The Essence of the Concept of Critical Thinking and theories and definitions based on philosophy and psychology
A review of the literature on critical thinking revealed a lack of general consensus on the best definition of critical thinking, what critical thinking skills can and should be taught, and the most appropriate framework for this training. In general, even the education reformers did not agree on terminology. While some scholars use "critical thinking" and "higher-order thinking" interchangeably, others make a clear distinction. The relationship between critical thinking, higher order thinking, thinking skills and other terms such as informal logic, informal reasoning, "problem solving", "argumentation", "critical reasoning", "reflexive reasoning" and "critical cognition" are more difficult. Other areas of controversy and concern include:
the level of specificity of critical thinking,
differences between the thinking of experts and novices in the discipline, and the extent to which novices can learn to think like experts,
difficulties
whether to count critical thinking is a process or set of skills.
Although a number of scholars have tried to bring order to this "conceptual swamp," no one has yet come up with a definition or theory that can be accepted as definitive.) [3; 45]
One of the main obstacles to reaching a consensus on this issue has been the substantiation of different theories and models by two separate disciplines relevant to this study: philosophy and psychology. Philosophers have focused on the nature and quality of the products of critical thinking, such as evidence analysis. Psychologists have focused their attention on the process of cognition, components and operations used in solving academic and practical problems.
In addition, cognitive and developmental psychology is based on empirical research, while philosophy relies on logical reasoning to draw conclusions. While most theorists have continued to base their theories and definitions on critical thinking or higher order reasoning in one discipline or another, some educators have attempted to develop a rigorous and comprehensive theory of critical thinking emphasized the importance of relying on the teaching of philosophy and psychology.
Critical thinking has been associated with philosophy since the time of Socrates. Its centrality in the current education reform movement is closely linked to the rise informal logic as a special discipline of philosophy since the early 1970s. Informal logic is the branch of logic concerned with the interpretation, evaluation, and construction of arguments and arguments used in natural language; informal logicians tend to view critical thinking as a broader term that includes and builds on the findings of informal logic, but also benefits from other forms of logic as well as competencies outside of the field. Informal logic has served as a strong theoretical basis for critical thinking, but it is somewhat narrowly focused on reasoning and argumentation.
While informal logic has served as a rallying point for developing and testing philosophically based theories of critical thinking, philosophers have also turned to other components of critical thinking. The various theories of critical thinking certainly differ in important respects, but they also reveal common problems. R. H. Johnson notes that they are similar: thoughtful-skeptical or skeptical attitude, sensitivity to assumptions of value or ideology, insistence on adequate justification before accepting controversial claims, common sense and evaluation of the various criteria used for proof. (whether general or substantive), skills and judgment in the analysis and evaluation of statements and evidence, self-reflection, awareness of one's own possible biases or assumptions, the ability to be sensitive.
Johnson's analysis reflects the emphasis in philosophy-based approaches to critical thinking on the intellectual theories and skills which are taught by informal logic, but also notes philosophers' preoccupation with affective tendencies to apply these skills [22; 36]
Richard Paul, a philosopher whose work is widely used by scholars who use philosophical and cognitive approaches to critical thinking, developed the critical thinking model used as an experimental method in this study. Paul's theory of critical thinking is rooted in the philosophical tradition and generally supports critical theorists based on informal logic, but this analysis avoids much of the formal terminology and reflects findings from other fields. Unlike many informal logicians, he avoided taxonomies, explanations of concepts and skills, and details of argument analysis. Most of Paul's work is devoted to thinking about everyday questions or problems that cannot be included in the structure and content of one academic field of knowledge. Paul often referred to these poorly structured interdisciplinary problems as polylogical problems.
