critical thinkers in education

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Eight Instructional Strategies for Promoting Critical Thinking

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(This is the first post in a three-part series.)

The new question-of-the-week is:

What is critical thinking and how can we integrate it into the classroom?

This three-part series will explore what critical thinking is, if it can be specifically taught and, if so, how can teachers do so in their classrooms.

Today’s guests are Dara Laws Savage, Patrick Brown, Meg Riordan, Ph.D., and Dr. PJ Caposey. Dara, Patrick, and Meg were also guests on my 10-minute BAM! Radio Show . You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

You might also be interested in The Best Resources On Teaching & Learning Critical Thinking In The Classroom .

Current Events

Dara Laws Savage is an English teacher at the Early College High School at Delaware State University, where she serves as a teacher and instructional coach and lead mentor. Dara has been teaching for 25 years (career preparation, English, photography, yearbook, newspaper, and graphic design) and has presented nationally on project-based learning and technology integration:

There is so much going on right now and there is an overload of information for us to process. Did you ever stop to think how our students are processing current events? They see news feeds, hear news reports, and scan photos and posts, but are they truly thinking about what they are hearing and seeing?

I tell my students that my job is not to give them answers but to teach them how to think about what they read and hear. So what is critical thinking and how can we integrate it into the classroom? There are just as many definitions of critical thinking as there are people trying to define it. However, the Critical Think Consortium focuses on the tools to create a thinking-based classroom rather than a definition: “Shape the climate to support thinking, create opportunities for thinking, build capacity to think, provide guidance to inform thinking.” Using these four criteria and pairing them with current events, teachers easily create learning spaces that thrive on thinking and keep students engaged.

One successful technique I use is the FIRE Write. Students are given a quote, a paragraph, an excerpt, or a photo from the headlines. Students are asked to F ocus and respond to the selection for three minutes. Next, students are asked to I dentify a phrase or section of the photo and write for two minutes. Third, students are asked to R eframe their response around a specific word, phrase, or section within their previous selection. Finally, students E xchange their thoughts with a classmate. Within the exchange, students also talk about how the selection connects to what we are covering in class.

There was a controversial Pepsi ad in 2017 involving Kylie Jenner and a protest with a police presence. The imagery in the photo was strikingly similar to a photo that went viral with a young lady standing opposite a police line. Using that image from a current event engaged my students and gave them the opportunity to critically think about events of the time.

Here are the two photos and a student response:

F - Focus on both photos and respond for three minutes

In the first picture, you see a strong and courageous black female, bravely standing in front of two officers in protest. She is risking her life to do so. Iesha Evans is simply proving to the world she does NOT mean less because she is black … and yet officers are there to stop her. She did not step down. In the picture below, you see Kendall Jenner handing a police officer a Pepsi. Maybe this wouldn’t be a big deal, except this was Pepsi’s weak, pathetic, and outrageous excuse of a commercial that belittles the whole movement of people fighting for their lives.

I - Identify a word or phrase, underline it, then write about it for two minutes

A white, privileged female in place of a fighting black woman was asking for trouble. A struggle we are continuously fighting every day, and they make a mockery of it. “I know what will work! Here Mr. Police Officer! Drink some Pepsi!” As if. Pepsi made a fool of themselves, and now their already dwindling fan base continues to ever shrink smaller.

R - Reframe your thoughts by choosing a different word, then write about that for one minute

You don’t know privilege until it’s gone. You don’t know privilege while it’s there—but you can and will be made accountable and aware. Don’t use it for evil. You are not stupid. Use it to do something. Kendall could’ve NOT done the commercial. Kendall could’ve released another commercial standing behind a black woman. Anything!

Exchange - Remember to discuss how this connects to our school song project and our previous discussions?

This connects two ways - 1) We want to convey a strong message. Be powerful. Show who we are. And Pepsi definitely tried. … Which leads to the second connection. 2) Not mess up and offend anyone, as had the one alma mater had been linked to black minstrels. We want to be amazing, but we have to be smart and careful and make sure we include everyone who goes to our school and everyone who may go to our school.

As a final step, students read and annotate the full article and compare it to their initial response.

Using current events and critical-thinking strategies like FIRE writing helps create a learning space where thinking is the goal rather than a score on a multiple-choice assessment. Critical-thinking skills can cross over to any of students’ other courses and into life outside the classroom. After all, we as teachers want to help the whole student be successful, and critical thinking is an important part of navigating life after they leave our classrooms.

