OVERVIEW
C
ritical thinking is a complex of intellectual skills that are consciously, de-liberately, and consistently applied by a thinker when he or she is confronted by a body of data from which a conclusion or solution must be derived, or by an argument of a third party who wishes the thinker to accept a predetermined interpretation, point of view, or conclusion (Hudgins, 1988). In this sense, critical thinking is regarded in the broadest terms rather than narrowly, and it is thought of as an intellectual process that is a natural, if sometimes unre-fined, outgrowth of normal educational efforts. Therefore, occasions for crit-ical thinking occur frequently rather than rarely, and in a large number of sit-uations, not in a few narrowly defined special cases.Critical thinking consists of two levels of intellectual skills in attempting to resolve problems. One level of skill focuses, guides, and directs the process of critical thinking. The other set of skills is used by thinkers to resolve im-mediate problems. Thus, critical thinking results when the two levels of in-tellectual skills are working in concert to resolve problems (Berk, 1991;
French & Rhoder, 1992; Staib, 2003).
In the final analysis, critical thinking, according to the authors, consists of the thinker’s deliberately and purposefully taking a series of actions to (a) un-derstand the nature of the difficulty before him or her, (b) conduct an ex-haustive surveillance of the information available that can be brought to bear on the difficulty (including an awareness of what information is not avail-able), and (c) possess one or more criteria against which the available infor-mation can be appropriately assessed.
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It was always believed that students would think if teachers could concen-trate instruction on developing skills and sconcen-trategies in the basic skill areas of reading, writing, and arithmetic as well as on disseminating knowledge in the content areas. There was an assumption that there was little need for provid-ing instruction on thinkprovid-ing. Schools have placed little, if any, emphasis on en-hancing thinking skills. As a result, over the past few decades, critical think-ing among students has declined dramatically (Benderson, 1984). Declinthink-ing test scores have been cited as evidence that students can perform well in deal-ing with rote tasks but not with those demanddeal-ing critical thought (Jones, 1990; Marzano, 1994).
For example, Chipman and Segal (1995) suggested that the results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) demonstrated that the problems in student writing lie in the thinking areas, not the mechanics; the problems in reading lie in comprehension, not decoding; and the problems in mathematics lie in solving problems, not computing. Generally, basic skills in reading, math, writing, and science have improved, but students’ abilities to interpret, evaluate, make judgments, and form supportive arguments continue to decline (Benderson, 1984). According to Nickerson (1991), it is possible for a student to finish twelve years of education without becoming a compe-tent thinker. Thus, it appears schools are producing adult citizens who lack critical thinking skills.
However, over the past few years, there has been an increasing interest in incorporating thinking instruction into the elementary and secondary curricu-lum. This interest has been expressed by professional organizations associ-ated with the various academic disciplines as well as by organizations with a broad perspective such as the College Board (Marzano, 1994). While some states have incorporated the teaching of thinking skills into the overall cur-riculum, many more states have not incorporated critical thinking skills into the curriculum. Basically, other concerns have pressed for attention, such as ensuring school safety, preparing for standardized tests, and negotiating teacher pay.
PRINCIPLES AND COMPONENTS OF CRITICAL THINKING AND PROBLEM SOLVING SKILLS
There are several components or strategies associated with critical thinking and problem solving skills. The major strategies associated with the processes include generic skills, content-specific skills, and content knowledge.
A major difference between problem solving and critical thinking is that critical thinking does not seem to involve a series of sequential steps. In
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ical thinking, the skills and strategies are not seen as part of a sequence, but rather as a group of skills and strategies chosen and used as needed by the par-ticular task (French & Rhoder, 1992). They can be used alone or in any com-bination.
In problem solving, students must employ a series of sequential steps.
Strategies begin with a careful consideration of what problem needs to be solved, what resources and information are available, and how the problem can be graphically presented (Katayama & Robinson, 1998; Robin & Kiewra, 1995). Following steps systematically and sequentially requires that some type of plan be developed. A plan developed by Bransford and Stein (1993), called IDEAL, appears to provide such a plan. The five steps in their plan in-clude the following:
I Identify problems and opportunities.
