CRITICAL THINKING SKILL

• What is “Critical thinking”?

Critical thinking ,states  Mayer (2002), involves making judgments based on criteria and standards. The criteria often used for this purpose are quality, effectiveness, efficiency and consistency. The standards used may consist of either qualitative or quantitative. According to Mayer, evaluation includes two cognitive processes namely (1) checking and (2) critiquing. Checking has mostly to do with judgment about internal consistency and is generally done when inconsistencies or fallacies are detected within a process or product. Checking also means detecting effectiveness of procedure as it is being implemented. This has mainly to do with finding how well the plan is working.

    Critiquing , on the other hand ,is concerned with judgment based on external criteria. Critiquing occurs when inconsistencies between a product /operation and some other external criteria are detected. It is also concerned with the judgment of the appropriateness of a production for given problem. In critiquing the merits of a product or operation is found based on specified criteria or standards.

Critical thinking, also known as logical or analytical thinking, involves a process of determining authenticity, accuracy of the value of something. It is a process that seeks reasons. Critical thinking would enable people to deal efficiently with the load of information on hand, to make decisions, to solve problems, to make maximum utilization of their sources, to avoid being close-minded, help people to become more inquisitive, to prevent people from feeding their mind on falsehood, to detect propaganda and help people build up a free, rational and autonomous mind.

• Definitions

• Dhand (1988),critical thinking is a process of evaluating statements people, ideas, events, data, materials and arguments, experiences and problems that humans face in life.

• Smith(1990),critical thinking is the understanding of the meaning of statements, judging ambiguity, judging whether an inductive conclusion is warranted and judging whether statements made by authorities are acceptable.

• Scott (1988), defines it ,has to do with an unfavorable attitude towards any category or group of people based on an elaborated series of negative traits assumed to be uniformly distributed among the people towards whom one is antagonistic. Prejudice is usually regarded as a characteristic of the majority toward minorities.