‘Before-Explore-Explain’

Patrick Brown is the executive director of STEM and CTE for the Fort Zumwalt school district in Missouri and an experienced educator and author :

Planning for critical thinking focuses on teaching the most crucial science concepts, practices, and logical-thinking skills as well as the best use of instructional time. One way to ensure that lessons maintain a focus on critical thinking is to focus on the instructional sequence used to teach.

Explore-before-explain teaching is all about promoting critical thinking for learners to better prepare students for the reality of their world. What having an explore-before-explain mindset means is that in our planning, we prioritize giving students firsthand experiences with data, allow students to construct evidence-based claims that focus on conceptual understanding, and challenge students to discuss and think about the why behind phenomena.

Just think of the critical thinking that has to occur for students to construct a scientific claim. 1) They need the opportunity to collect data, analyze it, and determine how to make sense of what the data may mean. 2) With data in hand, students can begin thinking about the validity and reliability of their experience and information collected. 3) They can consider what differences, if any, they might have if they completed the investigation again. 4) They can scrutinize outlying data points for they may be an artifact of a true difference that merits further exploration of a misstep in the procedure, measuring device, or measurement. All of these intellectual activities help them form more robust understanding and are evidence of their critical thinking.

In explore-before-explain teaching, all of these hard critical-thinking tasks come before teacher explanations of content. Whether we use discovery experiences, problem-based learning, and or inquiry-based activities, strategies that are geared toward helping students construct understanding promote critical thinking because students learn content by doing the practices valued in the field to generate knowledge.

An Issue of Equity

Meg Riordan, Ph.D., is the chief learning officer at The Possible Project, an out-of-school program that collaborates with youth to build entrepreneurial skills and mindsets and provides pathways to careers and long-term economic prosperity. She has been in the field of education for over 25 years as a middle and high school teacher, school coach, college professor, regional director of N.Y.C. Outward Bound Schools, and director of external research with EL Education:

Although critical thinking often defies straightforward definition, most in the education field agree it consists of several components: reasoning, problem-solving, and decisionmaking, plus analysis and evaluation of information, such that multiple sides of an issue can be explored. It also includes dispositions and “the willingness to apply critical-thinking principles, rather than fall back on existing unexamined beliefs, or simply believe what you’re told by authority figures.”

Despite variation in definitions, critical thinking is nonetheless promoted as an essential outcome of students’ learning—we want to see students and adults demonstrate it across all fields, professions, and in their personal lives. Yet there is simultaneously a rationing of opportunities in schools for students of color, students from under-resourced communities, and other historically marginalized groups to deeply learn and practice critical thinking.

For example, many of our most underserved students often spend class time filling out worksheets, promoting high compliance but low engagement, inquiry, critical thinking, or creation of new ideas. At a time in our world when college and careers are critical for participation in society and the global, knowledge-based economy, far too many students struggle within classrooms and schools that reinforce low-expectations and inequity.

If educators aim to prepare all students for an ever-evolving marketplace and develop skills that will be valued no matter what tomorrow’s jobs are, then we must move critical thinking to the forefront of classroom experiences. And educators must design learning to cultivate it.

So, what does that really look like?

Unpack and define critical thinking

To understand critical thinking, educators need to first unpack and define its components. What exactly are we looking for when we speak about reasoning or exploring multiple perspectives on an issue? How does problem-solving show up in English, math, science, art, or other disciplines—and how is it assessed? At Two Rivers, an EL Education school, the faculty identified five constructs of critical thinking, defined each, and created rubrics to generate a shared picture of quality for teachers and students. The rubrics were then adapted across grade levels to indicate students’ learning progressions.

At Avenues World School, critical thinking is one of the Avenues World Elements and is an enduring outcome embedded in students’ early experiences through 12th grade. For instance, a kindergarten student may be expected to “identify cause and effect in familiar contexts,” while an 8th grader should demonstrate the ability to “seek out sufficient evidence before accepting a claim as true,” “identify bias in claims and evidence,” and “reconsider strongly held points of view in light of new evidence.”