D Define goals and represent the problem.
E Explore possible strategies.
A Anticipate outcomes and act.
L Look back and learn.
Research findings by Bransford and Stein (1993), Martinez (1998), and Mayer and Wittrock (1996) agree that by employing systematic and sequential steps, problem solving is a skill that can be taught and applied by children.
Sternberg (1995) related that most problems students face in school may re-quire careful reading and some thought, but little creativity. This is a challenge to the schools to teach creative problem solving techniques. Creative problem solving techniques may be taught through incubation, suspension of judgment, appropriate climates, and analysis (Beyer, 1998; Frederiksen, 1984). These au-thors have adequately defined and provided examples for each of the strate-gies; therefore, we will not attempt to repeat their findings. Rather, the reader is referred to their research.
One set of generic skills that is frequently included in a list of generic crit-ical thinking skills is that of reasoning (Benderson, 1984; Cannon & Wein-stein, 1985). The question of what is involved in reasoning has intrigued philosophers and psychologists for years. Nickerson (1991) claimed that rea-soning involves the production and evaluation of arguments, the making of inferences and the drawing of conclusions, and the generation and testing of hypotheses. It requires deduction and induction, both analysis and synthesis, and both criticality and creativity. Nickerson (1991) identified language, logic, inventiveness, knowledge, and truth as concepts closely related to rea-soning. Beyer (1991) articulated that reasoning is the “lubricant” in many critical thinking skills.
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Closely allied to reasoning is the role of logic in critical thinking. Whether logic is considered part of critical thinking directly or a component of rea-soning, the skills associated with logical thinking are frequently included in a generic list of skills (Benderson, 1984; Nickerson, 1996). Beyer (1991) gave ten mental operations that will aid critical thinking that is associated with log-ical principles. The list includes determining the reliability of a source, the factual accuracy of a statement, and the strength of an argument; distinguish-ing between verifiable facts and value claims, as well as between relevant and irrelevant information; and detecting bias, unstated assumptions, ambiguous arguments, and logical fallacies and inconsistencies in a line of reasoning.
While many approaches to critical thinking stress reasoning and/or a set of specific critical thinking skills, there is a growing recognition that critical thinking involves far more than reasoning and skills. There is increasing em-phasis on the use of strategies in critical thinking. These strategies consist of cognitive, active, support, and metacognitive strategies.
Organization and reorganization of information and ideas is a critical cog-nitive strategy for thinking (Presseisen, 1988). The use of organizational strategies helps thinkers identify and clarify relationships among information and ideas, including linking new information to prior knowledge and new in-formation to new inin-formation.
There are two active study strategies that are useful in developing critical thinking: self-questioning and summarizing. By asking themselves questions, thinkers are able to make themselves active in the learning process (Wong, 1995). Wong (1995) indicated that self-questioning could have three major purposes. It enables thinkers to become active participants, to engage in metacognitive processes, and to activate prior knowledge and relate new in-formation to it. Self-questioning fosters a spirit of problem solving, which is essential to developing critical thinking skills.
Another active study strategy that is effective in developing critical think-ing skills is summarizthink-ing information. In addition to bethink-ing able to organize and reorganize information and ask questions about the information, a thinker must be able to manage information in some usable manner. An effective way to manage information is to summarize it so that the information needed to suit the thinker’s purpose is available.
Support strategies have been cited as particularly significant in the promo-tion of critical thinking skills (Ennis & Millman, 1985, 1986). Support strate-gies involve fostering a positive attitude and strong motivation toward critical thinking and problem solving. A disposition toward higher-order thinking is fre-quently cited as a characteristic of a good thinker (Nickerson, 1991; Halpern, 1987). Nickerson (1991) contended that a disposition toward thinking includes fair-mindedness, openness to evidence on any issue, respect for opinions that
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differ from one’s own, inquisitiveness and a desire to be informed, and a ten-dency to reflect before acting.
Researchers and educators have found that critical thinkers use metacogni-tive knowledge and apply metacognimetacogni-tive strategies in a well-planned, pur-poseful method through the critical thinking process. Metacognition is knowledge about and awareness of one’s own thinking (McCormick, 1997).
