The last type of thinking which relates to reflective thinking that we discuss in this course is critical thinking. As its name suggests critical thinking is about considering information and thinking about it in a critical or analytic way.

There are four key aspects to thinking critically:

Questioning and Analysing

This is where you think about the assumptions you are making or the assumptions that the person making a claim are making. It is also about identifying biases and exploring different perspectives.

Evaluating Information

Here you assess how credible the source is. This might include thinking about incorrect logic and considering what the evidence actually means.

Forming Judgements

It is also about drawing conclusions from the evidence given. You also need to be able to justify these conclusions and consider the potential consequences.

Active Learning

By thinking critically you are actively taking part in your learning which significantly improves your learning process.

So critical thinking has many similarities to reflective thinking but with a focus on thinking about whether information that you receive is correct and what the consequences are.

Example

The Encyclopedia of Gender and Society (O’Brien, 2009) states that "Adult male brains are on average 10% bigger than female brains".

But what does this mean?

• This is probably true as it comes from a peer reviewed encyclopedia.

• Does this mean that men are more intelligent than men? Absolutely not! The vast majority of studies on intelligence show no difference in average intelligence between men and women.

• The word average is used so could this mean that some women have larger brains than men?

• A larger size brain does not imply more neurons. Is there are difference in the number of neurons in men's and women's brains?

• Has body size been taken into account?

• How many people were examined? Is this statistically significant?

• Etc.

You can see from this example that some people might jump to a number of conclusions that are incorrect and that critical thinking helps us to think about what a statement actually means.

Practice

• When you are presented with a 'fact', question what this 'fact' actually means

• Is there information to back it up?

• Are you making assumptions about what it means?

• What else could it mean?