinion.

Master readers must sort fact from opinion to properly understand and evaluate the information they are reading.

A fact is a specific detail that is true based on objective proof. A fact is discovered.

An opinion is an interpretation, value judgment, or belief that cannot be proved or disproved. An opinion is created. Objective proof can be physical evidence, an eyewitness account, or the result of an accepted scientific method. Most people’s points of view and beliefs are based on a blend of fact and opinion.

Separating fact from opinion requires you to think critically because opinion is often presented as fact. The following clues will help you separate fact from opinion.

Recognizing Fact and Opinion

Fact:  a specific detail that is true based on objective proof such as physical evidence, an eyewitness account, or the result of an accepted scientific method.   Example: Kanye West was born June 8, 1977 .

Opinion : an interpretation, value judgment, or belief that cannot be proved or disproved. Opinions often include biased words (beautiful, miserable, exciting, frightful).

Kanye West is superior to all other hip-hop artists.

To test whether a statement is a fact, ask these three questions: —Can the statement be proved or demonstrated to be true? —Can the statement be observed in practice or operation? —Can the statement by verified by witnesses, manuscripts, or documents?

If the answer to any of these questions is no, the statement is not a fact. Instead, it is an opinion. With that being said, many statements blend both fact and opinion.

Kanye West, the best hip-hop artist around, was born June 8, 1977.  

This statement has both a fact and opinion. If you don’t have both options as one answer choice on a test, then choose opinion.

There are various ‘levels’ of opinions:

An  informed opinion  is developed by gathering and analyzing evidence.

Example: a news reporter writing an editorial about a political candidate and why we should vote for him or her.

An  expert opinion  is developed through much training and extensive knowledge in a given field.

Example: a doctor giving a patient advice about diet and exercise

Beware! Expert and informed opinions may sound factual, but they still are OPINIONS!

Ask Questions to Identify Facts

To test whether  a statement is a fact, ask these three questions:

• Can the statement be proved or demonstrated to be true?
• Can the statement be observed in practice or operation?
• Can the statement by verified by witnesses, manuscripts, or documents?

If the answer to any of these questions is  no , the statement is  not  a fact. Instead, it is an opinion. With that being said, many statements blend both fact and opinion.

Note : Biased Words to Identify Opinions

Be aware of biased words, words that express opinions, value judgments, and interpretations. They are often loaded with emotion.

Biased words:

• unbelievable

Note Qualifiers to Identify Opinions

• Be on the lookout for words that qualify an idea.
• A qualifier may  express an absolute, unwavering opinion using words like always or never.
• It can also express an opinion in the form of a command as in must, or the desirability  of an action with a word like should.
• Qualifiers may indicate different degrees of doubt with words such as seems or might.

Words that Qualify Ideas

Think Carefully About Supposed “Facts”

Be aware of false facts, or statements presented as facts that are actually untrue. Sometimes authors mislead the reader with a false impression of the facts.  Ex: political and commercial advertisements. Sometimes an author deliberately presents false information.Be aware of opinions that sound like facts. Facts are specific details that can be researched and verified as true.  However, opinions may be introduced with phrases like in truth, the truth of the matter, or in fact.

Example:  In truth, reproductive cloning is expensive and highly inefficient.

Reading Critically: Evaluate Details as Fact or Opinion in Context

• Because the printed word seems to give authority to an idea, many of us accept what we read as fact. However, much of what is published is actually opinion.
• Master readers questions what they read.
• Reading critically is noting the use of fact and opinion in the context of a paragraph or passage, the author, and the type of source in which the passage is printed.

Evaluate the Context of the Author

Even though opinions can’t be proved true like facts can, many opinions are still sound and valuable.  To judge the accuracy of the opinion, you must consider the source; the author of the opinion.

• Authors offer two types of valid opinions: informed opinions and expert opinion.
• An author develops an informed opinion by gathering and analyzing evidence.
• An author develops an expert opinion though much training and extensive knowledge in a given field.

 Evaluate the Context of the Source

• Often people turn to factual sources to find the factual details needed to form informed opinions and expert opinions.
• A medical dictionary, an English handbook, and a world atlas are a few excellent examples of factual sources.

Reading a Textbook: The Use of Graphics, Fact, and Opinion in a Textbook

Most textbook authors are careful to present only ideas based on observation, research, and expert opinion. Textbook authors often use pictures, drawings, or graphics to make the relationship between the main idea and supporting details clear. Master readers must carefully analyze these graphics in order to discern facts from opinion as they are interpreted.

Watch this video to see more examples of facts and opinions:

CC Licensed Content, Shared Previously

Content adapted from  an open course from Broward, licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license .

Video Content

“ Distinguishing fact from opinion ” by Snap Language

Integrated Reading and Writing Level 1 Copyright © 2018 by pherringtonmoriarty and Judith Tomasson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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How to build critical thinking skills for better decision-making

It’s simple in theory, but tougher in practice – here are five tips to get you started.

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Have you heard the riddle about two coins that equal thirty cents, but one of them is not a nickel? What about the one where a surgeon says they can’t operate on their own son?

Those brain teasers tap into your critical thinking skills. But your ability to think critically isn’t just helpful for solving those random puzzles – it plays a big role in your career. 

An impressive 81% of employers say critical thinking carries a lot of weight when they’re evaluating job candidates. It ranks as the top competency companies consider when hiring recent graduates (even ahead of communication ). Plus, once you’re hired, several studies show that critical thinking skills are highly correlated with better job performance.

So what exactly are critical thinking skills? And even more importantly, how do you build and improve them? 

What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking is the ability to evaluate facts and information, remain objective, and make a sound decision about how to move forward.

Does that sound like how you approach every decision or problem? Not so fast. Critical thinking seems simple in theory but is much tougher in practice, which helps explain why 65% of employers say their organization has a need for more critical thinking. 

In reality, critical thinking doesn’t come naturally to a lot of us. In order to do it well, you need to:

• Remain open-minded and inquisitive, rather than relying on assumptions or jumping to conclusions
• Ask questions and dig deep, rather than accepting information at face value
• Keep your own biases and perceptions in check to stay as objective as possible
• Rely on your emotional intelligence to fill in the blanks and gain a more well-rounded understanding of a situation

So, critical thinking isn’t just being intelligent or analytical. In many ways, it requires you to step outside of yourself, let go of your own preconceived notions, and approach a problem or situation with curiosity and fairness.

It’s a challenge, but it’s well worth it. Critical thinking skills will help you connect ideas, make reasonable decisions, and solve complex problems.

7 critical thinking skills to help you dig deeper

Critical thinking is often labeled as a skill itself (you’ll see it bulleted as a desired trait in a variety of job descriptions). But it’s better to think of critical thinking less as a distinct skill and more as a collection or category of skills. 

To think critically, you’ll need to tap into a bunch of your other soft skills. Here are seven of the most important. 

Open-mindedness

It’s important to kick off the critical thinking process with the idea that anything is possible. The more you’re able to set aside your own suspicions, beliefs, and agenda, the better prepared you are to approach the situation with the level of inquisitiveness you need. 

That means not closing yourself off to any possibilities and allowing yourself the space to pull on every thread – yes, even the ones that seem totally implausible.

As Christopher Dwyer, Ph.D. writes in a piece for Psychology Today , “Even if an idea appears foolish, sometimes its consideration can lead to an intelligent, critically considered conclusion.” He goes on to compare the critical thinking process to brainstorming . Sometimes the “bad” ideas are what lay the foundation for the good ones. 

Open-mindedness is challenging because it requires more effort and mental bandwidth than sticking with your own perceptions. Approaching problems or situations with true impartiality often means:

• Practicing self-regulation : Giving yourself a pause between when you feel something and when you actually react or take action.
• Challenging your own biases: Acknowledging your biases and seeking feedback are two powerful ways to get a broader understanding. 

Critical thinking example

In a team meeting, your boss mentioned that your company newsletter signups have been decreasing and she wants to figure out why.

At first, you feel offended and defensive – it feels like she’s blaming you for the dip in subscribers. You recognize and rationalize that emotion before thinking about potential causes. You have a hunch about what’s happening, but you will explore all possibilities and contributions from your team members.

Observation

Observation is, of course, your ability to notice and process the details all around you (even the subtle or seemingly inconsequential ones). Critical thinking demands that you’re flexible and willing to go beyond surface-level information, and solid observation skills help you do that.

Your observations help you pick up on clues from a variety of sources and experiences, all of which help you draw a final conclusion. After all, sometimes it’s the most minuscule realization that leads you to the strongest conclusion.

Over the next week or so, you keep a close eye on your company’s website and newsletter analytics to see if numbers are in fact declining or if your boss’s concerns were just a fluke. 