Metacognition involves knowledge of one’s own capacity to think and re-member, knowledge of task variables, and knowledge of strategies.
While there is substantial support for the generic nature of critical thinking and problem solving skills, there is growing support for the notion that criti-cal thinking skills and problem solving strategies are content specific. In essence, it is widely believed that there is a body of critical thinking and prob-lem solving skills that is applicable to every content area. However, there is some belief that how one thinks critically may be related to the specific ma-terial under consideration (Benderson, 1984). In this case, a thinker chooses the skills and problem solving strategies that are most appropriate for the task at hand. For example, in sorting through scientific data, there may be little need to distinguish between fact and opinion, but a great need to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant data. Basically, there is great controversy about whether critical thinking skills and problem solving strategies are generic or content specific.
The need for appropriate and sufficient content knowledge is cited almost universally in relation to critical thinking (French & Rhoder, 1992). Nicker-son (1996) implied that a thinker would not be able to reaNicker-son effectively with-out some knowledge of the subject in question. In critical thinking and prob-lem solving, however, a thinker must have more than a large store of knowledge. The thinker must also have the ability to evoke particular knowl-edge when needed and integrate information from various sources (Perkins, Allen, & Hafner, 1993). In addition to fact, thinkers also need concepts and principles (Yinger, 1990). Basically, then, there is a kind of interdependency between critical thinking and problem solving. Critical thinking is essential in solving problems, and on the other hand, problem solving is essential to crit-ical thinking (Nickerson, Perkins, & Smith, 1995).
CRITICAL THINKING AND PIAGET’S THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
In his comprehensive theory of cognitive development, Piaget viewed the de-velopment of thinking as a special case of biological growth in general. Pi-aget’s theory postulated that all children progress through four stages and that Critical Thinking and Problem Solving 135
they do so in the same order: first the sensorimotor period, then the preoper-ational period, then the concrete operpreoper-ational period, and finally the formal op-erational period. Since chapter 9 has provided detailed information on the four stages, we will not repeat the information.
CLASSROOM APPLICATIONS
Marzano (1995) summed up the value of developing critical thinking skills by stating that it is to enhance a student’s abilities to think critically and to make rational decisions about what to do or what to believe. This view is supported by Halpern (1995) and Norris (1985). They enumerated that learning to think critically requires practice. Teachers must provide classrooms that encourage exploration, discovery, acceptance of divergent ideas, free discussions, and posing questions to refute or validate infor-mation.
Research findings by Beyer (1998) appear to be the strategies that teachers can employ in identifying critical thinking and problem solving skills that stu-dents should be exposed to as well as in recognizing what strategies to use.
He listed the following strategies:
1. Distinguishing between verifiable facts and value claims
2. Distinguishing between relevant and irrelevant information, claims, or reasons
3. Determining the factual accuracy of a statement 4. Determining the credibility of a source
5. Identifying ambiguous claims or arguments 6. Identifying unstated assumptions
7. Detecting bias
8. Identifying logical fallacies
9. Recognizing logical inconsistencies in a line of reasoning 10. Determining the strength of an argument or claim
Beyer further elaborated that these strategies cannot be introduced in se-quential steps; rather, they should be based upon the cognitive development of the students. Teachers should teach students how to use the scientific method to solve problems by observing information, formulating hypotheses, testing hypotheses, interpreting data, presenting findings, and drawing con-clusions.
While there is considerable information about critical thinking in general, the available research on critical thinking skills among school-aged children
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is quite limited. Soloff and Houtz (1991) completed a study designed to mea-sure the critical thinking ability in early elementary school students. In par-ticular, the researchers assessed the subjects’ ability to detect bias. The sub-jects consisted of 102 students in a New York City elementary school, consisting of approximately equal numbers of boys and girls, and the sample incorporated students from kindergarten to grade four. The critical thinking test, developed by the researchers, contained short vignettes about two main characters. The tests were administered individually to each student. After hearing the story, the subjects were asked a series of twenty questions that as-sessed the subjects’ ability, with differences becoming significant at grade four. No gender differences or interactions of gender by grade were found.