When faculty and students embrace a common vision of what critical thinking looks and sounds like and how it is assessed, educators can then explicitly design learning experiences that call for students to employ critical-thinking skills. This kind of work must occur across all schools and programs, especially those serving large numbers of students of color. As Linda Darling-Hammond asserts , “Schools that serve large numbers of students of color are least likely to offer the kind of curriculum needed to ... help students attain the [critical-thinking] skills needed in a knowledge work economy. ”

So, what can it look like to create those kinds of learning experiences?

Designing experiences for critical thinking

After defining a shared understanding of “what” critical thinking is and “how” it shows up across multiple disciplines and grade levels, it is essential to create learning experiences that impel students to cultivate, practice, and apply these skills. There are several levers that offer pathways for teachers to promote critical thinking in lessons:

1.Choose Compelling Topics: Keep it relevant

A key Common Core State Standard asks for students to “write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.” That might not sound exciting or culturally relevant. But a learning experience designed for a 12th grade humanities class engaged learners in a compelling topic— policing in America —to analyze and evaluate multiple texts (including primary sources) and share the reasoning for their perspectives through discussion and writing. Students grappled with ideas and their beliefs and employed deep critical-thinking skills to develop arguments for their claims. Embedding critical-thinking skills in curriculum that students care about and connect with can ignite powerful learning experiences.

2. Make Local Connections: Keep it real

At The Possible Project , an out-of-school-time program designed to promote entrepreneurial skills and mindsets, students in a recent summer online program (modified from in-person due to COVID-19) explored the impact of COVID-19 on their communities and local BIPOC-owned businesses. They learned interviewing skills through a partnership with Everyday Boston , conducted virtual interviews with entrepreneurs, evaluated information from their interviews and local data, and examined their previously held beliefs. They created blog posts and videos to reflect on their learning and consider how their mindsets had changed as a result of the experience. In this way, we can design powerful community-based learning and invite students into productive struggle with multiple perspectives.

3. Create Authentic Projects: Keep it rigorous

At Big Picture Learning schools, students engage in internship-based learning experiences as a central part of their schooling. Their school-based adviser and internship-based mentor support them in developing real-world projects that promote deeper learning and critical-thinking skills. Such authentic experiences teach “young people to be thinkers, to be curious, to get from curiosity to creation … and it helps students design a learning experience that answers their questions, [providing an] opportunity to communicate it to a larger audience—a major indicator of postsecondary success.” Even in a remote environment, we can design projects that ask more of students than rote memorization and that spark critical thinking.

Our call to action is this: As educators, we need to make opportunities for critical thinking available not only to the affluent or those fortunate enough to be placed in advanced courses. The tools are available, let’s use them. Let’s interrogate our current curriculum and design learning experiences that engage all students in real, relevant, and rigorous experiences that require critical thinking and prepare them for promising postsecondary pathways.

Critical Thinking & Student Engagement

Dr. PJ Caposey is an award-winning educator, keynote speaker, consultant, and author of seven books who currently serves as the superintendent of schools for the award-winning Meridian CUSD 223 in northwest Illinois. You can find PJ on most social-media platforms as MCUSDSupe:

When I start my keynote on student engagement, I invite two people up on stage and give them each five paper balls to shoot at a garbage can also conveniently placed on stage. Contestant One shoots their shot, and the audience gives approval. Four out of 5 is a heckuva score. Then just before Contestant Two shoots, I blindfold them and start moving the garbage can back and forth. I usually try to ensure that they can at least make one of their shots. Nobody is successful in this unfair environment.

I thank them and send them back to their seats and then explain that this little activity was akin to student engagement. While we all know we want student engagement, we are shooting at different targets. More importantly, for teachers, it is near impossible for them to hit a target that is moving and that they cannot see.

Within the world of education and particularly as educational leaders, we have failed to simplify what student engagement looks like, and it is impossible to define or articulate what student engagement looks like if we cannot clearly articulate what critical thinking is and looks like in a classroom. Because, simply, without critical thought, there is no engagement.

The good news here is that critical thought has been defined and placed into taxonomies for decades already. This is not something new and not something that needs to be redefined. I am a Bloom’s person, but there is nothing wrong with DOK or some of the other taxonomies, either. To be precise, I am a huge fan of Daggett’s Rigor and Relevance Framework. I have used that as a core element of my practice for years, and it has shaped who I am as an instructional leader.

So, in order to explain critical thought, a teacher or a leader must familiarize themselves with these tried and true taxonomies. Easy, right? Yes, sort of. The issue is not understanding what critical thought is; it is the ability to integrate it into the classrooms. In order to do so, there are a four key steps every educator must take.

