Definition of Critical Thinking

What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking is a difficult thing to define with much precision. Although academics across diverse fields such as pedagogy, cognitive psychology and curriculum development each have their own understanding of the term, we can summarise the overlap in their views in a single statement;

Critical thinking is a set of values and cognitive strategies employed to rationally evaluate information for its potential usefulness and accuracy.

In this regard, critical thinking covers three fields;

* Personal values embracing logic, reasoning, objectivity and internal consistency of information
* Skills and cognitive approaches that allow the individual to search for and evaluate different information sources
* An appreciation of the relationship between the application of accurate information in decision making and the probability of a predictable outcome