The researchers concluded that critical thinking does begin to be seen at lim-ited levels among the youngest age groups. However, in an earlier review of the literature, Norris (1985) concluded that critical thinking ability is not widespread among students. The author was unable to find recent literature to either confirm or disconfirm this statement.
Recent literature seems to suggest that instruction in critical thinking and problem solving skills can be beneficial. Hudgins and Edelman (1988) stud-ied the effects of training students in the use of critical thinking skills. Pick-ing from three elementary schools in the same district, five experimental and two control groups consisting of a total of thirty-nine fourth and fifth graders were formed. A test of critical thinking ability was initially given to the sub-jects to ensure that the subsub-jects in both groups matched for critical thinking ability. All subjects were given a problem to solve in an individual interview.
The subjects in the experimental group subsequently participated in a series of small group discussions in which they learned and applied critical thinking skills. All the subjects were again interviewed and asked to resolve the two problems aloud. The researchers found that subjects in the experimental group were more likely to apply the critical thinking and problem solving skills that they learned, used more available information, and produced a bet-ter-quality answer.
Hudgins, Riesenmy, Mitchell, Klein, and Navarro’s (1990) study was de-signed to determine if teaching critical thinking skills to children would bene-fit children in resolving scientific problems. The sample consisted of two dis-similar experimental groups and one control group. One experimental group learned critical thinking skills and was taught a specific scientific concept (e.g., the effects of gravity). The other experimental group learned about grav-ity under the direct supervision of their regular science classroom teacher, but did not learn critical thinking skills. The control group studied neither science nor critical thinking skills. The subjects consisted of fifty St. Louis Catholic school students from grades four through six. All subjects were given a science Critical Thinking and Problem Solving 137
information pre- and post-test. The researchers found that the two groups of experimental children did not differ significantly from each other on the sci-ence information test. In addition, the experimental groups scored higher on this test than the control group. The subjects were also interviewed separately and asked to solve a science problem involving the variables that affect the pe-riod of a pendulum and the motion of fallen bodies. As expected, the experi-mental group that was taught critical thinking skills outperformed both the control group and the experimental group that was not taught critical thinking and problem solving skills.
Riesenmy et al. (1991) examined the degree to which children retain and transfer critical thinking skills after training. The research was conducted with thirty-eight fourth and fifth grade students in a suburban St. Louis pub-lic school district. Twenty-eight students served as a control group in this study. The thirty-eight subjects in the experimental group were randomly placed in small groups of four and trained in critical thinking skills through twelve discussion sessions. The children in both the experimental and control groups were randomly placed in small groups of four and trained in critical thinking skills through twelve discussion sessions. Each child in both the ex-perimental and control groups was individually tested before and after the training sessions for their ability to solve critical thinking problems. Post-tests were given either immediately after the conclusion of training sessions or four to eight weeks afterward. The results showed that the experimental-group children scored significantly better than control-experimental-group children did in respect to retention of data. Specifically, the experimental group surpassed the control group in the use of critical thinking skills, the amount of informa-tion used, and the quality of their answers. The results also showed that ex-perimental-group children did significantly better than the control group in respect to transfer problems.
There is a scarcity of research concerning critical thinking ability among students. The available research, however, seems to suggest that students do not perform extremely well on the kinds of tasks that are used to indicate competence in critical thinking ability as measured by the Cornell Critical Thinking Test (Ennis & Millman, 1985) and the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (Watson & Glaser, 1980). In addition, there is evidence that students who are trained in critical thinking and problem solving skills do benefit from such training. Unfortunately, there are no studies available that provide evidence on the long-term impact of instruction in critical thinking.
Moreover, there is little information available about what specifically makes students better thinkers and what specific ways they can still improve (Nor-ris, 1985).
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IMPLICATIONS FOR INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES Some individuals with disabilities perform below expected levels in some ac-ademic areas; others perform at or above expected levels of achievements for age and grade. Disabilities may be specific to one or two competencies or to a cluster of closely related competencies, such as reading and writing (Mc-Cormick, 1997). Fortunately, some disabled students are of normal intelli-gence or above. Thus, it is possible that critical thinking skills may be bene-ficial to many disabled students.