• Integrating critical thought/rigor into a lesson does not happen by chance, it happens by design. Planning for critical thought and engagement is much different from planning for a traditional lesson. In order to plan for kids to think critically, you have to provide a base of knowledge and excellent prompts to allow them to explore their own thinking in order to analyze, evaluate, or synthesize information.
• SIDE NOTE – Bloom’s verbs are a great way to start when writing objectives, but true planning will take you deeper than this.

QUESTIONING

• If the questions and prompts given in a classroom have correct answers or if the teacher ends up answering their own questions, the lesson will lack critical thought and rigor.
• Script five questions forcing higher-order thought prior to every lesson. Experienced teachers may not feel they need this, but it helps to create an effective habit.
• If lessons are rigorous and assessments are not, students will do well on their assessments, and that may not be an accurate representation of the knowledge and skills they have mastered. If lessons are easy and assessments are rigorous, the exact opposite will happen. When deciding to increase critical thought, it must happen in all three phases of the game: planning, instruction, and assessment.

TALK TIME / CONTROL

• To increase rigor, the teacher must DO LESS. This feels counterintuitive but is accurate. Rigorous lessons involving tons of critical thought must allow for students to work on their own, collaborate with peers, and connect their ideas. This cannot happen in a silent room except for the teacher talking. In order to increase rigor, decrease talk time and become comfortable with less control. Asking questions and giving prompts that lead to no true correct answer also means less control. This is a tough ask for some teachers. Explained differently, if you assign one assignment and get 30 very similar products, you have most likely assigned a low-rigor recipe. If you assign one assignment and get multiple varied products, then the students have had a chance to think deeply, and you have successfully integrated critical thought into your classroom.

Thanks to Dara, Patrick, Meg, and PJ for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

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Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is a widely accepted educational goal. Its definition is contested, but the competing definitions can be understood as differing conceptions of the same basic concept: careful thinking directed to a goal. Conceptions differ with respect to the scope of such thinking, the type of goal, the criteria and norms for thinking carefully, and the thinking components on which they focus. Its adoption as an educational goal has been recommended on the basis of respect for students’ autonomy and preparing students for success in life and for democratic citizenship. “Critical thinkers” have the dispositions and abilities that lead them to think critically when appropriate. The abilities can be identified directly; the dispositions indirectly, by considering what factors contribute to or impede exercise of the abilities. Standardized tests have been developed to assess the degree to which a person possesses such dispositions and abilities. Educational intervention has been shown experimentally to improve them, particularly when it includes dialogue, anchored instruction, and mentoring. Controversies have arisen over the generalizability of critical thinking across domains, over alleged bias in critical thinking theories and instruction, and over the relationship of critical thinking to other types of thinking.

2.1 Dewey’s Three Main Examples

2.2 dewey’s other examples, 2.3 further examples, 2.4 non-examples, 3. the definition of critical thinking, 4. its value, 5. the process of thinking critically, 6. components of the process, 7. contributory dispositions and abilities, 8.1 initiating dispositions, 8.2 internal dispositions, 9. critical thinking abilities, 10. required knowledge, 11. educational methods, 12.1 the generalizability of critical thinking, 12.2 bias in critical thinking theory and pedagogy, 12.3 relationship of critical thinking to other types of thinking, other internet resources, related entries.

Use of the term ‘critical thinking’ to describe an educational goal goes back to the American philosopher John Dewey (1910), who more commonly called it ‘reflective thinking’. He defined it as

active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends. (Dewey 1910: 6; 1933: 9)

and identified a habit of such consideration with a scientific attitude of mind. His lengthy quotations of Francis Bacon, John Locke, and John Stuart Mill indicate that he was not the first person to propose development of a scientific attitude of mind as an educational goal.

In the 1930s, many of the schools that participated in the Eight-Year Study of the Progressive Education Association (Aikin 1942) adopted critical thinking as an educational goal, for whose achievement the study’s Evaluation Staff developed tests (Smith, Tyler, & Evaluation Staff 1942). Glaser (1941) showed experimentally that it was possible to improve the critical thinking of high school students. Bloom’s influential taxonomy of cognitive educational objectives (Bloom et al. 1956) incorporated critical thinking abilities. Ennis (1962) proposed 12 aspects of critical thinking as a basis for research on the teaching and evaluation of critical thinking ability.

