Throughout the world, especially now with social media, the digital volume of information and velocity, all citizens need skills of critical analysis, especially through the education system, community and media.
While newsrooms cut costs, headcounts and resources, many journalists or reporters now have less time and fewer resources to produce more news content. However, this comes with the commensurate risk of media being gamed by corporate and political forces of the right, due to media using heuristic shortcuts on any issue and inherently biassed towards parties of the right.
Gaming media is done in various ways including using think tanks masquerading as academic or research institutes. In fact too often they are PR or lobbying groups, staffed by pseudo intellectuals producing ‘research’ reports which are promoted in media, for adoption or approval by both voters and the politicians or government; avoiding commentary or analysis that actually conducts analysis and may preclude policy initiatives?
However, they are never publicly subjected or exposed to expert analysis, including claims of non-scientists linked to fossil fuels who dismiss climate science, with neither informed challenge nor expert input.
What can journalists or media and citizens do?
Acquire skills or understanding of critical thinking and related through informed analysis e.g. science or research process, statistics 101, demography, history, language and geography.
Following on, allowing media and society to function versus receiving content including science, data or opinions that too often go unchallenged, while media not on the right is subject to constant challenges, intimidation and constraints?
Two articles first from the University of Tennessee and the second from Rasmussen University:
Basic Elements of Critical Thinking
A set of information and beliefs, generating and processing skills, and the habit of using those skills to guide behaviour.
Critical thinkers:
- Ask questions
- Gather relevant information
- Think through solutions and conclusions
- Consider alternative systems of thought
- Communicate effectively
They’re willing to admit when they’re wrong or when they don’t know the answer, rather than digging into a gut reaction or emotional point of view.
Truth-Seeking – Ask questions and follow the evidence
Judicious – Able to make judgements amid uncertainty
Inquisitive – Strive to be well-informed on a wide range of topics
Confident in Reasoning – Trustful of own skills to make good judgements
Systematic – Organized and thoughtful problem solving
Analytical – Identify potential consequences of decisions
Open-Minded – Tolerant of different views and sensitive to own biases
6 Critical Thinking Skills You Need to Master Now
No matter what walk of life you come from, what industry you’re interested in pursuing or how much experience you’ve already garnered, we’ve all seen firsthand the importance of critical thinking skills. In fact, lacking such skills can truly make or break a person’s career, as the consequences of one’s inability to process and analyze information effectively can be massive.
What is critical thinking?
Even if you want to be a better critical thinker, it’s hard to improve upon something you can’t define. Critical thinking is the analysis of an issue or situation and the facts, data or evidence related to it. Ideally, critical thinking is to be done objectively—meaning without influence from personal feelings, opinions or biases—and it focuses solely on factual information.
Critical thinking is a skill that allows you to make logical and informed decisions to the best of your ability. For example, a child who has not yet developed such skills might believe the Tooth Fairy left money under their pillow based on stories their parents told them. A critical thinker, however, can quickly conclude that the existence of such a thing is probably unlikely—even if there are a few bucks under their pillow.
6 Crucial critical thinking skills (and how you can improve them)
While there’s no universal standard for what skills are included in the critical thinking process, we’ve boiled it down to the following six. Focusing on these can put you on the path to becoming an exceptional critical thinker.
1. Identification
The first step in the critical thinking process is to identify the situation or problem as well as the factors that may influence it. Once you have a clear picture of the situation and the people, groups or factors that may be influenced, you can then begin to dive deeper into an issue and its potential solutions.
How to improve: When facing any new situation, question or scenario, stop to take a mental inventory of the state of affairs and ask the following questions:
- Who is doing what?
- What seems to be the reason for this happening?
- What are the end results, and how could they change?
2. Research
When comparing arguments about an issue, independent research ability is key. Arguments are meant to be persuasive—that means the facts and figures presented in their favor might be lacking in context or come from questionable sources. The best way to combat this is independent verification; find the source of the information and evaluate.