Unfortunately, while programs in critical thinking skills have been initiated in regular curriculum programs, less attention has been paid to special edu-cation classrooms. In fact, until recently, learning activities in special educa-tion classrooms have been heavily influenced by the view that students with disabilities must be taught basic skills before any instruction in critical think-ing can be conducted. This tactic assumes that students with disabilities can-not benefit from instruction in reasoning until basic skills are mastered. How-ever, research findings lend little support to this approach to instruction (Leshowitz, Jenkens, Heaton, & Bough, 1993). In the last few years, a new focus of special education research has emerged that seeks to develop and evaluate programs for teaching higher-order thinking to disabled students.
Research findings support the value of teaching higher-order skills to children with disabilities. They profit significantly from such instruction (Means &
Knapp, 1991).
Analysis of some of the new approaches to instruction in higher-order thinking with disabled students shows that these students can not only reason with higher-order skills, but also can outperform their nondisabled peers, de-pending upon the degree of disability, after receiving brief intervention pro-grams in higher-order thinking. Collins and Carnine (1998) noted that stu-dents with disabilities in programs that emphasize higher-order reasoning significantly improved their performance in argument construction to levels equal to that of students enrolled in a logic course (Carnine, 1991).
Several of the current intervention programs for some disabled students have relied on teaching the concept of “sameness” or “analogical reasoning”
as a base for promoting higher-order thinking (Carnine, 1991; Grossen, 1991).
Such programs operate on the assumption that the brain searches for similari-ties and categorizes things based on their common qualisimilari-ties. In this effort, Grossen (1991) found that by using Euhler diagrams to facilitate understand-ing of the concept of “sameness,” analyses of logic problems could be en-hanced significantly. The trained subjects with average or above intelligence not only were more proficient at reasoning when using Euhler diagrams than Critical Thinking and Problem Solving 139
their untrained peers with disabilities, but also performed at levels equal to those of normal college students and sophomore honor class students.
Although a major emphasis of the literature in higher-order thinking for some disabled students has been on teaching basic operations of critical thinking, some questions have been devoted to using normative rules of rea-soning and logic to promote critical reading skills. Darch and Kameenui (1987) have argued that critical reading is closely related to the notion of crit-ical thinking. They have proposed that critcrit-ical reading relies heavily on the application of the following fundamental skills: (1) the ability to detect faulty information, (2) the ability to detect faulty causality, and (3) the ability to de-tect false testimonial. By using direct instruction rather than discussion/work-ing activity, they found that teachdiscussion/work-ing skills have enhanced the critical readdiscussion/work-ing skills of some disabled students, enabling them to distinguish between valid and invalid arguments.
Basically, some disabled students are less likely than normally achieving students to use strategies for performing academic tasks (Bauer, 1987a).
However, when taught various strategies such as critical thinking skills, most disabled students are able to carry out strategies to perform adequately on ac-ademic tasks (Bauer, 1987b). Critical thinking skills instruction for disabled students should include providing content knowledge in the various academic areas, teaching the skills and strategies of critical thinking, and assisting these students in metacognitive processes (French & Rhoder, 1992). As disabled students are taught critical thinking skills, not only can their task-related formances improve, but, also, these students can learn to attribute their per-formances to the use of the skills and strategies of critical thinking (Borkowski, Carr, Rellinger, & Pressley, 1990). The long-term commitment of disabled students to the use of these new skills is increased when they un-derstand that their performances improve because of their use.
SUMMARY
For most people in education, it appears to be needless to ask why critical thinking is desirable. It is like asking why education is desirable. Philoso-phers of education argue that critical thinking is not just another educational option. Rather, it is an indispensable part of education because being able to think critically is a necessary condition for being educated, and because teaching with the spirit of critical thinking is the only way to satisfy the moral injunction of respect for individuals (McPeck, 1981). Thus, critical thinking is an educational idea.
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