5 Ways to Develop Critical Thinking Skills

How critical thinking is developed

Critical thinking is the process of applying logic in any situation or problem to find the proper solution. When you think critically, there is always a belief that later converts into claims. A belief can be either true or false, depending on the thinking of different persons.

Let us study an example. Some people believe that all ten persons will die if one person is not vaccinated. Now, it is a guarantee that all ten persons will die. So, it is the claim that both vaccinated and unvaccinated people will die is true. On the other hand, the ground belief is absolutely false.

Beliefs and claims in critical thinking

Critical thinking involves thinking using actual facts and figures. It has two things that are as under:

1. No claim or belief is 100% true even if scientists, experts, and mathematicians say so.

2. One must find out whether a particular thing is true or false.

A critical thinker looks at all the aspects carefully. He never accepts any claim or beliefs blindly.

Can critical thinking be negative?

There is a huge difference between critical thinking and negativity. Critical thinking is looking at every single detail and then deciding on your own way. It is the method that needs more research and understanding all the points to find out the truth. In other words, critical thinking is finding the truth and not accepting any belief or claim.

Negative thinking is assuming that only bad things will happen without any concrete evidence or proof.

Differences between claims and beliefs

1. Beliefs do not need proof while claims do.

Let us take an example. If you say that you believe in paranormal activities and ghosts, you are actually telling your beliefs. So, there is no need to show any proof. On the other hand, if you are trying to convince people that your beliefs are right, you must show proof.

2. Belief is not knowledge, but a claim is a knowledge.

When you believe something, it means that you hear it somewhere without concrete evidence. Belief does not give you knowledge because there is no guarantee of its authenticity. Other the other hand, the claims come from concrete proof, and it will give you knowledge.

3. Belief has no ownership, whereas claim has it.

Beliefs come from unknown sources, and no one says that he/she is responsible for that belief. People generally accept beliefs without knowing who said it. On the other hand, the claims come from a particular source. The person takes ownership of claiming something.

There is a thin line of difference in belief and claim that you must know while thinking critically. Critical thinking gives more importance to those beliefs that you can be taken as truth in the future. It looks at the evidence and not general beliefs.

If you want to become a better critical thinker, you must find the proof. You can then jump to a conclusion.

Finding Evidence

In any argument, one must show the proper evidence to support your statements. Critical thinking is one of the important tools to get the right conclusion. If you want to make others agree with your decision, you must have concrete evidence to explain the reasons. In other words, you must justify your opinion.

Finding evidence is a challenge, and you must accept it wholeheartedly to show your opinion. It is necessary to find proper evidence in the critical thinking process.

Critical thinking and decision making

Critical thinking is the method of applying facts and searching for evidence to conclude. It is necessary to think critically for the right decision-making. There is an interrelation between critical thinking and decision-making.

You can make your decision better with the method of critical thinking. Both methods require proper information and evidence.

How to find evidence for arguments?

The first step in showing your ideas is to present proper evidence that supports your arguments.

6 ways to find evidence for arguments

There are some ways by which you can find evidence for your opinion, views, and arguments.

1. Case studies

The case study is one of the best ways to explain to people what you actually want to prove. You can use tools like Google Scholar, wherein you will get case studies of every subject such as science, technology, and law.

You can understand the viewpoints and perspectives of the people who disagree with your decision. Apart from that, you can also study judgments and court cases. To know how to deal with people who have opposite opinions as that of yours.

2. Find additional information

When you see some information or data supporting a point, you should not choose it blindly. You should find additional information about the topic you want to prove. Finding more data will give you a complete idea, and you then get the right conclusion.

Further, you can talk to friends, relatives, or other people who support your point. They have similar thinking to yours, and that will help you to come with a better idea.

3. Pick the best evidence

The first thing you must do to support your point is to present the available data. You must find factual information about a topic as much as possible. Now again, there may be certain beliefs and things that people think opposite to that of yours.

You must find the facts that support your arguments. Finding information and evidence will give you an idea between the fact and beliefs. You can know how people changed the truth over time with beliefs.