Critical thinking hinges on objectivity. And, to be objective, you need to base your judgments on the facts – which you collect through research. You’ll lean on your research skills to gather as much information as possible that’s relevant to your problem or situation. 

Keep in mind that this isn’t just about the quantity of information – quality matters too. You want to find data and details from a variety of trusted sources to drill past the surface and build a deeper understanding of what’s happening. 

You dig into your email and website analytics to identify trends in bounce rates, time on page, conversions, and more. You also review recent newsletters and email promotions to understand what customers have received, look through current customer feedback, and connect with your customer support team to learn what they’re hearing in their conversations with customers.

The critical thinking process is sort of like a treasure hunt – you’ll find some nuggets that are fundamental for your final conclusion and some that might be interesting but aren’t pertinent to the problem at hand.

That’s why you need analytical skills. They’re what help you separate the wheat from the chaff, prioritize information, identify trends or themes, and draw conclusions based on the most relevant and influential facts. 

It’s easy to confuse analytical thinking with critical thinking itself, and it’s true there is a lot of overlap between the two. But analytical thinking is just a piece of critical thinking. It focuses strictly on the facts and data, while critical thinking incorporates other factors like emotions, opinions, and experiences. 

As you analyze your research, you notice that one specific webpage has contributed to a significant decline in newsletter signups. While all of the other sources have stayed fairly steady with regard to conversions, that one has sharply decreased.

You decide to move on from your other hypotheses about newsletter quality and dig deeper into the analytics. 

One of the traps of critical thinking is that it’s easy to feel like you’re never done. There’s always more information you could collect and more rabbit holes you could fall down.

But at some point, you need to accept that you’ve done your due diligence and make a decision about how to move forward. That’s where inference comes in. It’s your ability to look at the evidence and facts available to you and draw an informed conclusion based on those. 

When you’re so focused on staying objective and pursuing all possibilities, inference can feel like the antithesis of critical thinking. But ultimately, it’s your inference skills that allow you to move out of the thinking process and onto the action steps. 

You dig deeper into the analytics for the page that hasn’t been converting and notice that the sharp drop-off happened around the same time you switched email providers.

After looking more into the backend, you realize that the signup form on that page isn’t correctly connected to your newsletter platform. It seems like anybody who has signed up on that page hasn’t been fed to your email list. 

Communication

3 ways to improve your communication skills at work

If and when you identify a solution or answer, you can’t keep it close to the vest. You’ll need to use your communication skills to share your findings with the relevant stakeholders – like your boss, team members, or anybody who needs to be involved in the next steps.

Your analysis skills will come in handy here too, as they’ll help you determine what information other people need to know so you can avoid bogging them down with unnecessary details. 

In your next team meeting, you pull up the analytics and show your team the sharp drop-off as well as the missing connection between that page and your email platform. You ask the web team to reinstall and double-check that connection and you also ask a member of the marketing team to draft an apology email to the subscribers who were missed. 

Problem-solving

Critical thinking and problem-solving are two more terms that are frequently confused. After all, when you think critically, you’re often doing so with the objective of solving a problem.

The best way to understand how problem-solving and critical thinking differ is to think of problem-solving as much more narrow. You’re focused on finding a solution.

In contrast, you can use critical thinking for a variety of use cases beyond solving a problem – like answering questions or identifying opportunities for improvement. Even so, within the critical thinking process, you’ll flex your problem-solving skills when it comes time to take action. 

Once the fix is implemented, you monitor the analytics to see if subscribers continue to increase. If not (or if they increase at a slower rate than you anticipated), you’ll roll out some other tests like changing the CTA language or the placement of the subscribe form on the page.

5 ways to improve your critical thinking skills

Beyond the buzzwords: Why interpersonal skills matter at work

Think critically about critical thinking and you’ll quickly realize that it’s not as instinctive as you’d like it to be. Fortunately, your critical thinking skills are learned competencies and not inherent gifts – and that means you can improve them. Here’s how:

• Practice active listening: Active listening helps you process and understand what other people share. That’s crucial as you aim to be open-minded and inquisitive.
• Ask open-ended questions: If your critical thinking process involves collecting feedback and opinions from others, ask open-ended questions (meaning, questions that can’t be answered with “yes” or “no”). Doing so will give you more valuable information and also prevent your own biases from influencing people’s input.
• Scrutinize your sources: Figuring out what to trust and prioritize is crucial for critical thinking. Boosting your media literacy and asking more questions will help you be more discerning about what to factor in. It’s hard to strike a balance between skepticism and open-mindedness, but approaching information with questions (rather than unquestioning trust) will help you draw better conclusions. 
• Play a game: Remember those riddles we mentioned at the beginning? As trivial as they might seem, games and exercises like those can help you boost your critical thinking skills. There are plenty of critical thinking exercises you can do individually or as a team . 
• Give yourself time: Research shows that rushed decisions are often regrettable ones. That’s likely because critical thinking takes time – you can’t do it under the wire. So, for big decisions or hairy problems, give yourself enough time and breathing room to work through the process. It’s hard enough to think critically without a countdown ticking in your brain. 

Critical thinking really is critical

The ability to think critically is important, but it doesn’t come naturally to most of us. It’s just easier to stick with biases, assumptions, and surface-level information. 

But that route often leads you to rash judgments, shaky conclusions, and disappointing decisions. So here’s a conclusion we can draw without any more noodling: Even if it is more demanding on your mental resources, critical thinking is well worth the effort.

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Literacy and Critical Thinking

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Literacy is the ability to read and write. Broadly, literacy may be viewed as "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. Critical thinking is the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments in order to form a judgement by the application of rational, skeptical, and unbiased analyses and evaluation. The application of critical thinking includes self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective habits of the mind, thus a critical thinker is a person who practices the skills of critical thinking or has been trained and educated in its disciplines.

• Front Matter
• 1: Introduction
• 2: About Creative Nonfiction
• 3: Creative Nonfiction Readings
• 4: About Fiction - Short Stories and the Novel
• 5: Fiction Readings
• 6: About Poetry
• 7: Poetry Readings
• 8: About Drama
• 9: Drama Readings
• 10: About Literary Criticism
• 11: Literary Criticism Readings
• 12: Writing About Literature
• 13: Citations and Formatting Guide for Literature (MLA)
• Back Matter

• 1: Reading Like a Professional
• 2: Forming a Perspective on the Subject
• 3: Effective Argument
• 4: Experiencing the Power of Poetry
• 5: The Truths of Fiction
• 6: All the World’s a Stage
• 7: Creative Nonfiction, The Fourth Genre
• 8: The Literary Analysis Essay
• 9: The Research Paper

• 1: Introduction - What Is Literary Theory and Why Should I Care?
• 2: Writing about Form - Developing the Foundations of Close Reading
• 3: Writing about Character and Motivation - Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism
• 4: Writing about Gender and Sexuality - Applying Feminist and Gender Criticism
• 5: Writing about Racial, Ethnic, and Cultural Identity
• 6: Writing about Readers - Applying Reader-Response Theory
• 7: Writing about History and Culture from a New Historical Perspective
• 8: Writing about the Natural World
• 9: Reading and Writing in the Digital Age
• 10: Appendix - Peer Review Sheets

• 1: Research Process and Scope
• 2: Research Questions and Strategy
• 3: Advanced Searching Techniques
• 4: Evaluating Sources
• 5: Critical Reading
• 6: Persuasive Appeals
• 7: Using and Organizing Information
• 8: Citing Sources and APA Style
• 9: Information Power and Privilege
• 10: Information Value and Privilege
• 11: Confirmation Bias and Filter Bubbles
• 12: Misinformation and Fake News
• 13: Professional Conversations
• 14: Assignment Resources for Instructors

• 1: Always Be Prepared
• 2: Comprehending and Communicating Clearly
• 3: Discover, Explore, and Reflect on a Text
• 4: Subtleties of Reading and Writing – Author’s Style
• 5: Literacy and Analysis

• 1: Course Pack 1
• 2: Course Pack 2
• 3: Course Pack 3
• 4: Course Pack 4
• 5: Course Pack 5
• 6: Course Pack 6

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• 1: Chapters

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Defining Critical Thinking

Think Smarter: Critical Thinking to Improve Problem-Solving and Decision-Making Skills by Michael Kallet

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Facts Are Absolute Truth

We define facts as “absolute truth” in critical thinking. With facts, there is no debate. You are reading this right now; that's a fact. Facts are facts; they aren't hearsay, opinions, or rumors.

However, when someone says, “Here are the facts,” that doesn't mean what follows is factual. Remember the most recent presidential (or really, any political) debate? Both candidates stood up and said, “Here are the facts,” yet they contradicted each other. Facts can't be contradictory if they are indeed the one and only truth. So the facts the candidates were throwing at us were not really facts . You could even read in the paper the next day how un factual their facts were.

