Facione (1990: 10) sums up well this general point:
This domain-speci® c knowledge includes understanding methodological principles and competence to engage in norm-regulated practices that are at the core of reasonable judgements in those speci® c contexts. . . . Too much of value is lost if CT [critical thinking] is conceived of simply as a list of logical operations and domain-speci® c knowledge is conceived of simply as an aggregation of information.
An additional di culty with the identi® cation of critical thinking solely with skills to the exclusion of knowledge and attitudes is that it fails to recognize the central role played by attitudes in thinking critically. Critical thinking involves more than the ability to engage in good thinking. It also involves the willingness or disposition to do so. Siegel (1988) refers to this aspect of critical thinking as the critical spirit and sees it as of equal importance to the reason-assessment component. Ennis (1987) includes a list of dispositions in his conception of critical thinking, and dispositions, and values and traits of character are central to Paul’s (1982) notion of a s̀trong sense’ of critical thinking.
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Skills as discrete
Another major di culty with the equation of critical thinking with skill is that it assumes the existence of certain discrete processes, procedures or operations. It is assumed that acquiring a skill involves becoming pro® cient at these processes. Thus, Chuska (1986: 25) distinguishes between the `ways of thinking (the processes involved)’ and t̀hinking skills (the pro® – ciency a person demonstrates in using the processes)’ . In some cases these processes are thought to involve certain mental processes or operations, and in others these processes are conceived of in terms of procedures or steps. The di culties with both these conceptualizations are dealt with below.
Cri tic a l th in kin g a s m e n ta l p ro c e s s e s
It is a common assumption in discourse about critical thinking that being good at critical thinking is basically a matter of being pro® cient at certain mental processes.4 These processes are generally thought to include such things as classifying, inferring, observing, evaluating, synthesizing and hypothesizing. Kirby and Kuykendall (1991: 7, 11), for example, hold that t̀hinking is a holistic process in which di€ erent mental operations work in concert’ and allude to ìntellectual skills training’ . It is our view that a purely `processes’ conception of critical thinking is logically mis- leading and pedagogically mischievous.5
In medicine, talking about processes as outcomes makes some sense. An obstetrician may give a newborn infant an appropriately sound smack to start up certain vital processes. May we not suggest that teachers should seek to do something analogous? If we do, we are presumably not suggest- ing that they should seek the occurrence of physical processes such as synapse-® ring in the brain, but that they should seekthe occurrence of such mental processes as analysing or translating. Should they not, then, seek to invoke mental processes?
Talk about mental processes has a logic very di€ erent from the logic of talk about physical processes. Physical processes, such as baking or synapse-® ring, can, at least in principle, be observed and identi® ed independently of any product they may have. Mental processes can be identi® ed only via their products; observing them directly is a logical impossibility. For example, we suppose that a translating `process’ has occurred in some person only because the person has succeeded in produ- cing a translation.
Descriptions of translating and classifying `behaviours’ are not descrip- tions of behaviours at all, but descriptions of upshots or accomplishments such as converting poetry to prose. When someone succeeds in such a conversion there is no doubt that something must have gone on ìn’ that person which enabled him or her tosucceed. To identify this s̀omething’ as a particular mental process is to assume that the same sort of thing goes on within a person in every case in which he or she translates something. There is no reason to suppose this is the case. The so-called `processes’ are hypothesized, and then rei® ed after the fact of these upshots.
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Mental processes are di€ erentiated from one another not by observing features of the processes, but by distinguishing among kinds of upshots or accomplishments. The number of di€ erent kinds of processes we identify depends upon how we decide to di€ erentiate upshots. For some purposes we may wish to lump them all together. For instance, we may lump together all of the upshots that represent successful application of conven- tional meaning rules and standards, and then we might talk of t̀he process’ of translation that all have in common. We may, on the other hand, want to subdivide student successes on the basis of the di€ erent kinds of meaning conventions they ful® l. In either case, we will be less inclined to reify and confound categories if we talk about enabling students to ful® l the conventions and standards rather than about their exercising mysterious processes presumed to lie behind such accomplishments. No useful ped- agogical aim is served by postulating such processes.
Regardless of the conceptual hazards, people interested in critical thinking, and in education in general, are prone to talk about processesÐ the thinking process, the reading process, the creative process. What makes this way of characterizing teaching and learning so attractive? In part, the attraction may arise from the ambiguity of the term `process’ . In part, it may alsooccur because it seems too€ er apromising answer to the question, `Are critical thinking abilities transferable?’