4. Remove bad evidence

Every argument is supported by good and bad evidence. You must avoid bad evidence and false points. In an argument, there is information and misinterpretation, and you must learn to see the difference between both.

If you learn to see the misinterpretation in any argument, you can avoid bad evidence and win over people who disagree with you. Knowing fallacious arguments will keep you away from manipulative persons. This will boost your critical thinking, and you can find the most relevant evidence.

5. Talk to people who oppose you

Why do people respect critics a lot? It is because of the opposite perspective. It is important to think from the point of the opposite person. The best opinions are the ones that raise controversies. You must think why people have contrary thinking?

It is important to have a look at the viewpoints of all the people and then understand. You may get a better solution to every problem through such behavior.

6. Take the help of the internet

Google is the mother of information in the present times. You can get the solution to every problem from Google. All you can do is type the statement and hit search and get the ocean of facts on Google.

In addition to that, you can also get many sources that support your ideas, beliefs, and arguments. You can also read blogs and articles.

Conclusion

Winning in an argument is never easy without proper evidence or fact. You need to explain the world with concrete and perfect evidence of why you support a particular statement. It is then possible to gain respect and cooperation from employees, friends, and other people in any place.

By Maria

Exercises for critical thinking

Critical thinking has importance in each and every phase of life. It improves your personal and professional life. By thinking critically, you can find truths and facts which others cannot get.

What can critical thinking do for you?

This is the question most of us ask. There are various benefits of critical thinking. By critically analyzing any situation, you can go deep into the roots of the problem, which gives you a better solution.

Critical thinking is the way to save time, effort, money, and resources and get an effective solution.

Can critical thinking be developed?

Yes, critical thinking can be made better by some of the exercises and ways. You can use do these exercises to enhance critical thinking skills in everyday life. They are as under:

1.) Try understanding the concept to kids

Critical thinking means analysis and complete observation of the situation in order to understand it. When you can explain the concepts to kids at the age of 6 or 7 years, you will become a better thinker. You need to make the concepts simpler and easier when it comes to explaining them to kids.

Trying this method will make you understand the situation and problem well. You can then get a better solution.

2.) Silent conversation

Many students do not participate in classroom sessions. This exercise will enhance the critical thinking skills of non-participating students—all you need to do is to divide the class into two groups. You have to then give paper and pens.

The next thing you have to do is to ask the questions and ask them to present their answers on the papers with the help of pictures or images.

3.) Go backward

Whenever you are confronted with a problem in your college or company, you must think about it from the first. You can think of where the problem actually started. It is just like checking your exam papers for spelling mistakes or other errors.

Thinking about the problem from the first will show you the mistakes and how to tackle them in the future. This method will reduce the chances of mistakes, and you can work smoothly.

4.) Method of droodles

This is one of the best methods to improve critical thinking skills. You can take paper and draw a line to show the problem. Behind this line, you can draw 6 lines to represent the solutions for a single problem.

In this way, you can think of new solutions to one problem. Besides that, every person will come with a creative idea. This method can be used in colleges, schools, or offices.

5.) Try to find your biases

One of the most important tips to improve critical thinking skills is to understand your biases. Every person is biased toward something or a person. The biases can only be solved by challenging them. To survive in any field, it is necessary to accept the challenges and work removing personal biases.

6.) Gain opinions of others

One problem can have multiple solutions. But you cannot alone find them. To get better views and solutions, you must talk to other people around you in the school, college or office. This method will solve the problem faster and more effectively.

7.) Listen to new speakers

You can get solutions anywhere. It is easy to find solutions to the problem by listening to educators, speakers and reading novels of famous authors. Besides that, you can read daily newspapers, eBooks, and magazines and listen to podcasts. These ways are becoming more popular among college and school students and working people.

Conclusion

We all know that critical thinking is a much deeper concept than what you think. It cannot be enhanced or improved in a few days or weeks. But, you can become a critical thinker from the moment you start to adopt these above-mentioned tips.