Since 1980, an annual international conference in California on critical thinking and educational reform has attracted tens of thousands of educators from all levels of education and from many parts of the world. Also since 1980, the state university system in California has required all undergraduate students to take a critical thinking course. Since 1983, the Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking has sponsored sessions in conjunction with the divisional meetings of the American Philosophical Association (APA). In 1987, the APA’s Committee on Pre-College Philosophy commissioned a consensus statement on critical thinking for purposes of educational assessment and instruction (Facione 1990a). Researchers have developed standardized tests of critical thinking abilities and dispositions; for details, see the Supplement on Assessment . Educational jurisdictions around the world now include critical thinking in guidelines for curriculum and assessment.

For details on this history, see the Supplement on History .

2. Examples and Non-Examples

Before considering the definition of critical thinking, it will be helpful to have in mind some examples of critical thinking, as well as some examples of kinds of thinking that would apparently not count as critical thinking.

Dewey (1910: 68–71; 1933: 91–94) takes as paradigms of reflective thinking three class papers of students in which they describe their thinking. The examples range from the everyday to the scientific.

Transit : “The other day, when I was down town on 16th Street, a clock caught my eye. I saw that the hands pointed to 12:20. This suggested that I had an engagement at 124th Street, at one o’clock. I reasoned that as it had taken me an hour to come down on a surface car, I should probably be twenty minutes late if I returned the same way. I might save twenty minutes by a subway express. But was there a station near? If not, I might lose more than twenty minutes in looking for one. Then I thought of the elevated, and I saw there was such a line within two blocks. But where was the station? If it were several blocks above or below the street I was on, I should lose time instead of gaining it. My mind went back to the subway express as quicker than the elevated; furthermore, I remembered that it went nearer than the elevated to the part of 124th Street I wished to reach, so that time would be saved at the end of the journey. I concluded in favor of the subway, and reached my destination by one o’clock.” (Dewey 1910: 68–69; 1933: 91–92)

Ferryboat : “Projecting nearly horizontally from the upper deck of the ferryboat on which I daily cross the river is a long white pole, having a gilded ball at its tip. It suggested a flagpole when I first saw it; its color, shape, and gilded ball agreed with this idea, and these reasons seemed to justify me in this belief. But soon difficulties presented themselves. The pole was nearly horizontal, an unusual position for a flagpole; in the next place, there was no pulley, ring, or cord by which to attach a flag; finally, there were elsewhere on the boat two vertical staffs from which flags were occasionally flown. It seemed probable that the pole was not there for flag-flying.

“I then tried to imagine all possible purposes of the pole, and to consider for which of these it was best suited: (a) Possibly it was an ornament. But as all the ferryboats and even the tugboats carried poles, this hypothesis was rejected. (b) Possibly it was the terminal of a wireless telegraph. But the same considerations made this improbable. Besides, the more natural place for such a terminal would be the highest part of the boat, on top of the pilot house. (c) Its purpose might be to point out the direction in which the boat is moving.

“In support of this conclusion, I discovered that the pole was lower than the pilot house, so that the steersman could easily see it. Moreover, the tip was enough higher than the base, so that, from the pilot’s position, it must appear to project far out in front of the boat. Moreover, the pilot being near the front of the boat, he would need some such guide as to its direction. Tugboats would also need poles for such a purpose. This hypothesis was so much more probable than the others that I accepted it. I formed the conclusion that the pole was set up for the purpose of showing the pilot the direction in which the boat pointed, to enable him to steer correctly.” (Dewey 1910: 69–70; 1933: 92–93)

Bubbles : “In washing tumblers in hot soapsuds and placing them mouth downward on a plate, bubbles appeared on the outside of the mouth of the tumblers and then went inside. Why? The presence of bubbles suggests air, which I note must come from inside the tumbler. I see that the soapy water on the plate prevents escape of the air save as it may be caught in bubbles. But why should air leave the tumbler? There was no substance entering to force it out. It must have expanded. It expands by increase of heat, or by decrease of pressure, or both. Could the air have become heated after the tumbler was taken from the hot suds? Clearly not the air that was already entangled in the water. If heated air was the cause, cold air must have entered in transferring the tumblers from the suds to the plate. I test to see if this supposition is true by taking several more tumblers out. Some I shake so as to make sure of entrapping cold air in them. Some I take out holding mouth downward in order to prevent cold air from entering. Bubbles appear on the outside of every one of the former and on none of the latter. I must be right in my inference. Air from the outside must have been expanded by the heat of the tumbler, which explains the appearance of the bubbles on the outside. But why do they then go inside? Cold contracts. The tumbler cooled and also the air inside it. Tension was removed, and hence bubbles appeared inside. To be sure of this, I test by placing a cup of ice on the tumbler while the bubbles are still forming outside. They soon reverse” (Dewey 1910: 70–71; 1933: 93–94).

