Is Critical Thinking Lost and Why Does This Matter?

The book Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses ¹by Richard Arum Josipa Roksa reports on the current stagnation of critical thinking skills during college compared to previous generations.

What does this loss of critical thinking mean for recent or almost graduates? Why is it happening? And what can be done to make it better?

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What is Critical Thinking? And why does it matter?

Broadly speaking critical thinking is the analysis of facts to form a judgment. The thinker is not just accumulating facts, they are approaching a problem to come to the best possible solution. A critical thinker will be focused on upgrading their knowledge and will engage in independent learning.

A loss of critical thinking means a loss of competent leadership.² With countries differing in terms of the number of critical thinkers³ they are producing, communication and compromises necessary in a global world will become more complicated, protracted, and likely hostile. 

Moreover, the digital world demands critical thinkers.⁴ The attention economy’s exploitation of confirmation and ingroup bias will lead to further political and social fracturing, making societies less cohesive.

Solving the current stagnation is of great importance to international relations, innovation, and leadership.

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Why is it Happening?

Some of the blame can probably be placed on our decreasing attention spans. Proper analysis and problem-solving requires one is able to sit still and think. One theory regarding recent studies is that this is the result of the “earlier education is better’ and “rote learning” approaches to teaching preschoolers of which current college students and recent graduates would be the first representatives. “Perhaps they—and their developing brains—have been programmed in a way that actually inhibit reasoning, critical thinking, and problem-solving”.⁵  

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Can we make this better?

There are solutions to this problem, 93% of teachers agreed that it’s important to develop students’ critical thinking skills. Notable is that only 21% agreed that they have all the materials they need to develop these skills.⁶ 

Prioritizing critical thinking is important, as is understanding the best way to do so. Some schools have attempted to teach critical thinking as though it were its own subject. But according to recent international studies  those countries which truly excel at critical thinking emphasize “developing problem- solving skills through cross-curricular, student-led projects”. The implication is that critical thinking can’t really be taught as its own skill but must be intertwined with other content.

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Learning to Value Critical Thinking

The value of critical thinking can be found in innovative leadership, cohesive communities, and continuous learning. 

It is worth supporting proven methods in nourishing critical thinking and supporting the educators who can maintain its growth.

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Sources

1. Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses
2. How Leaders Should Think Critically
3. Countries that excel at problem-solving encourage critical thinking
4. Americans, Critical Thinking, and Ignorance
5. The Emerging Crisis in Critical Thinking
6. Critical Thinking Survey Results
7. Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay