Skills as generic
The identi® cation of critical thinking with skill in the tripartite division of educational goals separates critical thinking from the development of knowledge, understanding and attitudes. Critical thinking is seen to involve generic operations that can be learned in themselves, apart from any particular knowledge domains, and then transferred to or applied in di€ erent contexts. Thus, for example, Worsham and Stockton (1986: 11, 12) claim that t̀here are some skills that are basic and common to most curriculum tasks (for example, gathering information, ® nding the main idea, determining meaning)’ . They further state that:
Most curriculum materials at the high school level require that students analyze, synthesize, and evaluate as well as to[sic] create new `products’, such as original oral and written pieces and artistic creations. Students are expected to apply the appropriate thinking skills to accomplish these tasks.
In a similar vein, Beyer (1987: 163) makes reference to discrete thinking skills and claims that:
To be pro® cient in a thinking skill or strategy means to be able to use that operation e€ ectively and e ciently on one’s own in a variety of appropriate contexts.
The separation of knowledge and critical thinking is fraught with di culties however. If the claim that critical thinking skills are generic is taken to mean that these skills can be applied in any context regardless of background knowledge, then the claim seems clearly false. Background knowledge in the particular area is a precondition for critical thinking to take place. A person cannot analyse aparticular chemical compound if he or she does not know something about chemistry, and without an under- standing of certain historical events a person will be unable to evaluate competing theories regarding the causes of World War I.
Many theorists acknowledge the necessity of background knowledge for critical thinking but still maintain a separation between knowledge and the skill or skills of thinking critically. For example, Nickerson et al. (1985: 49) contend that:
recognizing the interdependence of thinking and knowledge does not deny the reality of the distinction. It is at least conceivable that people possessing the same knowledge might di€ er signi® cantly in how skillfully they apply what they know.
We argue, however, that the distinction is itself untenable. Skilled performance at thinking tasks cannot be separated from knowledge. The kinds of acts, such as predicting and interpreting, which are put forth as generic skills will, in fact, vary greatly depending on the context, and this di€ erence is connected with the di€ erent kinds of knowledge and under-
common misconceptions of critical thinking 271
standing necessary for successful completion of the particular task. Inter- preting a graph is a very di€ erent sort of enterprise from interpreting a play. The former involves coming to an understanding of the relationships among the plotted entities based on understanding certain geometric conventions; the latter involves constructing a plausible meaning for the play based on textual evidence. Both of these di€ er again from the case of interpreting someone’s motives, which involves imputing certain beliefs or attitudes toan individual based on reading verbal and bodily cues as well as on past knowledge of the person. Similarly, predicting how a story will end calls upon very di€ erent understanding than does predicting the weather. It makes little sense, then, to think in terms of generic skills, which are simply applied or transferred to di€ erent domains of knowledge.
Becoming pro® cient at critical thinking itself involves, among other things, the acquisition of certain sorts of knowledge. For example, the knowledge of certain critical concepts which enable one to make distinc- tions is central to critical thinking. Understanding the di€ erence between a necessary and asu cient condition is not just background knowledge but is very much a part of what is involved in thinking critically.
Similarly, pro® ciency in critical thinking involves an understanding of the various principles which govern good thinking in particular areas, and many of these are domain speci® c, as McPeck (1981) has pointed out. Barrow (1991: 12) makes the point in this way:
What is clear, what is contradictory, what is logical, and so forth, depends upon the particular context. . . . To be logical in discussion about art is not a matter of combining logical ability with information about art. It is a matter of understanding the logic of art, of being on the inside of aesthetic concepts and aesthetic theory. The capacity to be critical about art is inextricably intertwined with understanding aesthetic discourse.