Managing study: Critical thinking

What is critical thinking?

• questioning what you see, hear and read
• thinking for yourself instead of accepting what someone presents to you, without questioning
• predicting consequences
• suggesting alternatives
• making connections
• making judgements that are justified with reasons and evidence

Who are you?

• Our own knowledge, beliefs and experience affect our analysis, judgement and decision making.
• Different cultures approach critical thinking in different ways and with emphasis on different values.
• How is your thinking shaped by your cultural background?

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  Study skills video -- How to think critically by BBC Learning English:
  

Critical thinking skills in your class work

You use critical thinking when you:

• decide which cell phone to purchase or
• which clothes to buy or wear.

Your family, schooling or culture may have encouraged you to think critically. Or this may a skill you need to develop and practice. When a topic is new to you, you may think it's disrespectful to question the work of a recognised author. 

However, for class work when you read any academic work you will:

• ask yourself questions
• think deeply about the information
• evaluate it
• make a judgement about the quality of the piece of work and
• trust yourself and start thinking critically.

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  Academic Insights video -- 7 Top tips for critical thinking by BBC Learning English:

One of the ways to use critical thinking in your study is in picking the best sources of information for your assignment. Use quality book chapters, journal articles or academic websites. 

• Use objective sources
  • Objective: not influenced by personal feelings or bias
  • Subjective: based on a person's emotions, bias or prejudice
• If a source is peer reviewed, it is more likely to be reliable (For example, peer reviewed journal articles are independently reviewed by experts in the field and approved to be printed in the journal's collection)
• At the bottom of this box are some resources to help you pick the right sources:
  • Guide for evaluating the quality of your source of information
  • Graphic organiser (chart) to fill in when evaluating the quality of an article, book, statistical information or internet information

• Another well known set of questions to ask yourself about a source -- Is it/does it have:

  • Current: When was it written?

  • Relevant: Is this on topic?

  • Authority: Who wrote and published it?

  • Accuracy: Where does it come from?

  • Purpose: Why was it written?

After you write your assignment first draft, you need to have the time and mind-set to change your work if your best  judgment tells you you need to do so. Ask yourself:

Assignment question or topic

• Have I asked and answered the correct question?

• Have I done what was asked in the instructions?

• Have I answered all parts of the assignment and given correct weight to each part?

Content

• Have I developed a logical and clear argument?

• Have I used enough supporting evidence and examples?

• Have I used the best sources of information and cited them correctly?

Structure

• Have I organised the sections in the right order, to lead the reader through the work?

• If I used headings, do they make my work easier to understand? 

• If I used diagrams and tables, are they well explained to the reader and formatted and cited with APA?

Approach

• Is my writing objective?

• If the assignment is about my views, have I explained my position clearly?

• Have I considered and discussed alternative ideas? If not, why not?

• Do all my paragraphs have a starting topic sentence followed by supporting sentences giving evidence or examples?

• How does my conclusion summarise the ideas in my writing?

Reflective practice is personal and positive: 

Reflective practice is a process to review and improve the way you work, think or act. It's where you use your critical analysis skills to:

• describe and analyse a situation you were involved in
• consider your actions, thoughts and feelings
• consider the actions, thoughts and feelings of others who interacted with you
• work out what you learnt from the experience using references to literature and
• decide what you will do in future as a result of this learning.

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  Reflective practice is about thinking critically and honestly about your performance so you can learn and do better next time. It is not about putting yourself down because the outcome was not perfect. 

A model for reflective practice -- There are many models, and your tutor will tell you which one to use. Here is one example which is often used in the School of Health. It begins with Description --

Gibbs Reflective Cycle (1988)    

Note: Gibbs reflective cycle (The University of Edinburgh, 2020, The Model section)

Follow the link to the University of Edinburgh explanation of Gibbs' model with lists of questions to ask yourself for each step of the model. 

Critical Thinking versus Criticism: Helping students to know the difference by Suzanne Manning -- includes a section explaining the difference between description and analysis

How to evaluate information with the Open Polytechnic's CRAAP questions

What is critical thinking? A definition and explanation of how to do it from MACAT

5 Tips to improve your critical thinking from TED Ed

Gibbs, G. (1988). Learning by doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Further Education Unit. Oxford Polytechnic.

The University of Edinburgh. (2020, November 11). Reflection toolkit: Gibbs' reflective cycle https://www.ed.ac.uk/reflection/reflectors-toolkit/reflecting-on-experience/gibbs-reflective-cycle