Dewey (1910, 1933) sprinkles his book with other examples of critical thinking. We will refer to the following.

Weather : A man on a walk notices that it has suddenly become cool, thinks that it is probably going to rain, looks up and sees a dark cloud obscuring the sun, and quickens his steps (1910: 6–10; 1933: 9–13).

Disorder : A man finds his rooms on his return to them in disorder with his belongings thrown about, thinks at first of burglary as an explanation, then thinks of mischievous children as being an alternative explanation, then looks to see whether valuables are missing, and discovers that they are (1910: 82–83; 1933: 166–168).

Typhoid : A physician diagnosing a patient whose conspicuous symptoms suggest typhoid avoids drawing a conclusion until more data are gathered by questioning the patient and by making tests (1910: 85–86; 1933: 170).

Blur : A moving blur catches our eye in the distance, we ask ourselves whether it is a cloud of whirling dust or a tree moving its branches or a man signaling to us, we think of other traits that should be found on each of those possibilities, and we look and see if those traits are found (1910: 102, 108; 1933: 121, 133).

Suction pump : In thinking about the suction pump, the scientist first notes that it will draw water only to a maximum height of 33 feet at sea level and to a lesser maximum height at higher elevations, selects for attention the differing atmospheric pressure at these elevations, sets up experiments in which the air is removed from a vessel containing water (when suction no longer works) and in which the weight of air at various levels is calculated, compares the results of reasoning about the height to which a given weight of air will allow a suction pump to raise water with the observed maximum height at different elevations, and finally assimilates the suction pump to such apparently different phenomena as the siphon and the rising of a balloon (1910: 150–153; 1933: 195–198).

Diamond : A passenger in a car driving in a diamond lane reserved for vehicles with at least one passenger notices that the diamond marks on the pavement are far apart in some places and close together in others. Why? The driver suggests that the reason may be that the diamond marks are not needed where there is a solid double line separating the diamond lane from the adjoining lane, but are needed when there is a dotted single line permitting crossing into the diamond lane. Further observation confirms that the diamonds are close together when a dotted line separates the diamond lane from its neighbour, but otherwise far apart.

Rash : A woman suddenly develops a very itchy red rash on her throat and upper chest. She recently noticed a mark on the back of her right hand, but was not sure whether the mark was a rash or a scrape. She lies down in bed and thinks about what might be causing the rash and what to do about it. About two weeks before, she began taking blood pressure medication that contained a sulfa drug, and the pharmacist had warned her, in view of a previous allergic reaction to a medication containing a sulfa drug, to be on the alert for an allergic reaction; however, she had been taking the medication for two weeks with no such effect. The day before, she began using a new cream on her neck and upper chest; against the new cream as the cause was mark on the back of her hand, which had not been exposed to the cream. She began taking probiotics about a month before. She also recently started new eye drops, but she supposed that manufacturers of eye drops would be careful not to include allergy-causing components in the medication. The rash might be a heat rash, since she recently was sweating profusely from her upper body. Since she is about to go away on a short vacation, where she would not have access to her usual physician, she decides to keep taking the probiotics and using the new eye drops but to discontinue the blood pressure medication and to switch back to the old cream for her neck and upper chest. She forms a plan to consult her regular physician on her return about the blood pressure medication.

Candidate : Although Dewey included no examples of thinking directed at appraising the arguments of others, such thinking has come to be considered a kind of critical thinking. We find an example of such thinking in the performance task on the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA+), which its sponsoring organization describes as

a performance-based assessment that provides a measure of an institution’s contribution to the development of critical-thinking and written communication skills of its students. (Council for Aid to Education 2017)

A sample task posted on its website requires the test-taker to write a report for public distribution evaluating a fictional candidate’s policy proposals and their supporting arguments, using supplied background documents, with a recommendation on whether to endorse the candidate.