To become a good critical thinker, it is necessary to understand the concept precisely. You can surround yourself with geniuses who have really succeeded in professional and personal life with critical thinking concepts.

It is easy to find brilliant critical thinkers in offices, schools, or colleges.

By Mark

Critical thinking might generate an idea in everyone’s mind that it is not a good term. To think in a critical manner is not everyone does because of certain myths. Today, the method of critical thinking is used in every school, college, university, company, and other working places.

Why critical thinking matter?

The concept of critical thinking is important because of many reasons. It gives you the strength to think for the solution of the problem in a more effective way. Secondly, you can save time and resources by carefully studying the situation.

To survive in the present times, you need to develop the skills of deep thinking. Many people have wrong beliefs about critical thinking. The myths of critical thinking are as under:

1. Critical thinking applies only to limited fields

Why critical thinking is important? This is the question we often ask ourselves. We generally believe that critical thinking is applicable only in schools and colleges. But is it not so as many other professionals also think in a critical way.

Critical thinking is used by lawyers, doctors, scientists, mathematicians, and other professionals as well. It is used by every person in the world.

2. Only a few people can think critically

This is totally a wrong belief. You cannot judge from first as to which person can think in a critical manner. If you are a teacher or boss, you can engage your students by asking questions. Rather than telling the students or employees to complete the work, you can ask interesting questions relating to the assignment or project.

The different questions such as “What do you think about it?’ or “can you suggest a better way?” actually work. Such questions target every person and bring more productive results from every person.

3. Multiple steps

The critical thinking process gets better when the task is divided among the group members. Suppose you have a long project or work in the school, college, or company. You can take every small step to complete it. Taking many steps will involve critical thinking at each step. In this way, the information can be analyzed by every member of the group and it leads to evaluation as well.

4. Only young people can think critically

It is a wrong belief that only adult and mature people can have critical thinking skills. Even younger people, teens, and children have the strength to think critically. Today, you will find that younger children apply logical reasoning while answering questions in the class. In fact, younger children have more logic than older ones.

5. Critical thinking is not useful in routine life

This is a myth which many people believe. You have to think logically even in daily life. Many situations arise in your office or home where you need to choose the right one. Suppose you are going for shopping and you need to select between 2 items. You will look at the features, prices and quality and the best quality product. This is critical thinking.

6. High thinking is similar to deep thinking

Many schools ask students to involve in activities where there is a need to think creatively. Higher-order thinking is not the same as deep thinking. When you think deeply, it includes deeper understanding and deeper analysis. On the other hand, higher-order thinking includes evaluation and analysis of the situation without deep thinking.

7. No need to spend time on critical thinking

We all think that we are experts in critical thinking. But it is not so as per the studies. According to research, it is proven that even college graduates and office employees lack critical thinking skills. But in reality, each one of us has to spend time in thinking critically. Moreover, we can join classes to enhance our critical thinking skills. Apart from that, we can give tests where there are logical reasoning questions.

8. Critical thinking is rejected and disapproved

Most of us fear while thinking about a situation in a critical manner because of fear of rejection. Yes, it is true that sometimes your ideas may receive disapproval. But that does not mean that it repeats each time.

In fact, the process of critical thinking gives you a chance to improve yourself and think about new ideas which may receive a positive appraisal.

9. Critical thinking is a natural science

Natural science can never teach you critical thinking skills. But still, many people thinking that it is only through natural science that we improve critical thinking skills. In reality, there is no relation between natural science and critical thinking at all.

10. Arguments are fights

One of the biggest myths which all of us have is that an argument can lead to fights. It is not at all the truth. In the argument, the two parties evaluate and analyze and then come to a conclusion. Similarly, you need to have concrete evidence to support the conclusion in an argument. So, the debate or argument involves logical reasoning and critical thinking and not fights.

Conclusion

These are the myths about critical thinking which you need to remove to lead a better life. Critical thinking is necessary and you must consider it a crucial part of your life.

By Oliver