When you hear something over and over and over again, you might mistakenly think it's a fact. When someone with great credibility says something, you might assume it's a fact. In either instance, it might be a fact—but unless you know the information to be true, it may not be.

Facts are a very important part of your premise. Because they are absolute truth, you can bank on, leverage, and state facts with confidence. It makes a premise strong. You can come to highly reliable conclusions if you base those conclusions on facts alone. Facts are often the basis for deductive reasoning. Although you don't get to use deductive reasoning often, when you do, it results in correct conclusions.

Mathematics is based on facts. Laws and rules are often used as facts. Science creates rules that, until ...

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Facts are not always more important than opinions: here’s why

Lecturer in Critical Thinking, The University of Queensland

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Peter Ellerton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Which is more important, a fact or an opinion on any given subject? It might be tempting to say the fact. But not so fast…

Lately, we find ourselves lamenting the post-truth world, in which facts seem no more important than opinions, and sometimes less so.

We also tend to see this as a recent devaluation of knowledge. But this is a phenomenon with a long history.

As the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov wrote in 1980:

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge”.

The view that opinions can be more important than facts need not mean the same thing as the devaluing of knowledge. It’s always been the case that in certain situations opinions have been more important than facts, and this is a good thing. Let me explain.

Not all facts are true

To call something a fact is, presumably, to make a claim that it is true. This isn’t a problem for many things, although defending such a claim can be harder than you think.

What we think are facts – that is, those things we think are true – can end up being wrong despite our most honest commitment to genuine inquiry.

For example, is red wine good or bad for you? And was there a dinosaur called the brontosaurus or not ? The Harvard researcher Samuel Arbesman points out these examples and others of how facts change in his book The Half Life of Facts .

It’s not only that facts can change that is a problem. While we might be happy to consider it a fact that Earth is spherical, we would be wrong to do so because it’s actually a bit pear-shaped. Thinking it a sphere, however, is very different from thinking it to be flat .

Asimov expressed this beautifully in his essay The Relativity of Wrong . For Asimov, the person who thinks Earth is a sphere is wrong, and so is the person who thinks the Earth is flat. But the person who thinks that they are equally wrong is more wrong than both.

Geometrical hair-splitting aside, calling something a fact is therefore not a proclamation of infallibility. It is usually used to represent the best knowledge we have at any given time.

It’s also not the knockout blow we might hope for in an argument. Saying something is a fact by itself does nothing to convince someone who doesn’t agree with you. Unaccompanied by any warrant for belief, it is not a technique of persuasion. Proof by volume and repetition – repeatedly yelling “but it’s a fact!” – simply doesn’t work. Or at least it shouldn’t.

Matters of fact and opinion

Then again, calling something an opinion need not mean an escape to the fairyland of wishful thinking. This too is not a knockout attack in an argument. If we think of an opinion as one person’s view on a subject, then many opinions can be solid.

For example, it’s my opinion that science gives us a powerful narrative to help understand our place in the Universe, at least as much as any religious perspective does. It’s not an empirical fact that science does so, but it works for me.

But we can be much clearer in our meaning if we separate things into matters of fact and matters of opinion.

Matters of fact are confined to empirical claims, such as what the boiling point of a substance is, whether lead is denser than water, or whether the planet is warming.

Matters of opinion are non-empirical claims, and include questions of value and of personal preference such as whether it’s ok to eat animals, and whether vanilla ice cream is better than chocolate. Ethics is an exemplar of a system in which matters of fact cannot by themselves decide courses of action.

Matters of opinion can be informed by matters of fact (for example, finding out that animals can suffer may influence whether I choose to eat them), but ultimately they are not answered by matters of fact (why is it relevant if they can suffer?).

Backing up the facts and opinions

Opinions are not just pale shadows of facts; they are judgements and conclusions. They can be the result of careful and sophisticated deliberation in areas for which empirical investigation is inadequate or ill-suited.

While it’s nice to think of the world so neatly divided into matters of fact and matters of opinion, it’s not always so clinical in its precision. For example, it is a fact that I prefer vanilla ice cream over chocolate. In other words, it is apparently a matter of fact that I am having a subjective experience.

But we can heal that potential rift by further restricting matters of fact to those things that can be verified by others.

While it’s true that my ice cream preference could be experimentally indicated by observing my behaviour and interviewing me, it cannot be independently verified by others beyond doubt. I could be faking it.

But we can all agree in principle on whether the atmosphere contains more nitrogen or carbon dioxide because we can share the methodology of inquiry that gives us the answer. We can also agree on matters of value if the case for a particular view is rationally persuasive.

Facts and opinions need not be positioned in opposition to each other, as they have complementary functions in our decision-making. In a rational framework, they are equally useful. But that’s just my opinion – it’s not a fact.

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Home / TEAS Test Review Guide

TEAS Test Review Guide

Introduction: what is teas and what does it measure, details about teas, teas reading, teas mathematics, teas science, teas english & language usage, latest articles & guides.

PLEASE NOTE: This guide’s foundation is structured on the ATI TEAS® version of the test. 

ATI (Assessment Technologies Inc.) is the company that, among other things, constructs and authors the Test of Essential Academic Skills (TEAS). The TEAS measures and assesses a person's ability to be academically prepared to enter and succeed in nursing school. The data from this test is highly useful and helpful to those considering entering a nursing school and it is also helpful to nursing programs that use TEAS scores as part of their admission criteria. People who are interested in embarking on a career in nursing want to be able to successfully graduate from a nursing school without failure and schools of nursing want to provide quality education to those who are able to succeed in and graduate from their school of nursing. This standardized test also gives test-takers valid and reliable data that reflects their strengths, their weaknesses, their areas that need improvement and remediation, and their readiness, or lack of readiness, to begin nursing school.

"Nursing student attrition continues to pose a problem and, when paired with an already understaffed nursing workforce, interventions are urgently needed. Inconsistent measurement of attrition data has historically impeded studying the causes of nursing school attrition. ATI partners with the majority of nursing programs in the United Sates and, as a result, a product usage based, and broadly applicable, proxy for understanding nursing student attrition is described in this paper. After comparing product usage at the beginning and conclusion of each graduating class, attrition rates were calculated for 3,084 unique RN classes (2009-2011). Of these classes, 528 classes' students were found to have been screened using the TEAS V during pre-admissions testing. Analysis of class level TEAS V data shows that programs with higher TEAS V performance have significantly lower nursing student attrition."

Source : ATI Nursing Education. Research Brief: Predicting RN Student Attrition using the TEAS V

TEAS is a predictor test that statistically predicts whether or not a person can pass and graduate from a school of nursing. This type of comprehensive test statistically measures the test taker’s knowledge in four academic areas or subjects which are:

Mathematics

English and language usage.

*** While we provide this extensive study guide free of charge other professional guides and adaptations are available via Amazon.com . (ad) ***

TEAS is a timed test that has only multiple-choice questions with four possible choices.

The test has a total of 170 multiple-choice questions and the total time that you have in order to take and complete the test is exactly 209 minutes or 3 hours and 29 minutes. Only 150, of the total 170, multiple-choice questions are scored and graded. The remaining 20 questions are NOT scored, graded, or part of your score on the test. These 20 questions are used by ATI to determine whether or not these questions are good and whether these questions can or cannot be used in future tests. These questions do NOT affect your final grade on the test

Each of the four areas has different maximum time allotments and each has a different number of questions.

These maximum time allotments and the number of questions are shown below for each of the four major testing sections:

• Maximum Time Allotment: 64 minutes
• Number of Scored Questions: 47
• Number of Non-Scored Questions: 6
• Total Number of Questions: 53
• Maximum Time Allotment: 54 minutes
• Number of Scored Questions: 32
• Number of Non-Scored Questions: 4
• Total Number of Questions: 36
• Maximum Time Allotment: 63 minutes
• Maximum Time Allotment: 28 minutes
• Number of Scored Questions: 24
• Total Number of Questions: 28

How Long Does the TEAS Test Take?

Although the test time is exactly 209 minutes, all test takers will be given a 10-minute break after the Mathematics section of the test, which is the second of the four sections in the examination. These 10 minutes are NOT considered part of the 209 minutes allocated for the test.

If there is a need for you to take a break, use the restroom, or for any other reason, you must raise your hand to get permission to do so. The time you spend taking this optional break will be counted against your test time. It is, therefore, highly recommended that you not take any breaks other than the 10-minute break all are given after the Mathematics section.

What Is the Difference Between TEAS V and ATI TEAS?

Unlike the TEAS V, you will be provided with a four-function calculator and scrap paper to use during the tests. All scrap paper, used and unused, and the calculator must be returned to the test monitor, or proctor after the test is over.

The difficulty of the exams is on par with each other however adjustments were made in the ATI TEAS to align current academic standards and understandings.