Broadly speaking, a process may be any course of events that has an upshot or a result of some sort. However, there are at least three distinct ways that courses of events relate to their upshots. In the ® rst instance, they may relate as that course of events people now call `natural selection’ relates to its upshot, the evolution of a species. In the second, they may relate as running a race relates to ® nishing the race. In the third, they may relate as facing an object relates to noticing it. We may characterize these, for the sake of convenience, as: (1) process-product, (2) task-achievement, and (3) orient-reception relations. Process-product pairs are used to pick out situations in which a series of changes or a particular relation produces an identi® able upshot. Task-achievement pairs are used to talk about what people do tobring about upshots. Tasks di€ er from other `processes’ in that tasks are things people do on purpose in an e€ ort to succeed at something. There are doubtless thousands of task words in most natural languages. Words like l̀ook’, s̀earch’ , r̀ace’ and t̀each’ can all be used as task words. Their use in this way re¯ ects the fact that many things people seek to accomplish are di cult to bring o€ . They can try and fail.
Ambiguity in the term `process’ lends a spurious sort of plausibility to the processes conception of critical thinking because it makes it plausible to suppose that all upshots of human activity have the same relation to the activity as products of combustion have to the process of combustion. Because processes are routinely named after their products, it is natural to suppose that achievements and receptions must also have corresponding processes. The result, of course, is unwarranted rei® cationÐ reading back from outcomes to mysterious antecedent processes.
The process conception is also bolstered by the fact that the same happening may be spoken of as both a process and a task. When one bakes a loaf of bread the changes in the loaf may be seen either as a natural function
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of heating and of the chemistry of its constituents, or as what the cook doesÐ heating the oven to the proper temperature and so on. The same happenings are, thus, characterized di€ erently. Baking, the chemical pro- cess, is a causal occurrence; baking, the task, is a procedure (or an art) intended to bring about the chemical process in proper degree, so that the result is not pasty, or charred, or leaden. Because such words as `baking’ may be ambiguous, it is easy to neglect the di€ erence between the process and the task.
Such reception verbs, as s̀ee’, `notice’ and r̀ealize’ refer to upshots of a special kind. First, they involve either (or both) our literal perception apparatuses (eyes, ears, etc.) or our mental abilities. Secondly, although there are tasks we can carry out to position ourselves to see (e.g. sit where we can watch the horizon) or prepare ourselves conceptually (e.g. acquire the concepts of truth and validity), these tasks cannot guarantee that we will have the desired upshot. As White (1967: 69) puts it:
We can ask someone how he [sic] `would’ discover or cure, but not how he `would’ notice, although it is as legitimate toask how he `did’ notice as it is to ask how he `did’ discover or cure. For the former `how’ question asks for the method, but the latter for the opportunity. Although appropriate schooling and practice can put us in a condition to notice what we used to miss, people cannot be taught nor can they learn how to notice, as they can be taught or can learn how todetect. Noticing, unlike solving, is not the exercise of a skill.
For those interested in teaching students to become better at critical thinking, the moral is clear. We cannot teach students the process of noticing fallacies, for we have no grounds for believing there is such a process. The most we can do is orient them, and this, it seems, we do in at least three ways.
• We teach the person certain conceptsÐ for instance, the concept of a valid argument. This enables them to notice fallacies they would otherwise have overlookedÐ but does not, of course, guarantee they will notice them.
• We motivate the person to care that arguments are valid and to be on the lookout for invalid arguments.
• We teach procedures that enable the person to orient himself or herself where certain kinds of reception are sought.
The second reason why people become advocates of critical thinking processes is that they want schools to provide curricula such that students learn to do certain things across the curriculumÐ and into their non-school livesÐ abstract, analyse, classify, evaluate, sequence, synthesize, translate, etc. These `processes’ are believed to be common to all critical thinking situations and to a range of activities beyond. To educators this means that in teaching them they can economize on instruction because there will be transfer of training. Someone who learns the forehand smash in tennis is likely to learn the forehand smash in squash with less di culty than a person novice toboth. Are we then to suggest that someone who learns, for example, to abstract in the writing of a pre cis will be able, because of that prior learning, to abstract in depicting a house, or that one who is able to
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evaluate cars will thereby be able to evaluate hypotheses? What else can we make of talk of processes as general abilities? Critical thinking situations may well have common features, but speaking of processes is of no value; it is, indeed, either otiose or misleading, and we almost certainly risk losing more than we gain. We risk falling into a monochromatic and wholly misleading view of the teaching of critical thinking.