Paul also emphasized the distinction between "strong sense" critical thinking and "weak sense" critical thinking, reflecting the strong moral preoccupation with bias and egocentric thinking prevalent in his theory. His concept of the intellectual virtues is a boundary between (a) difficult or weak thinkers who use or attempt to use their thinking abilities to protect their own interests and demonstrate disproportion rather than applying the thinking of others that serves to establish it the same skills for their arguments, and (b) true critical thinkers, able to recognize and discard their own egocentric and ethnocentric biases, apply their reasoning skills to their arguments, and choose the truth or the morally preferable of those seeking an alternative. Thus, self-criticism became another strand of Paul's theory [44].
Paul noted that critical thinking can be defined in a variety of ways that should not be seen as mutually exclusive. His various definitions of critical thinking include "thinking about your thinking the way you think in order to improve your thinking" and is a specific type of purposeful thinking that a thinker engages in regularly and habitually. criteria and intellectual standards of thinking, implementation of the construction of thinking, management of the construction of thinking according to standards, evaluation of the effectiveness of thinking according to the goal, criteria and standards.
These definitions highlight the importance of examining the cognitive dimension of critical thinking, independent thinking, and evaluating thinking (one's own or someone else's) against normative standards. He viewed critical thinking as a means of combating the influence of unrecognized prejudices. We all have assumptions and irrational habits that lead to problems. His refusal to confine himself to a single definition of critical thinking reflected his interest in developing a comprehensive conceptualization of critical thinking based on findings from various fields and perspectives.
Like many other philosophers, Paul argued that critical thinking requires the integration of the cognitive and affective domains. The content of any discipline must be seen and taught as a way of thinking (for example, history as historical thinking, and biology as biological thinking) and its model from a critical point of view.
Thinking about a subject area or problem involves the cognitive elements of thinking; normative standards and affective dispositions. It consists of thinking about a field of study, a question, a document, a problem, etc., in terms of eight "elements": purpose, question, information, concepts, assumptions, viewpoints, conclusions, and conclusions. In addition, Paul argues that a thinker should adhere to universal intellectual standards (e.g., accuracy, precision, accuracy, relevance) regardless of the field or issues being considered. Appropriate character or intellectual qualities (e.g., empathy, humility, honesty, perseverance, fairness) help people overcome misconceptions and unfounded assumptions that lead to problems. Paul's model also advocates teaching students to evaluate their own thinking as expressed in reading, writing, listening, or speaking, because a person who cannot evaluate their own thinking cannot be considered a critical thinker. Socratic debate is an important component in encouraging students to explore their own reasoning, allow for intellectual compromises, and support interdisciplinary thinking [ 30; 111]
On the other hand, Paul often addresses his writings to university and college professors, and his model seems equally appropriate for higher education. Paul's published research also demonstrates the versatility of his approach to critical thinking. His recent research projects include co-authoring the US Department of Education's National Critical Thinking Assessment Framework and the development of the College National Critical Thinking Assessment Framework, including an extensive study of universities, university professors, and critical thinking training. Because of its suitability for document analysis, argumentation, and ill-posed problems, Paul's model is well suited for teaching history. It is a very flexible, theoretically rich and broadly applicable model that is compatible with different learning styles as it requires specific application by individual teachers. Rather than learning to think instead of teaching course content, this is a more thoughtful approach to teaching content. An added benefit of the program is its flexibility to be used in a wide range of academic and real-life situations, which students can use in a variety of situations.
Reznik argues that the essence of the philosophical contribution to thinking is to promote disciplined thinking, to protect people from their natural inclinations towards egocentric or ethnocentric thinking, and to protect them from accepting prejudice and false conclusions written as a tool, not as a job to consider alternatives [43].
