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9 Descriptions of Critical Thinking Within 140 Characters

Can critical thinking be adequately explained in less than 140 characters?

One of the most frustrating issues in critical thinking research is that regarding definition. How can something be researched, let alone taught, if we don’t know what it is? For example, research indicates that while over 90% of academic staff believes that it’s important to provide students with opportunities to engage critical thinking (CT), over 50% of students felt that they were not actually provided such opportunities (University of Western Australia, 2007). According to one third-level educator in qualitative research by Lloyd and Bahr (2010), "we expect students to do it [think critically], now you are questioning me on my understanding of it, I wonder if I actually understand it myself." Though debate is ongoing over the definition of CT, one conceptualisation stands out, based on consensus forty-six experts in the field—the Delphi Report (Facione, 1990, p.3) defines CT as:

“… purposeful, self-regulatory judgment which results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well as explanation of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations upon which that judgment is based.”

This is certainly a thorough description; but, truth be told, upon my first read of this definition, I wasn't entirely sure that some of those are even actual words! In my own research (e.g., Dwyer, 2017; Dwyer, Hogan & Stewart, 2012; 2014; 2015), CT has been defined as:

“a metacognitive process, consisting of skills and dispositions, that, when applied through purposeful, self-regulatory, reflective judgment, increase the chances of producing a logical solution to a problem or a valid conclusion to an argument”.

However, in the context of presenting CT to the broader, non-academic population, I must admit that this may not be the most accessible definition either. When I teach CT, I often break to summarise, in the context of the lesson, what CT is as simply as possible. Thus, over the years, I have accrued various simplified descriptions of CT. Quite recently, I was asked, if forced to explain or describe CT within the confines of 140 characters (as per some social media), how would I go about it? I saw this question as posing an interesting opportunity and, so, I use it here to present ‘9 Descriptions of Critical Thinking within 140 characters.'

1. “Playing Devil’s Advocate” (24 characters)

Reflective judgment is a fundamental aspect of CT. Its polar opposite is often referred to as intuitive judgment. We can’t turn off intuition. It’s always going to tell us what it thinks we should do. The problem with intuition, of course, is that it’s biased—reinforced by similar experiences or choices in the past. During CT, a good way of overcoming this bias is through playing Devil’s Advocate, which refers to truly considering alternatives.

2. “Taking your time and using caution with thinking” (48 characters)

Consistent with the explanation above, the appropriate application of reflective judgment requires time. If your thinking is automatic, then it’s not critical. Research indicates that delaying a decision by even a 10th of a second significantly increases decision accuracy (Teichert, Ferrera & Grinband, 2014). Now, that’s not to say that an extra 10th of a second will help solve all your problems, but if you truly care about decisions, give yourself extra time to think about them and avoid simply trusting your gut (i.e. intuitive judgment). Furthermore, as CT involves acknowledgment of the limits, certainty, and nature of knowledge, we need to be cautious in the manner we present our thinking. This will of course require additional time as well.

3. “Leaving emotion at the door” (27 characters)

A large body of research indicates a negative impact of emotion on decision-making (e.g., Kahneman & Frederick, 2002; Slovic et al., 2002; Strack, Martin, and Schwarz, 1988), higher-order cognition (Anticevic, Repovs & Barch, 2010; Chuah et al., 2010; Denkova et al., 2010; Dolcos & McCarthy, 2006) and cognition, more generally (Iordan, Dolcos, & Dolcos, 2013; Johnson et al., 2005; Most et al., 2005; Shackman et al., 2006). CT is only possible if emotion is removed (as much as it can be) from the process. Simply, emotion biases our thinking and blurs the line between what is true and what we want to be true.

4. “The application of specific skills, dispositions and reflective judgment to draw a conclusion or solve a problem.” (112 characters)

This description is perhaps the easiest to explain as it’s simply a summary of the definition applied in the introduction; that is, a metacognitive process, consisting of skills and dispositions, that, when applied through purposeful, self-regulatory, reflective judgment, increase the chances of producing a logical solution to a problem or a valid conclusion to an argument.

Intermission: A Summary Thus Far

Okay, let’s hold on a second. Though the four explanations provided thus far are accurate, they remain problematic. The first three explain CT to some extent, but don’t truly encapsulate the ‘full story’ of CT. The problem with the fourth explanation is that though it is comprehensive, it’s also on the vague side. What skills? What’s disposition got to do with it? What’s reflective judgment? Maybe it’s not possible to explain all of CT in 140 characters to those uninitiated to educational research. In truth, I felt obliged to further elaborate on each of the four to ensure clarity. Are any of the four sufficient without further explanation?