Cri tic a l th in kin g a s p roc e d u re s
Another common misconception of critical thinking sees it as basically a matter of following a general procedure, described usually in terms of a set of steps, stages or phases. We contend that developing students’ compe- tence in thinking is not, at heart, dependent on teaching them steps or procedures to follow. We begin by clarifying what we believe is implied by those who characterize critical thinking as following step-by-step pro- cedures. Next, we compare this view with an account of thinking as the exercise of judgement.
Thinking as procedure
Although there is noconsensus about the general procedures that constitute thinking, the three most frequently discussed are inquiry (i.e. t̀he scienti® c method’), problem solving, and decision making (Wright 1993). Some writers refer to critical thinking and creative thinking as separate pro- cedures (Marzano et al. 1988: 32, Overgaard 1989: 9). By some accounts, there are as many as eight general thinking procedures: concept formation, principle formation, comprehension, problem solving, decision making, research, composition, and oral discourse (Marzano et al. 1988: 32± 33). Each of these is distinguished by the type of conclusion or result produced (e.g. clari® cation of a concept, a decision about what course of action to take). Proponents of thinking as procedure, by de® nition, believe that procedures are at the heart of promoting thinking.
An important variable in this view of thinking is the formality of the sequence of steps involved in these general procedures. There is a range of opinion on this matter, spanning what we will call the algorithmic and the heuristic views of thinking as procedure. According to Nickerson et al. (1985: 74), algorithms and heuristics are two types of procedures: an algorithm is a step-by-step prescription that is guaranteed to accomplish a particular goal; an heuristic is a procedure that is merely reasonably likely to yield a solution. Proponents of an algorithmic view of thinking as procedure hold that: (1) there is a manageable number of highly reliable procedures that, taken as a whole, can address the range of situations that students need to resolve, (2) the steps in these procedures form a ® xed order, and (3) mastery of these steps is the central challenge in learning to think. Supporters of the heuristic view hold a less stringent set of assump- tions: (1) there is a potentially large number of procedures helpful across the range of situations that students need to resolve, (2) the order of the
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steps in these is not ® xed, and (3) mastery of these steps is a pre-eminent, but not necessarily the only, challenge in learning to think.
Although it is di cult to ® nd much support for the algorithmic view of critical thinking, many academics, particularly psychologists, appear to accept the heuristic view. Thus, after reviewing a representative range of programmes to promote thinking, Glaser (1984: 96) notes that `most of these programs place emphasis on the teaching of general processes, general heuristics and rules for reasoning and problem solving, that might be acquired as transferable habits of thinking’ . Marzano et al. (1988: 34) suggest that the procedures should not be taught as `prescribed procedures’ but rather as r̀epertoires or arrays of alternatives’ that are s̀emi-ordered’ or are `working hypotheses about the best way to accomplish a goal, general procedures to be used ¯ exibly by teachers and adapted by students’ . For others, however, the sequence of steps to be followed is more signi® cant (e.g. Beach 1987: 146± 147).
It is intuitively appealing to describe critical thinking in terms of how an individual is to go about it. The procedure approach, by reducing critical thinking to steps, seeks to provide operational or task descriptions of the building blocks of such thinking. Consider the following exampleÐ the `Decide Model’ by E. Daniel Eckberg.6 This conception holds or assumes that critical thinking comprises a set of steps characterized as follows:
D. De® ne the dilemma What’s the problem? Why does it concern me? What’s the basic issue?
E. Examine electives What are all sorts of possible ways of solving the problem? What choices do we have? What are our alternative courses of action? What hypothesis can we make?
C. Consider consequences What happens if we try each choice? If we do this, then what? How will things change if I choose this one? What data can I collect and consider in considering these con- sequences?
I. Investigate importance What principles are important to me here? What things do I most value? How will these values in¯ uence my choice? What am I assuming to be true? What are my preferences and biases?
D. Decide direction In the light of the data, what’s my choice? Which choice should now be chosen? Which hypothesis seems to be the best? Based on the evidence, what course of action should I take?