What Should I Bring to the Test?

• Valid photo ID (Gov’t issued or State ID such as a driver’s license
• Student ID card if taking it at your local school
• Copy ATI email confirmation
• Everything else will be given to you during the exam by the provider

How Much Does the TEAS Cost?

Currently, the exam runs $81 according to the ATI website.

See our TEAS test study tips .

The TEAS Reading test section measures and tests your ability to comprehend some reading passages that contain multiple paragraphs and also to interpret labels, maps, graphs, charts, directions, and measurement tools.

The three subsections for the TEAS reading section and the number of scored questions for this section are:

• Key Ideas and Details: 22 scored questions
• Craft and Structure: 14 scored questions
• The Integration of Knowledge and Ideas: 11 scored questions

TEAS Reading Details

• Total Scored Questions: 47 questions
• Number of Unscored Questions: 6 questions
• Maximum Time Allocation: 64 minutes

The three subsections for the TEAS reading section are further divided, similar to the other three major testing areas of TEAS. For the purpose of this TEAS review, we will refer to these and the other subsections of the TEAS with coding as below.

PLEASE NOTE : A tutorial content area labeled R II: 3 relates to the meaning of words and phrases in context and a test question labeled R III; 1 relates to primary sources in various media.

Key Ideas and Details: R I

In this section, you are expected to be able to:

• Summarize a Complex Text
• Infer the Logical Conclusion from a Reading Selection
• Follow a Given Set of Directions
• Identify Specific Information from a Printed Communication
• Identify Information from a Graphic Representation of Information
• Recognize Events in a Sequence

Craft and Structure: R II

• Distinguishing Between Fact and Opinion, Biases, and Stereotypes
• Recognizing the Structure of Texts in Various Formats
• Interpreting the Meaning of Words and Phrases Using Context
• Determining the Denotative Meaning of Words
• Evaluating the Author's Purpose in a Given Text
• Evaluating the Author's Point of View in a Given Text
• Using Text Features

The Integration of Knowledge and Ideas: R III

• Identifying Primary Sources in Various Media
• Using Evidence from a Text to Make Predictions and Inferences and to Draw Conclusions About a Piece of Writing
• Comparing and Contrasting Themes From Print and Other Sources
• Evaluating an Argument and Its Specific Claims

The TEAS mathematics test section measures and tests your ability to use algebra, measure, interpret data, and perform various mathematical operations using numbers.

The two subsections for the TEAS mathematics section and the number of scored questions for this section are:

• Numbers and Algebra: 23 scored questions
• Measurement and Data: 9 scored questions

TEAS Mathematics Details

• Total Scored Questions: 32 questions
• Number of Unscored Questions: 4 questions
• Maximum Time Allocation: 54 minutes

The two subsections for the TEAS mathematics section are further divided, similar to the other three major testing areas of TEAS. Again, for the purpose of this TEAS review, we will refer to these and the other subsections of the TEAS with coding as below.

PLEASE NOTE : A tutorial content area labeled M II: 3 relates to the comparison and ordering of rational numbers and a test question labeled M II: 4 relates to primary sources in various media.

Numbers and Algebra: M I

• Converting Among Non Negative Fractions, Decimals, and Percentages
• Arithmetic Operations with Rational Numbers
• Comparing and Ordering Rational Numbers
• Solve Equations with One Variable
• Solve One or Multi-Step Problems with Rational Numbers
• Solve Problems Involving Percentages
• Applying Estimation Strategies and Rounding Rules for Real-World Problems
• Solve Problems Involving Proportions
• Solve Problems Involving Ratios and Rates of Change
• Translating Phrases and Sentences into Expressions, Equations, and Inequalities

Measurement and Data: M II

• Interpreting Relevant Information From Tables, Charts, and Graphs
• Evaluating Information in Tables, Charts, and Graphs Using Statistics
• Explaining the Relationship Between Two Variables
• Calculate Geometric Qualities
• Converting Within and Between Standard and Metric Systems

Candidates often find this section to be one of the most challenging. The TEAS Science subtest assesses a student’s knowledge of scientific reasoning, life science, the human body, and physical and earth science.

The TEAS science test section measures and tests your knowledge of life sciences, physical science, earth science, scientific reasoning, and the human body.

The three subsections for the TEAS science section and the number of scored questions for this section are:

• Human Anatomy and Physiology: 32 scored questions
• Life and Physical Sciences: 8 scored questions
• Scientific Reasoning: 7 scored questions

TEAS Science Details

• Maximum Time Allocation: 63 minutes

The three subsections of the TEAS science section are further divided, similar to the other three major testing areas of TEAS. Again, for the purpose of this TEAS review, we will refer to these and the other subsections of the TEAS with coding as below.

PLEASE NOTE : A tutorial content area labeled S I: 3 relates to the anatomy and physiology of the cardiovascular system and a test question labeled S II: 4 relates to basic atomic structure.

Human Anatomy and Physiology: S I

Physiology is the study of the functions of the body. Anatomy and physiology, although technically discrete and different bodies of knowledge, anatomy, and physiology are closely aligned with each other. For example, the anatomy of cardiac muscles enables the physiological performance of the heart to fulfill the body's physical need for blood flow and oxygenation and the anatomy of the digestive system enables the person to consume food and process foods so that the physical need for nutrition is fulfilled.

Some of the major physical needs of the body that are fulfilled with the body's physiology and its physiological functioning are the need for:

• Homeostasis and bodily equilibrium
• Oxygenation
• Elimination
• Fluid balance
• Movement and activity
• Freedom from external threats (infection)
• The five senses
• Reproduction

In this section, you are expected to be able to describe the following:

• General Anatomy and Physiology of a Human
• Respiratory System  – Blood flow
• Cardiac System  – Oxygenation, blood flow
• Circulatory System  – Blood flow
• Digestive or Gastrointestinal System  – Nutrition, elimination
• Nervous System  – Sensory perception, voluntary & involuntary movements
• Musculoskeletal System – Skeletal  – Movement, activity, protection
• Musculoskeletal System – Muscular  – Same as Skeletal
• Reproductive System  – Reproduction, growth
• Integumentary System  – Temperature regulation, bodily protection
• Endocrine System  – Growth, metabolism, fluid balance
• Genitourinary System – Rids waste, fluid management, and control
• Immune System  – Protection against infection
• Hematological System  – Protection against infection, oxygenation w/ red blood cells

Life and Physical Sciences: S II

• Basic Macromolecules in a Biological System
• Chromosomes, Genes, and DNA
• Mendel’s Laws of Heredity
• Basic Atomic Structure
• Characteristic Properties of Substances
• Changing States of Matter
• Chemical Reactions

Scientific Reasoning: S III

• Scientific Measurements & Laboratory Measurement Tools 
• Scientific Explanations Using Logic and Evidence
• Relationships Among Events, Objects, and Processes
• Analysis and Design of a Scientific Investigation

The TEAS English and Language Usage test section measures and tests your knowledge of spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, and contextual words.

The three subsections of the TEAS English and Language Usage test section are:

• Conventions of Standard English: 9 scored questions
• Knowledge of Language: 9 scored questions
• Vocabulary Acquisition: 6 scored questions

TEAS English & Language Usage Details

• Total Scored Questions: 24 questions
• Maximum Time Allocation: 28 minutes

PLEASE NOTE : A tutorial content area labeled L I: 3 relates to the anatomy and physiology of the cardiovascular system and a test question labeled 1 II: 4 relates to basic atomic structure.

Conventions of Standard English: E 1

• Using Conventions of Standard English Spelling
• Using Conventions of Standard English Punctuation
• Analyzing Various Sentence Structures

Knowledge of Language: E 2

• Using Grammar to Enhance Clarity in Writing
• Distinguish Between Formal and Informal Language
• Apply Basic Knowledge of the Elements of the Writing Process
• Developing a Well Organized Paragraph

Vocabulary Acquisition: E 3

• Using Context Clues to Determine the Meaning of Words or Phrases
• Determine the Meaning of Words by Analyzing Word Parts

Now go get accepted into nursing school!

PLEASE NOTE : ATI Testing, ATI™, TEAS®, and other trademarks are the property of their respective trademark holders. None of the trademark holders are affiliated with RegisteredNursing.org.

One of the keys to success as a registered nurse is embracing lifelong learning. Our articles and guides address hot topics and current events in nursing, from education to career mobility and beyond. No matter where you are on your nursing journey, there’s an article to help you build your knowledge base.

Browse our latest articles, curated specifically for modern nurses.

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Critical Thinking Exercises

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Critical thinking is a skill that students develop gradually as they progress in school. While the skill becomes more important in higher grades, some students find it difficult to understand the concept of critical thinking .

The reason critical thinking can be difficult to grasp is because it requires students to set aside assumptions and beliefs to learn to think without bias or judgment.

Critical thinking involves suspending your beliefs to explore and question topics from a "blank page" point of view. It also involves the ability to distinguish fact from opinion when exploring a topic.

These exercises are designed to help develop critical thinking skills.

Critical Thinking Exercise 1: Tour Guide for an Alien

This exercise provides an opportunity to think outside your normal way of thinking.

Pretend that you have been assigned the task of conducting a tour for aliens who are visiting the earth and observing human life. You're riding along in a blimp, viewing the landscape below, and you float over a professional baseball stadium. One of the aliens looks down and is very confused by what he sees. You explain that there is a game going on and he asks several important questions.

• What is a game? 
• Why are there no female players?
• Why do people get so excited about watching other people play games?
• What is a team?
• Why can't the people in the seats go down on the field and join in?

If you try to answer these questions fully, it will quickly become apparent that we carry around certain assumptions and values. We support a certain team, for instance, because it makes us feel like we're a part of a community. This sense of community is a value that matters to some people more than others.

Furthermore, when trying to explain team sports to an alien, you have to explain the value we place on winning and losing.

When you think like an alien tour guide, you are forced to take a deeper look at the things we do and things we value. Sometimes they don't sound logical from the outside looking in.

Critical Thinking Exercise 2: Fact or Opinion

Do you think you know the difference between fact and opinion? It's not always easy to discern. When you visit websites, do you believe everything you read? The abundance of available information makes it more important than ever for students to develop critical thinking skills. Additionally, it's an important reminder that you must use trustworthy sources in your school work.

If you don't learn the difference between fact and opinion, you may end up reading and watching things that continue to reinforce beliefs and assumptions you already own.

For this exercise, read each statement and try to determine whether it sounds like a fact or an opinion. This can be completed alone or with a study partner .

• My mom is the best mom on earth.
• My dad is taller than your dad.
• My telephone number is difficult to memorize.
• The deepest part of the ocean is 35,813 feet deep.
• Dogs make better pets than turtles.
• Smoking is bad for your health.
• Eighty-five percent of all cases of lung cancer in the U.S. are caused by smoking.
• If you flatten and stretch out a Slinky toy it will be 87 feet long.
• Slinky toys are fun.
• One out of every one hundred American citizens is color blind.
• Two out of ten American citizens are boring.

You will probably find some of the statements easy to judge but other statements difficult. If you can effectively debate the truthfulness of a statement with your partner, then it's most likely an opinion.

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• Cartoon Strips to Teach "I Statements"
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The Fact/Opinion Distinction

John Corvino argues that the claim "That's just your opinion" is pernicious and should be consigned to the flames.

When debating ethics and other controversial topics, one frequently hears the claim “That’s just your opinion.” It is a pernicious claim, devoid of clear meaning, and it should be consigned to the flames – or so I shall argue here.

In calling something an opinion, one presumably wants to contrast it with something that is not an opinion, and the obvious candidate for the contrast class is “fact”. Philosophers might be tempted to draw this contrast by identifying facts as states of affairs – occurrences that are there in the world regardless of what anyone may think about them – and identifying opinions as beliefs (or some other mental state) about states of affairs. According to this approach, we can separate facts from opinions by using what Perry Weddle has called the “Whose?” test: It always makes sense to ask “Whose opinion is it?” but never “Whose fact is it?”

But this way of drawing the contrast merely pushes the problem back further. For among the beliefs that people have about the world, there are some that people tend to put in the “fact” column and some that they tend to put in the “opinion” column. That is, they contrast factual beliefs from opinions (opinion beliefs), and it is quite appropriate to ask “Whose belief?” in either case. The same goes for expressions of belief: We can talk about statements of fact vs. statements of opinion , or factual claims vs. opinion claims , and so forth, and all of these are in the mouths of subjects.

Suppose, then, we narrow our inquiry to statements, so that when we ask, “What is the difference between facts and opinions?” what we’re really asking is “What is the difference between statements of fact and statements of opinion ?”

This seems like it should be an easy question, but it actually tends to stump most people on the street. Mind you, they have no trouble in offering examples of either, or in categorising others’ examples. So for instance, given

they’ll say that the A statements are facts and the B statements are opinions. When asked to explain the principle of distinction between the two, however – the rule that tells us how to assign statements to one category or the other – they often get tongue-tied.

Some have tried to explain the distinction to me by arguing that facts are true . This answer is not at all helpful, since opinions are typically put forth as true, and some factual claims turn out to be false. For example, most people would say that it’s true that genocide is wrong, and there may or may not be beer in my refrigerator. The fact/opinion distinction varies independently of the true/false distinction.

Others say that factual statements are “concrete” rather than “abstract”, but that answer would render all mathematical statements non-factual, since mathematics involves abstract concepts (e.g. numbers). Neither does it help, at least at first glance, to say that facts are “objective” (rather than “subjective”), since at least some statements in the “opinion” column involve matters that would be true (or false) regardless of what any particular subject believes. For example, whether or not God created the earth is an objective matter, albeit a controversial and difficult-to-prove one. If it happened, it happened whether anyone believes it or not. Ditto if it didn’t happen. (I’ll say more about the subjective/objective distinction later on.)

Perhaps the last example suggests a better answer: the difference between facts and opinions is that factual statements are uncontroversial. But this answer doesn’t seem right either, since it would make it audience-relative whether something is a fact: for example, “the earth revolves around the sun” would be a fact for modern Europeans but not for medieval ones; “God created the earth” would be a fact for believers but not for sceptics; “The earth is flat” would be a fact for Flat-Earthers but not for the rest of us. How useful would the fact/opinion distinction be if any statement could count as either one, depending on who hears it?

If everyday observers are confused about the distinction, “experts” fare little better. Curious as to the standard explanation, I Googled “facts vs. opinions”. (This is not how to conduct serious philosophical research, but it can be a useful way of gauging common thoughts on a subject.) Here’s the first result I received, from a “Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum Project” website:

“Fact: statement of actuality or occurrence. A fact is based on direct evidence, actual experience, or observation.

“Opinion: statement of belief or feeling. It shows one’s feelings about a subject. Solid opinions, while based on facts, are someone’s views on a subject and not facts themselves.”

This way of drawing the distinction makes “The earth revolves around the sun” an opinion – or at least, not a fact – since no one directly observes it happening (not even astronauts!). It also jumbles together occurrences (what we earlier called “states of affairs”), statements about occurrences, and the evidence for those statements.

Perhaps more confusing is its labelling opinions as “statement(s) of belief.” As we’ve been using the terms, all statements express beliefs, and our task is to determine which of them express factual beliefs and which express opinions.

So I looked further. Here are the second and third results from my quick internet search, from an “Education Oasis” and “Enchanted Learning” website, respectively:

“A fact is a statement that can be proven true.”

“An opinion expresses someone’s belief, feeling, view, idea, or judgment about something or someone.”

“Facts are statements that can be shown to be true or can be proved, or something that really happened. You can look up facts in an encyclopedia or other reference, or see them for yourself. For example, it is a fact that broccoli is good for you (you can look this up in books about healthy diets).

“Opinions express how a person feels about something – opinions do not have to be based upon logical reasoning. For example, it is an opinion that broccoli tastes good (or bad).”

Both of these connect fact with provability. But in common parlance, “provability” seems audience-relative as well: While one person might find Anselm’s ontological argument to be a sufficient proof for God’s existence (thus rendering “God exists” a fact for that person ); others may not.

The Education Oasis site announces that “An opinion expresses someone’s belief ... about something.” So if I believe that there’s beer in my refrigerator, is that just an opinion? The Enchanted Learning site muddies the waters even further by claiming that you can look up facts in an encyclopaedia (always? but then were there no facts before books?), and by including an evaluative notion (“good for you”) among examples of facts.

If this is “Critical Thinking”, I’d hate to see what Sloppy Thinking looks like.

Let me offer a conjecture: the fact/opinion distinction is ambiguous, and in trying to explain it, people typically conflate it with other distinctions in the neighbourhood.

Let’s consider three of those other distinctions. Take, first, the familiar philosophical distinction between belief and reality . In common understanding, there’s a world (reality), and then there are our representations of that world (beliefs: sometimes true, sometimes not). I might believe that there’s beer in the refrigerator, whether or not there’s any there. I might believe that God created the earth, whether or not God did – indeed, whether or not God exists at all. Generally, we strive to make our beliefs as accurate as possible in representing reality, but that doesn’t remove the gap (some would say “gulf”) between the two.

The problem, obviously, is that attempts to bridge that gap always proceed via our own fallible cognitive capacities. Beliefs about reality are still beliefs, and some of them, despite our best efforts, turn out to be false. That’s true whether we’re talking about beliefs that usually show up in the “fact” column (“There’s beer in the refrigerator”) or in the “opinion” column (“God created the earth”). In other words, both facts and opinions can be either successful or unsuccessful in representing reality, and thus the fact/opinion distinction is not the same as the belief/reality distinction.