Immediate acceptance of an idea that suggests itself as a solution to a problem (e.g., a possible explanation of an event or phenomenon, an action that seems likely to produce a desired result) is “uncritical thinking, the minimum of reflection” (Dewey 1910: 13). On-going suspension of judgment in the light of doubt about a possible solution is not critical thinking (Dewey 1910: 108). Critique driven by a dogmatically held political or religious ideology is not critical thinking; thus Paulo Freire (1968 [1970]) is using the term (e.g., at 1970: 71, 81, 100, 146) in a more politically freighted sense that includes not only reflection but also revolutionary action against oppression. Derivation of a conclusion from given data using an algorithm is not critical thinking.

What is critical thinking? There are many definitions. Ennis (2016) lists 14 philosophically oriented scholarly definitions and three dictionary definitions. Following Rawls (1971), who distinguished his conception of justice from a utilitarian conception but regarded them as rival conceptions of the same concept, Ennis maintains that the 17 definitions are different conceptions of the same concept. Rawls articulated the shared concept of justice as

a characteristic set of principles for assigning basic rights and duties and for determining… the proper distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation. (Rawls 1971: 5)

Bailin et al. (1999b) claim that, if one considers what sorts of thinking an educator would take not to be critical thinking and what sorts to be critical thinking, one can conclude that educators typically understand critical thinking to have at least three features.

• It is done for the purpose of making up one’s mind about what to believe or do.
• The person engaging in the thinking is trying to fulfill standards of adequacy and accuracy appropriate to the thinking.
• The thinking fulfills the relevant standards to some threshold level.

One could sum up the core concept that involves these three features by saying that critical thinking is careful goal-directed thinking. This core concept seems to apply to all the examples of critical thinking described in the previous section. As for the non-examples, their exclusion depends on construing careful thinking as excluding jumping immediately to conclusions, suspending judgment no matter how strong the evidence, reasoning from an unquestioned ideological or religious perspective, and routinely using an algorithm to answer a question.

If the core of critical thinking is careful goal-directed thinking, conceptions of it can vary according to its presumed scope, its presumed goal, one’s criteria and threshold for being careful, and the thinking component on which one focuses. As to its scope, some conceptions (e.g., Dewey 1910, 1933) restrict it to constructive thinking on the basis of one’s own observations and experiments, others (e.g., Ennis 1962; Fisher & Scriven 1997; Johnson 1992) to appraisal of the products of such thinking. Ennis (1991) and Bailin et al. (1999b) take it to cover both construction and appraisal. As to its goal, some conceptions restrict it to forming a judgment (Dewey 1910, 1933; Lipman 1987; Facione 1990a). Others allow for actions as well as beliefs as the end point of a process of critical thinking (Ennis 1991; Bailin et al. 1999b). As to the criteria and threshold for being careful, definitions vary in the term used to indicate that critical thinking satisfies certain norms: “intellectually disciplined” (Scriven & Paul 1987), “reasonable” (Ennis 1991), “skillful” (Lipman 1987), “skilled” (Fisher & Scriven 1997), “careful” (Bailin & Battersby 2009). Some definitions specify these norms, referring variously to “consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends” (Dewey 1910, 1933); “the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning” (Glaser 1941); “conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication” (Scriven & Paul 1987); the requirement that “it is sensitive to context, relies on criteria, and is self-correcting” (Lipman 1987); “evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations” (Facione 1990a); and “plus-minus considerations of the product in terms of appropriate standards (or criteria)” (Johnson 1992). Stanovich and Stanovich (2010) propose to ground the concept of critical thinking in the concept of rationality, which they understand as combining epistemic rationality (fitting one’s beliefs to the world) and instrumental rationality (optimizing goal fulfillment); a critical thinker, in their view, is someone with “a propensity to override suboptimal responses from the autonomous mind” (2010: 227). These variant specifications of norms for critical thinking are not necessarily incompatible with one another, and in any case presuppose the core notion of thinking carefully. As to the thinking component singled out, some definitions focus on suspension of judgment during the thinking (Dewey 1910; McPeck 1981), others on inquiry while judgment is suspended (Bailin & Battersby 2009, 2021), others on the resulting judgment (Facione 1990a), and still others on responsiveness to reasons (Siegel 1988). Kuhn (2019) takes critical thinking to be more a dialogic practice of advancing and responding to arguments than an individual ability.

