Defined: “Critical thinking is a technique for evaluating information and ideas, for deciding what to accept and believe.” Dan Kurland
What Is Critical Thinking?
A Set of Values
- Thinking for yourself, as compared to accepting unquestioningly what others want you to believe.
- Welcoming the opportunity to explore new ideas, points of view and possibilities.
- Using reason to investigate questions, evaluate ideas, advocate positions, and resolve conflicts.
- Including the voices and perspectives of diverse parties in the discussion of issues.
- Weighing ideas based on their merits, not who advocates them.
- Achieving the best possible resolution of questions, as compared to winning arguments for the sake of winning them.
A Set of Skills
- Inquiry Skills: the ability to frame questions and gather information.
- Understanding and Evaluation Skills: the ability to understand others’ ideas and evaluate arguments offered in support of them.
- Advocacy Skills: the ability to formulate positions and support them in a manner that promotes reasoned discussion.
East Tennessee State University