Second, consider the subjective/objective distinction. Something is subjective insofar as it is mind-dependent, objective insofar as it is mind-independent. Given this definition, all beliefs (qua beliefs) are subjective, because beliefs depend on minds. And since we’ve been treating both facts and opinions as statements of belief, facts and opinions are similarly subjective: In other words, we can always ask “Whose belief?” or “Whose statement?”

Of course, there are different kinds of beliefs and statements. Some are about objective matters, such as whether there is beer in the refrigerator. Others are about subjective matters, such as whether one would enjoy a Guinness more than a Corona. Perhaps the fact/opinion distinction tracks the distinction between statements with objective content (facts?) and those with subjective content (opinions?). But if so, we would need to revise what usually gets put in each column. In particular, the statement that “God created the earth” will need to move over to the “fact” column, since whether God created the earth is an objective matter – it happened (or not) independently of whether we believe it happened. The same is true for “God exists” – not an opinion, on this schema, but a factual claim (maybe true, maybe false).

It is also by no means obvious that “Genocide is wrong” should remain in the “opinion” column. While some philosophers hold that moral beliefs are subjective, many do not. Moreover, there is a strong commonsense intuition that genocide would be wrong whether anyone believes it’s wrong, suggesting that the claim is objective, not subjective. So while the subjective/objective distinction might be useful in explaining the fact/opinion distinction, adopting this approach would require us to revise our common thinking about facts and opinions. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, since – as we have seen – our common thinking about facts and opinions appears rather confused.

Finally, consider the descriptive/normative distinction. Descriptive statements describe or represent the world; normative statements evaluate it. For example: the statement that thousands were killed in Darfur is descriptive; the statement that such killing was wrong is normative.

The descriptive/normative distinction is sometimes called the fact/value distinction, which might lead it to be confused with the fact/opinion distinction. But it’s controversial whether all normative claims are matters of opinion. Moreover, many of the standard “opinion” examples are not normative: consider “God exists” or “A Democrat will win the presidency in 2016”. If the fact/opinion distinction were identical to the fact/value distinction, then once again we would need to revise our common thinking about facts and opinions.

Having teased apart these various distinctions, and looking back over the several attempts to explain the difference between fact and opinion, we might propose the following definitions:

o A statement of fact is one that has objective content and is well-supported by the available evidence.

o A statement of opinion is one whose content is either subjective or else not well supported by the available evidence.

These definitions have several advantages. First, they capture some of the concerns that lead people to insist on the fact/opinion distinction in the first place – in particular, the concern that claims not be accepted without good evidence. Second, they explain why some objective matters – in particular, controversial matters such God’s existence or predictions about the future – get placed in the category of opinion, despite their objective content. And third, they avoid the sloppiness of some of the earlier proposals. That said, they are still somewhat revisionist: They do not fully capture everyday usage (since everyday usage is messy and confused), but instead serve to refine that usage.

Why worry about the fact/opinion distinction? One reason is that precise thinking is valuable for its own sake. But there’s another, more pragmatic reason. Despite its unclear meaning , the claim “That’s just your opinion” has a clear use : It is a conversation-stopper. It’s a way of diminishing a claim, reducing it to a mere matter of taste which lies beyond dispute. ( De gustibus non est disputandum : there’s no disputing taste.)

Indeed, the “opinion” label is used not only to belittle others’ stances, but also to deflate one’s own. In recognising that a personal belief differs sharply from that of other individuals and cultures, one may conclude, “I guess that’s just my opinion – no better than anyone else’s.” This conclusion may stem from an admirable humility. On the other hand, it can have pernicious effects: it leads to a kind of wishy-washiness, wherein one refrains from standing up for one’s convictions for fear of imposing “mere opinions”. Such reticence conflicts with common sense: surely some opinions are more thoughtful, more informed, more coherent, and more important than others.

This diminishment is especially troubling in moral debates. Moral debates are practical – they’re debates about what to do – and they concern our values : things that matter to us. Either we send troops to Syria or we don’t. Either we allow same-sex couples to marry or we don’t. Either we lie to our parents about what happened to the car or we don’t. Categorising these issues as “matters of opinion” doesn’t make them any less urgent or vital.

I therefore propose that we abandon the ambiguous fact/opinion distinction, and especially the dismissive retort “That’s just your opinion.” We should focus instead on whether people can offer good reasons for the claims they make – reasons that might compel us to share their views. That’s my opinion, anyway. If you think yours is better, don’t merely say so: Say why .

John Corvino is Chair of the Philosophy Department at Wayne State University, the author of What's Wrong With Homosexuality? , and the co-author (with Maggie Gallagher) or Debating Same-Sex Marriage . Read more at www.johncorvino.com .

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That’s what you believe, and you are probably wrong

How to tell opinions from facts.

The fundamental difference between facts and opinion is that facts are based on what is known, whereas opinions are based on what is believed.

• Know for certain that it happened
• Know for certain it’s true
• Know for certain to exist
• Things believed to have happened
• Things believed to be true
• Things believed to exist

It’s very important we are able to tell when we are faced with an opinion masquerading as a fact, because otherwise we’ll alway be subject to being manipulated.

The safest route is to assume that what we are hearing is an opinion until and if we can verify if it’s a fact.

Tentative Truths

Until the claim can be verified, the most we can do is think of it as a tentative truth.

For example, review the following two assertions and determine whether they are fact or opinion:

• I believe the government has proof that JFK’s assassination was a conspiracy.
• The government has proof that JFK’s assassination was a conspiracy.

If you are like most people, you probably categorized the first one as an opinion and the second as a fact. After all, the first one was preceded by the qualifying phrase “I believe”, so that was a no-brainer. But if you did this, you would have been only partially correct. 

Why? Well, look at the second assertion more closely. It is indeed presented as a fact, but is it?

How would you know? Unless you had access to secret government information there is no way to tell either way.

In this type of situation—which you need to be very aware of as it happens all the time—we need to reserve judgement until and if you get to see the actual proof. Until the claim can be verified, the most you can do is think of it as a tentative truth, which cannot be determined to be an opinion or a fact, yet .

There are cases in which you may accept claims as true even if neither can you prove them to be true, nor can you realistically expect some official truth to finally settle the issue. In cases like this you may decide to tentatively believe an assertion based on the credibility of the person making the claim. For example, if a doctor tells you that pursuing a certain diet will allow you to reach your desired weight goal you should be more confident on the validity of that diet than if you read exactly the same claim on some random website.

FACT OR OPINION? CAN YOU TELL?

You think you are good at telling facts from opinions? Maybe. But you can always benefit from practicing this critical skill further.

Enter your information to get our FREE practice exercises so you can enhance your ability to distinguish between fact and opinion!

Get the exercises

The difference between fact and opinion is important because if they were the same, or carried the same weight, we would be unable to tell what’s real from what’s not.

Why does this difference between fact and opinion matter?

• Assess the validity of arguments we read or hear
• Support our own arguments, and
• Make wise decisions
• “I think I deserve the position because I have been working for a long time and have always done a good job, and I would really love to work here.”
• “I think I deserve the job because it requires four years of experience making widgets and successfully managing a production team of at least ten people, and I have a demonstrable track record of making millions of widgets for the last seven years and I managed a team of fifteen, all of whom would be happy to give good references.”

We should always rely on evidence and facts when making big decisions, and we should always be very careful not to let opinions and emotions influence our decisions.

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Critical Thinking

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In today’s dynamic and fast-paced world, critical thinking stands out as an essential competency, seamlessly bridging the gap between soft and hard skills . As we navigate complex challenges and make informed decisions, the ability to think critically enhances our overall skill set. Critical thinking stands at the core of effective decision-making and problem-solving in today’s complex world. It involves analyzing information, evaluating evidence, and considering multiple perspectives to make informed judgments. In a society flooded with information, the ability to think critically ensures that individuals can distinguish between credible sources and misinformation. It empowers people to approach challenges logically and creatively, fostering innovation and resilience. By honing critical thinking skills, individuals enhance their capacity to navigate personal and professional landscapes with clarity and confidence.

What is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is the process of actively and skillfully analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing information gathered from various sources, including observations , experiences, and communication. It involves using logic and reasoning to identify connections, draw conclusions, and make informed decisions, while remaining open-minded and aware of potential biases.