How to improve: It can be helpful to develop an eye for unsourced claims. Does the person posing the argument offer where they got this information from? If you ask or try to find it yourself and there’s no clear answer, that should be considered a red flag. It’s also important to know that not all sources are equally valid—take the time to learn the difference between popular and scholarly articles.
3. Identifying biases
This skill can be exceedingly difficult, as even the smartest among us can fail to recognize biases. Strong critical thinkers do their best to evaluate information objectively. Think of yourself as a judge in that you want to evaluate the claims of both sides of an argument, but you’ll also need to keep in mind the biases each side may possess.
First and foremost, you must be aware that bias exists. When evaluating information or an argument, ask yourself the following:
- Who does this benefit?
- Does the source of this information appear to have an agenda?
- Is the source overlooking, ignoring or leaving out information that doesn’t support its beliefs or claims?
- Is this source using unnecessary language to sway an audience’s perception of a fact?
4. Inference
The ability to infer and draw conclusions based on the information presented to you is another important skill for mastering critical thinking. Information doesn’t always come with a summary that spells out what it means. You’ll often need to assess the information given and draw conclusions based upon raw data.
The ability to infer allows you to extrapolate and discover potential outcomes when assessing a scenario. It is also important to note that not all inferences will be correct. For example, if you read that someone weighs 260 pounds, you might infer they are overweight or unhealthy. Other data points like height and body composition, however, may alter that conclusion.
How to improve: An inference is an educated guess, and your ability to infer correctly can be polished by making a conscious effort to gather as much information as possible before jumping to conclusions. When faced with a new scenario or situation to evaluate, first try skimming for clues—things like headlines, images and prominently featured statistics—and then make a point to ask yourself what you think is going on.
5. Determining relevance
One of the most challenging parts of thinking critically during a challenging scenario is figuring out what information is the most important for your consideration. In many scenarios, you’ll be presented with information that may seem important, but it may pan out to be only a minor data point to consider.
How to improve: The best way to get better at determining relevance is by establishing a clear direction in what you’re trying to figure out. Are you tasked with finding a solution? Should you be identifying a trend? If you figure out your end goal, you can use this to inform your judgement of what is relevant.
6. Curiosity
It’s incredibly easy to sit back and take everything presented to you at face value, but that can also be a recipe for disaster when faced with a scenario that requires critical thinking. It’s true that we’re all naturally curious—just ask any parent who has faced an onslaught of “Why?” questions from their child. As we get older, it can be easier to get in the habit of keeping that impulse to ask questions at bay. But that’s not a winning approach for critical thinking.
How to improve: While it might seem like a curious mind is just something you’re born with, you can still train yourself to foster that curiosity productively. All it takes is a conscious effort to ask open-ended questions about the things you see in your everyday life, and you can then invest the time to follow up on these questions.
“Being able to ask open-ended questions is an important skill to develop—and bonus points for being able to probe,” Potrafka says.
Become a better critical thinker
Thinking critically is vital for anyone looking to have a successful college career and a fruitful professional life upon graduation. Your ability to objectively analyse and evaluate complex subjects and situations will always be useful. Unlock your potential by practising and refining the six critical thinking skills above.
Most professionals credit their time in college as having been crucial in the development of their critical thinking abilities. If you’re looking to improve your skills in a way that can impact your life and career moving forward, higher education is a fantastic venue through which to achieve that.
Other Blog, Articles and Links on Adult Learning, Business Communication, CPD Continuing Professional Development, Critical Thinking, Digital Literacy, Media, Science Literacy, Soft Skills and Statistical Analysis click through below:
Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center and the Carnegie-Knight Initiative, The Journalist’s Resource
Gapminder Foundation Resources
Covid Misinformation – Gut Instinct & Beliefs vs. Science & Critical Thinking
Radical Libertarian Disinformation Machine – Koch Network by Nancy MacLean
Libertarian Curricula – Science and Culture Wars vs. University Maths Teacher Training
Media on China and Wuhan Virus – Critical Analysis or Political PR?
Covid-19 Climate Science Vaccination Misinformation PR and Astro Turfing
Language, Discourse Analysis, PR and Communication in Politics
Education Training Society 