Perhaps a better approach is to leave this attempt to explain CT in these four incomplete or vague ways and use the remaining five explanations to discuss the finer details, but without further elaboration? For example, let’s take the fourth explanation and try to make it less vague. Let’s clarify all of its intricacies with the next five 140 character explanations. That is, let’s treat the fourth explanation as an ‘umbrella’ for the following five:

5. Skill involving the identification of the structure of an argument, the role propositions play within, as well as their sources (127 characters)

6. Skill in assessing an argument’s strengths and weaknesses regarding credibility, relevance, logical strength, balance and biases (128 characters)

7. Skill in gathering evidence and drawing a reasonable conclusion (64 characters)

8. An inclination, tendency or willingness to perform the necessary skills (73 characters)

9. Understanding the nature and limits of knowing; and how this can influence the defense of reasoning and potential falsification (128 characters)

Conclusion

Perhaps the obvious way of looking at this exercise is as a failure. Though attempts at explaining CT in less than 140 characters were offered, these either did not address the ‘full story’ or were too vague for any real meaning to be derived from those unfamiliar with educational research—or perhaps even those in the field of educational research! Despite this failure, something positive emerged—a great lesson was learned. It may be the case that efforts made to simplify the concept of CT actually lend themselves to increasing unnecessary confusion, uncertainty, and/or debate. Perhaps long explanations are necessary to ensure both accuracy and clarity. Though, admittedly, better efforts can be made with respect to ensuring the latter, particularly for non-expert audiences!

References

Anticevic, A., Repovs, G., Corlett, P. R., & Barch, D. M. (2011). Negative and nonemotional interference with visual working memory in schizophrenia. Biological Psychiatry, 70, 1159–1168. doi:10.1016/j. biopsych.2011.07.010

Chuah, L. Y. M., Dolcos, F., Chen, A. K., Zheng, H., Parimal, S., & Chee, M. W. L. (2010). Sleep deprivation and interference by emotional distracters. Sleep, 33, 1305–1313.

Denkova, E., Wong, G., Dolcos, S., Sung, K., Wang, L., Coupland, N., & Dolcos, F. (2010). The impact of anxiety-inducing distraction on cognitive performance: A combined brain imaging and personality investigation. PLoS ONE, 5, e14150. doi:10.1371/journal. pone.0014150

Dolcos, F., & McCarthy, G. (2006). Brain systems mediating cognitive interference by emotional distraction. Journal of Neuroscience, 26, 2072–2079. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5042-05.2006

Dwyer, C.P. (2017). Critical thinking: Conceptual perspectives and practical guidelines.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Dwyer, C.P., Hogan, M.J., & Stewart, I. (2012). An evaluation of argument mapping as a method of enhancing critical thinking performance in e-learning environments. Metacognition and Learning, 7, 219-244.

Dwyer, C. P., Hogan, M. J., & Stewart, I. (2014). An integrated critical thinking framework for the 21st century. Thinking Skills & Creativity, 12, 43–52.

Dwyer, C. P., Hogan, M. J., & Stewart, I. (2015). The evaluation of argument mapping-infused critical thinking instruction as a method of enhancing reflective judgment performance. Thinking Skills & Creativity, 16, 11–26.

Facione, P.A. (1990). The Delphi report: Committee on pre-college philosophy. Millbrae, CA: California Academic Press.

Iordan, A. D., Dolcos, S., & Dolcos, F. (2013). Neural signatures of the response to emotional distraction: A review of evidence from brain imaging investigations. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7, 200. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00200

Johnson, M. K., Raye, C. L., Mitchell, K. J., Greene, E. J., Cunningham, W. A., & Sanislow, C. A. (2005). Using fMRI to investigate a component process of reflection: Prefrontal correlates of refreshing a just-activated representation. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 5, 339–361. doi: 10.3758/CABN.5.3.339

Kahneman, D. & Frederick, S. (2002). Representativeness revisited: Attribute substitution in intuitive judgment. In T. Gilovich, D. Griffin & D. Kahneman (Eds), Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment, 49-81. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Lloyd, M., & Bahr, N. (2010). Thinking critically about critical thinking in higher education. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 4(2), 1–5.

Most, S. B., Chun, M. M., Widders, D. M., & Zald, D. H. (2005). Attentional rubbernecking: Cognitive control and personality in emotioninduced blindness. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 12, 654–661. doi: 10.3758/BF03196754

Shackman, A. J., Sarinopoulos, I., Maxwell, J. S., Pizzagalli, D. A., Lavric, A., & Davidson, R. J. (2006). Anxiety selectively disrupts visuospatial working memory. Emotion, 6, 40–61. doi: 10.1037/1528- 3542.6.1.40

Slovic, P., Finucane, M., Peters, E., & MacGregor, D. G. (2002). Rational actors or rational fools: Implications of the affect heuristic for behavioral economics. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 31(4), 329-342.

Strack, F., Martin, L. L., & Schwarz, N. (1988). Priming and communication: Social determinants of information use in judgments of life satisfaction. European Journal of Social Psychology, 18, 5, 429-442.

Teichert, T., Ferrera, V. P., & Grinband, J. (2014). Humans optimize decision-making by delaying decision onset. PloS one, 9(3), e89638.

University of Western Australia (2007). ACE and NSSE. Retrieved August 28, 2010, from http://www.catl.uwa.edu.au/CATLyst/archive/2007/1/ace_and_nsse

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