Critical Thinking Examples

• Analyzing News Reports : Evaluating the credibility of sources, checking for biases, and verifying facts before accepting news stories as true.
• Problem-Solving in the Workplace : Identifying the root cause of a problem, considering multiple solutions, and weighing the pros and cons before deciding on the best course of action.
• Scientific Research : Formulating hypotheses, designing experiments to test them, analyzing data objectively, and drawing conclusions based on evidence.
• Budgeting : Assessing income and expenses, prioritizing spending, and making informed decisions to stay within budget while saving for future needs.
• Reading Literature : Interpreting themes, symbols, and character motivations in a novel or poem, and considering how they relate to broader societal issues.
• Debating : Constructing logical arguments, anticipating counterarguments, and using evidence to support one’s position while also listening to and understanding opposing views.
• Medical Diagnosis : Doctors evaluating symptoms, considering possible conditions, ordering tests, and interpreting results to make accurate diagnoses and treatment plans.
• Educational Assessment : Teachers designing fair and effective assessments that measure student understanding and skills, and using the results to improve teaching strategies.
• Ethical Decision-Making : Weighing the moral implications of actions, considering the impact on stakeholders, and making choices that align with ethical principles.
• Legal Analysis : Lawyers analyzing case law, statutes, and evidence to build strong legal arguments and anticipate the strategies of opposing counsel.
• Marketing Strategy : Analyzing market trends, customer needs, and competitor actions to develop effective marketing campaigns that resonate with target audiences.
• Programming : Writing efficient code by understanding the problem, breaking it into smaller parts, and testing and debugging to ensure it works correctly.
• Urban Planning : Evaluating the needs of a community, considering environmental impact, and planning sustainable and functional urban spaces.
• Historical Analysis : Examining historical events, considering the context, and understanding the causes and effects while avoiding presentism (judging the past by today’s standards).
• Personal Decision-Making : Weighing the benefits and drawbacks of significant life choices, such as career changes or moving to a new city, and making decisions based on careful consideration and long-term goals.

For Students

• Activity : Organize debates on current events or controversial topics.
• Example : Have students debate the pros and cons of renewable energy sources versus fossil fuels.
• Activity : Present students with complex problems to solve in groups.
• Example : Task students with designing a plan to reduce plastic waste in their school.
• Activity : Analyze case studies relevant to their subjects.
• Example : In a business class, analyze a company’s decision-making process during a crisis.
• Activity : Conduct Socratic seminars where students discuss philosophical or ethical questions.
• Example : Discuss the ethical implications of artificial intelligence in society.
• Activity : Facilitate brainstorming sessions to generate creative solutions to problems.
• Example : Brainstorm ideas for a community service project to help local residents.
• Activity : Assign research projects requiring critical analysis of sources.
• Example : Research the impact of social media on teenage mental health and present findings.
• Activity : Engage students in role-playing exercises to explore different perspectives.
• Example : Role-play a historical event, with each student taking on the role of a key figure.
• Activity : Use logic puzzles and games to develop reasoning skills.
• Example : Solve Sudoku puzzles or play strategy games like chess.
• Activity : Encourage students to write reflectively about their learning experiences.
• Example : Write an essay on how their views on a topic have changed after a class discussion.
• Activity : Analyze the techniques used in advertisements to influence consumers.
• Example : Evaluate an advertisement’s claims and discuss the strategies used to persuade the audience.

In the Workplace

• Problem Solving : Analyzing the root cause of a recurring issue in production and developing a sustainable solution.
• Decision Making : Evaluating the pros and cons of two potential suppliers based on cost, quality, and reliability.
• Strategic Planning : Assessing market trends to develop a new product line that meets future consumer demands.
• Conflict Resolution : Mediating a disagreement between team members by understanding both perspectives and finding common ground.
• Process Improvement : Reviewing workflow inefficiencies and implementing new procedures to increase productivity.
• Risk Management : Identifying potential risks in a project and devising strategies to mitigate them.
• Customer Service : Addressing a customer complaint by understanding the underlying issue and providing a satisfactory resolution.
• Innovation : Brainstorming and evaluating new ideas for improving a product or service.
• Performance Evaluation : Analyzing employee performance data to provide constructive feedback and development plans.
• Budgeting : Reviewing and adjusting the department budget to ensure financial efficiency without compromising quality.

In the Classroom

• Critical Reading : Analyzing a text to understand the author’s argument, purpose, and use of evidence.
• Scientific Inquiry : Designing and conducting experiments to test hypotheses and draw conclusions based on data.
• Mathematical Problem Solving : Applying logical reasoning to solve complex math problems and explaining the solution process.
• Historical Analysis : Evaluating historical events and their impact from multiple perspectives.
• Debate : Constructing and defending arguments on various topics using evidence and reasoning.
• Project-Based Learning : Developing a research project by identifying a problem, gathering information, and presenting findings.
• Creative Writing : Critiquing peers’ work to provide constructive feedback and suggestions for improvement.
• Ethical Dilemmas : Discussing moral questions and justifying decisions based on ethical principles.
• Literary Analysis : Interpreting themes, symbols, and character development in literature.
• Collaborative Learning : Working in groups to solve problems, share ideas, and reach consensus.

In Everyday Life

• Financial Planning : Creating a budget to manage expenses, savings, and investments.
• Nutrition and Health : Analyzing dietary choices to improve overall health and wellness.
• Time Management : Prioritizing tasks and activities to make efficient use of time.
• Consumer Decisions : Comparing product reviews and prices before making a purchase.
• Home Maintenance : Troubleshooting and fixing household issues, such as plumbing or electrical problems.
• Travel Planning : Researching destinations, comparing travel options, and creating itineraries.
• Parenting : Making informed decisions about children’s education, health, and activities.
• Conflict Resolution : Resolving disputes with family or friends by understanding different viewpoints and finding compromises.
• Personal Development : Setting and pursuing personal goals, such as learning a new skill or improving fitness.
• Community Involvement : Analyzing community issues and participating in local initiatives to address them.

In Healthcare

• Diagnosis : Interpreting patient symptoms and medical history to diagnose conditions accurately.
• Treatment Planning : Developing individualized treatment plans based on patient needs and evidence-based practices.
• Ethical Decision-Making : Addressing ethical dilemmas in patient care, such as end-of-life decisions.
• Patient Communication : Explaining complex medical information to patients and families clearly and compassionately.
• Interdisciplinary Collaboration : Working with other healthcare professionals to provide comprehensive care.
• Medical Research : Designing and conducting research studies to advance medical knowledge and treatments.
• Healthcare Policy Analysis : Evaluating healthcare policies and their impact on patient care and outcomes.
• Clinical Judgment : Assessing and prioritizing patient care needs in emergency situations.
• Quality Improvement : Implementing strategies to improve patient safety and care quality.
• Continuing Education : Staying updated on medical advancements and integrating new knowledge into practice.

In Business

• Market Analysis : Evaluating market trends and consumer behavior to make informed business decisions.
• Strategic Planning : Developing long-term goals and strategies to achieve business objectives.
• Financial Management : Analyzing financial statements to make sound investment and budgeting decisions.
• Risk Assessment : Identifying and mitigating potential business risks.
• Negotiation : Using persuasive arguments and data to negotiate contracts and deals.
• Product Development : Assessing customer needs and market gaps to create new products.
• Customer Feedback Analysis : Collecting and analyzing customer feedback to improve products and services.
• Supply Chain Management : Optimizing supply chain processes to reduce costs and increase efficiency.
• Leadership : Making decisions that motivate and guide employees toward achieving company goals.
• Corporate Social Responsibility : Evaluating the social and environmental impact of business practices and implementing sustainable strategies.
• Research Projects : Conducting independent research, analyzing data, and presenting findings.
• Critical Essays : Writing essays that critically analyze texts, arguments, and ideas.
• Group Projects : Collaborating with classmates to complete assignments and solve problems.
• Class Discussions : Participating in discussions by presenting well-reasoned arguments and listening to others.
• Case Studies : Analyzing real-world scenarios to understand complex issues and propose solutions.
• Exam Preparation : Developing study plans and strategies to prepare for exams effectively.
• Internships : Applying classroom knowledge to real-world situations during internships and reflecting on experiences.
• Time Management : Balancing academic, social, and personal responsibilities.
• Library Research : Using library resources to find credible sources for research papers.
• Extracurricular Activities : Engaging in activities that develop leadership, teamwork, and problem-solving skills.

Critical Thinking scenarios

Here are some critical thinking scenarios along with questions and answers to help you practice and enhance your critical thinking skills:

Scenario 1: Workplace Conflict

Scenario: You are a manager at a company. Two of your team members, John and Lisa, have been having frequent disagreements. These conflicts are starting to affect the team’s productivity and morale.

