Critical thinking is often misinterpreted as thinking that applies critique or criticism.

If an outcome is important—if the decision is critical—then apply critical thinking.

Critical thinking implies an ability to analyse, evaluate, and make judgments that facilitate decision-making.

I’ve been researching critical thinking (CT) for almost 20 years now, and, because of that, much about it I take for granted. I’ve defined it, exemplified it, shortened its description, and analogised it for so many people so many times, of course, it would be easy for me to assume that most people would know what I’m on about. Luckily, I don’t fall prey to this kind of "curse of knowledge," as I’m also quite familiar with the great trouble researchers and educators alike have had for many years in defining CT. Only relatively recently is research acknowledging a fairly consistent conceptualisation among CT researchers, but that’s not necessarily the case for educators (which happens to remain a large barrier to efforts to enhance CT in younger populations).

Misinterpretation of Critical Thinking

With that, I was surprised recently by the occurrence of the same misinterpretation twice in the space of as many weeks, not only because it represents such a basic feature of CT but also because such an issue........

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