Unlike philosophers, psychologists draw their ideas about critical thinking primarily from research in cognitive and developmental psychology, as well as theories of intelligence. More often than philosophers, cognitive and developmental psychologists have associated critical thinking with problem solving, viewing critical thinking and problem solving as equivalent terms or as a subset of the other. For example, Halpern defined critical thinking as "purposeful, reasoned, and purposeful thinking." It is a type of thinking associated with problem solving, inference, calculating probabilities, and making decisions.” Although Halpern uses the term critical thinking, most cognitively based theorists prefer to use "thinking skills" (or, more narrowly, higher-order thinking skills) rather than critical thinking as a general term for action. In total, psychologists have researched and identified critical thinking skills, often including dispositions (the tendencies, sensitivities, and values required to be good critical thinkers) and standards (criteria for evaluating thinking) they ignore. Despite this general trend, in recent years several prominent psychologists have focused on the importance of student biases and have emphasized them in their models of critical thinking.
Although Bloom and colleagues' classification of learning objectives for the cognitive domain continues to serve as the basis for some psychology-based classification systems and thinking skills development programs, more recently cognitive research is rapidly expanding the knowledge base for richer and more diverse models of critical thinking. Halpern, King, Sternberg, Tishman, Perkins, Jay, and others have developed critical thinking models based on their own and others' cognitive research [16; 25]
Some cognitive researchers have focused on the study of internal knowledge representations or schemas in experts and novices in various fields. Over the past fifteen years, this nascent research into cognitive skills and the underlying knowledge structure has expanded our understanding of how problem-solving processes change with increasing knowledge and experience. In the early 1980s, this branch of cognitive research focused on solving problems in well-structured fields such as physics. Recently, history has become a subject of interest for emerging cognitive scientists. Research on expert and elementary thinking has shed light on domain-specific characteristics of critical thinking and helped clarify learning objectives, such as helping students understand and use disciplines and thought patterns. For example, Wineburg found evidence of three basic heuristics used by experienced historians in interpreting historical documents that guide but do not guarantee results. They are source, checking the source of the document before reading the body text; contextualization, determining the time and place of the text; and verification, comparison of information from different texts. The researchers also tested methods to help students develop the critical thinking skills used by professionals, but the results should be considered at least preliminary in history. Thus, in history, as in other fields, early research has clearly identified some of the skills and attitudes that characterize expert thinking, as well as some of the problems that teachers face in helping students become critical thinkers, pointed out difficulties, various academic and everyday issues.
We understand critical thinking as goal-directed, self-regulating reasoning leading to interpretation, analysis, evaluation and conclusion, as well as an explanation of factual, conceptual, methodological, criteria or contextual reasoning based on this judgment. Critical thinking is important as a research tool. Thus, critical thinking is a liberating force in education and a powerful resource in personal and social life. While critical thinking is not synonymous with good thinking, it is a common and self-correcting human phenomenon. The ideal critical thinker is usually inquisitive, knowledgeable, trusting reason, open-minded, flexible, fair in judgment, honest in confronting personal contradictions, cautious in reasoning, willing to reconsider, solve problems, and sort out complexities. questions, diligence in seeking relevant information, prudence in selecting criteria, focus on the investigation, and perseverance in seeking specific results such as the subject matter and circumstances of the investigation. Thus, cultivating good critical thinkers means achieving this ideal. It combines the development of critical thinking skills with the cultivation of tendencies that consistently lead to useful conclusions and are the foundation of a rational and democratic society.
This statement includes skills in the cognitive and affective areas. The core cognitive skills (with the exception of sub-skills) are interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation. Affective dispositions are included in the above statement and discussed in detail in the report. Thus, the Delphi experts were able to reach consensus on a broad definition of critical thinking that includes cognitive skills and affective tendencies, but, as Paul points out, critical thinking has a normative dimension. They were deeply divided on the question of whether to include his analysis or not.
Like the Delphi experts, many other scholars have viewed higher-order thinking as a general term that includes critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making. While problem solving 30 involves and shares similar skills, critical thinking focuses on reasoning, debating, and reasoning about poorly formulated problems. Critical thinking includes the skills of interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation and self-regulation. It also includes an affective bias. The Delphi Consensus Statement is used in this study as a definition of critical thinking that includes the intellectual standards recognized by Paul.
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