• What steps would you take to address the conflict between John and Lisa?
• How would you ensure that the resolution is fair and satisfactory for both parties?
• What strategies would you implement to prevent similar conflicts in the future?
• Schedule a private meeting with John and Lisa to discuss the issue.
• Listen to both sides without taking sides to understand the root cause of the conflict.
• Facilitate a mediation session where both parties can express their concerns and work towards a resolution.
• Agree on specific actions that both parties will take to avoid future conflicts.
• Ensure that both John and Lisa feel heard and respected during the mediation process.
• Identify common ground and mutual interests to build a foundation for resolution.
• Set clear expectations and follow-up actions for both parties.
• Monitor the situation and provide support to ensure the conflict does not resurface.
• Foster an open and inclusive team culture where concerns can be raised early.
• Provide regular team-building activities to strengthen relationships.
• Implement conflict resolution training for all team members.
• Establish clear communication channels and protocols for addressing grievances.

Scenario 2: Ethical Dilemma

Scenario: You are a journalist working on a high-profile story. You discover that one of your sources has provided you with information that could harm their reputation if published. However, this information is crucial to your story and serves the public interest.

• What factors would you consider before deciding whether to publish the information?
• How would you balance the public interest with the potential harm to your source?
• What steps would you take to verify the accuracy of the information before publication?
• The significance of the information to the public interest.
• The potential consequences for the source if the information is published.
• The ethical guidelines and professional standards of journalism.
• Any possible legal implications of publishing the information.
• Evaluate whether the public’s right to know outweighs the potential harm to the source.
• Consider anonymizing the source or redacting sensitive details to protect their identity.
• Seek advice from colleagues or an ethics committee to make an informed decision.
• Cross-check the information with other reliable sources.
• Review any documentation or evidence provided by the source.
• Conduct interviews with other individuals who can corroborate the information.
• Ensure that the information is presented in context to avoid misrepresentation.

Scenario 3: Environmental Impact

Scenario: Your company is planning to build a new factory in a rural area. This project promises economic growth and job creation but also raises concerns about environmental impact and the displacement of local wildlife.

• What are the potential environmental impacts of the new factory?
• How would you address the concerns of the local community and environmental groups?
• What measures would you implement to minimize the environmental impact of the factory?
• Air and water pollution from factory emissions and waste.
• Habitat destruction and displacement of local wildlife.
• Increased traffic and noise pollution in the area.
• Strain on local resources such as water and energy.
• Organize community meetings to discuss the project and listen to concerns.
• Collaborate with environmental groups to assess the impact and find solutions.
• Provide transparent information about the factory’s operations and mitigation plans.
• Offer compensation or relocation assistance to affected residents if necessary.
• Implement eco-friendly technologies and practices to reduce emissions and waste.
• Develop a comprehensive environmental management plan.
• Create buffer zones and wildlife corridors to protect local habitats.
• Invest in renewable energy sources to power the factory.
• Improved Problem Solving: Critical thinking helps in analyzing problems systematically and making better decisions.
• Enhanced Communication: It allows for clear expression and understanding of ideas.
• Better Decision Making: Critical thinking leads to more informed and logical choices.
• Adaptability: It enables individuals to adapt to new situations and challenges effectively.
• Informed Opinions: Critical thinkers can form well-grounded opinions and defend them logically.

What are the critical thinking skills?

• Analysis: Breaking down complex information into smaller parts to understand it better.
• Interpretation: Understanding and explaining the meaning of information or an event.
• Inference: Drawing logical conclusions from available information.
• Evaluation: Assessing the credibility and relevance of information and arguments.
• Explanation: Clearly and concisely articulating your reasoning and evidence.
• Self-Regulation: Reflecting on and adjusting one’s own thought processes and biases.

Concepts of critical thinking

• Clarity: Ensuring that the information and arguments are clear and understandable.
• Accuracy: Ensuring that information is true and free from errors.
• Precision: Providing enough detail to understand the specific context.
• Relevance: Ensuring that information and arguments are directly related to the issue at hand.
• Depth: Addressing the complexities and underlying factors of an issue.
• Breadth: Considering different perspectives and alternatives.
• Logic: Ensuring that the reasoning is coherent and follows a logical sequence.
• Fairness: Being open-minded and impartial in evaluating information and arguments.
• Identify the Problem or Question: Clearly define what you are trying to solve or understand.
• Gather Information: Collect relevant data, evidence, and viewpoints.
• Analyze the Information: Break down the information to understand the relationships and implications.
• Evaluate the Evidence: Assess the quality, credibility, and relevance of the evidence.
• Formulate Conclusions: Draw reasoned conclusions based on the analysis and evaluation.
• Communicate the Conclusion: Clearly express your findings and reasoning.
• Reflect and Reassess: Continuously reflect on the process and outcomes to improve your critical thinking skills.

Basics of critical thinking

• Open-Mindedness: Being willing to consider new ideas and perspectives.
• Curiosity: Having a strong desire to learn and understand.
• Skepticism: Questioning the validity of information and not taking things at face value.
• Objectivity: Striving to remain unbiased and impartial.
• Rationality: Basing decisions on logical reasoning rather than emotions.
• Socratic Questioning: Asking a series of probing questions to explore complex ideas and uncover underlying assumptions.
• Mind Mapping: Visually organizing information to see connections and relationships.
• Brainstorming: Generating a wide range of ideas and solutions without immediate judgment.
• Role Playing: Considering different perspectives by imagining oneself in another person’s position.
• SWOT Analysis: Evaluating the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to a particular situation or decision.
• Thought Experiments: Imagining hypothetical scenarios to explore potential outcomes and implications.

How to Practice and Use Critical Thinking

The critical thinking process incorporates various other logical soft skills that will help you analyze and interpret all the information to create an informed decision. These soft skills include observational skills, problem-solving, communication skills, and analytical thinking. If you sharpen all of these elements and characteristics you will inadvertently enhance your critical thinking.

Step 1: Practice One’s Observational and Perception Skills

We use our senses to perceive the world around us, whether it would be sight, smell, a, and sensations. One should practice utilizing these senses to create logical inferences and deductions that will help out brain unconsciously absorb and analyze these types of information. The more one practices their senses the better their thinking process will be.

Step 2: Enhance One’s Problem-Solving Skills

Logic and problem-solving allow the person to deduce and connect information that the environment or circumstance presents to the said person. You need to practice your problem-solving skills via puzzles, logical reasoning tests, and ethical dilemmas. Practicing one’s problem-solving skills will allow the person to efficiently establish cause-and-effect  reasoning or properly create logical decisions.

Step 3: Prepare and Practice One’s Communication Skills

Communication is a pivotal skill we often use when interacting with other people. This type of skill includes body language , assertive communication , concise language, and other communication skills. In critical thinking, a person must be able to properly communicate their thoughts and thinking process to other people, which will create a collaborative environment. Other times, the perfect solution might not be present without the need for communication.

Step 4: Practice Analysis of the Situation

One’s analytical thinking skills allow the person to take note of various elements and characteristics of the situation and analyze these elements’ contribution to the current situation or circumstance. You need to practice your analytical thinking to properly process the current situation or circumstance you find yourself in.

Why Do Employers Value Critical Thinking Skills?

Employers value critical thinking skills because they enable employees to analyze situations, make informed decisions, and solve problems effectively. Critical thinkers can evaluate information from various sources, identify logical connections, and foresee potential consequences, which leads to better strategic planning and innovation. These skills also enhance communication and collaboration, as critical thinkers can present their ideas clearly and consider different perspectives. Ultimately, critical thinking contributes to improved productivity, adaptability, and competitiveness in the workplace.

What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking involves analyzing and evaluating information to make reasoned, logical decisions, and judgments. It emphasizes evidence-based reasoning and problem-solving.

Why is critical thinking important?

Critical thinking enhances decision-making, problem-solving, and the ability to analyze complex situations. It is crucial for personal and professional growth.

How can I improve my critical thinking skills?

Improve critical thinking by questioning assumptions, seeking diverse perspectives, practicing problem-solving, and engaging in reflective thinking regularly.

What are the key components of critical thinking?

Key components include analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation. These skills help in understanding and assessing arguments and evidence.

How does critical thinking benefit students?

Students benefit from critical thinking by improving academic performance, enhancing research skills, and fostering independent thinking and creativity.

What role does critical thinking play in the workplace?

In the workplace, critical thinking aids in decision-making, innovation, conflict resolution, and improving productivity and efficiency.

Can critical thinking be taught?

Yes, critical thinking can be taught through targeted educational programs, exercises, and practice that focus on developing analytical and evaluative skills.

What is an example of critical thinking in everyday life?

An example is evaluating news sources for credibility before accepting information as true. This involves analyzing evidence and assessing biases.

How does critical thinking relate to problem-solving?

Critical thinking is integral to problem-solving as it involves analyzing the problem, evaluating options, and making reasoned decisions based on evidence.

What are common barriers to critical thinking?

Common barriers include cognitive biases, emotional influences, lack of relevant information, and social pressures. Overcoming these requires awareness and deliberate practice.

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• Instructive
• Professional

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