In educational contexts, a definition of critical thinking is a “programmatic definition” (Scheffler 1960: 19). It expresses a practical program for achieving an educational goal. For this purpose, a one-sentence formulaic definition is much less useful than articulation of a critical thinking process, with criteria and standards for the kinds of thinking that the process may involve. The real educational goal is recognition, adoption and implementation by students of those criteria and standards. That adoption and implementation in turn consists in acquiring the knowledge, abilities and dispositions of a critical thinker.

Conceptions of critical thinking generally do not include moral integrity as part of the concept. Dewey, for example, took critical thinking to be the ultimate intellectual goal of education, but distinguished it from the development of social cooperation among school children, which he took to be the central moral goal. Ennis (1996, 2011) added to his previous list of critical thinking dispositions a group of dispositions to care about the dignity and worth of every person, which he described as a “correlative” (1996) disposition without which critical thinking would be less valuable and perhaps harmful. An educational program that aimed at developing critical thinking but not the correlative disposition to care about the dignity and worth of every person, he asserted, “would be deficient and perhaps dangerous” (Ennis 1996: 172).

Dewey thought that education for reflective thinking would be of value to both the individual and society; recognition in educational practice of the kinship to the scientific attitude of children’s native curiosity, fertile imagination and love of experimental inquiry “would make for individual happiness and the reduction of social waste” (Dewey 1910: iii). Schools participating in the Eight-Year Study took development of the habit of reflective thinking and skill in solving problems as a means to leading young people to understand, appreciate and live the democratic way of life characteristic of the United States (Aikin 1942: 17–18, 81). Harvey Siegel (1988: 55–61) has offered four considerations in support of adopting critical thinking as an educational ideal. (1) Respect for persons requires that schools and teachers honour students’ demands for reasons and explanations, deal with students honestly, and recognize the need to confront students’ independent judgment; these requirements concern the manner in which teachers treat students. (2) Education has the task of preparing children to be successful adults, a task that requires development of their self-sufficiency. (3) Education should initiate children into the rational traditions in such fields as history, science and mathematics. (4) Education should prepare children to become democratic citizens, which requires reasoned procedures and critical talents and attitudes. To supplement these considerations, Siegel (1988: 62–90) responds to two objections: the ideology objection that adoption of any educational ideal requires a prior ideological commitment and the indoctrination objection that cultivation of critical thinking cannot escape being a form of indoctrination.

Despite the diversity of our 11 examples, one can recognize a common pattern. Dewey analyzed it as consisting of five phases:

• suggestions , in which the mind leaps forward to a possible solution;
• an intellectualization of the difficulty or perplexity into a problem to be solved, a question for which the answer must be sought;
• the use of one suggestion after another as a leading idea, or hypothesis , to initiate and guide observation and other operations in collection of factual material;
• the mental elaboration of the idea or supposition as an idea or supposition ( reasoning , in the sense on which reasoning is a part, not the whole, of inference); and
• testing the hypothesis by overt or imaginative action. (Dewey 1933: 106–107; italics in original)

The process of reflective thinking consisting of these phases would be preceded by a perplexed, troubled or confused situation and followed by a cleared-up, unified, resolved situation (Dewey 1933: 106). The term ‘phases’ replaced the term ‘steps’ (Dewey 1910: 72), thus removing the earlier suggestion of an invariant sequence. Variants of the above analysis appeared in (Dewey 1916: 177) and (Dewey 1938: 101–119).

The variant formulations indicate the difficulty of giving a single logical analysis of such a varied process. The process of critical thinking may have a spiral pattern, with the problem being redefined in the light of obstacles to solving it as originally formulated. For example, the person in Transit might have concluded that getting to the appointment at the scheduled time was impossible and have reformulated the problem as that of rescheduling the appointment for a mutually convenient time. Further, defining a problem does not always follow after or lead immediately to an idea of a suggested solution. Nor should it do so, as Dewey himself recognized in describing the physician in Typhoid as avoiding any strong preference for this or that conclusion before getting further information (Dewey 1910: 85; 1933: 170). People with a hypothesis in mind, even one to which they have a very weak commitment, have a so-called “confirmation bias” (Nickerson 1998): they are likely to pay attention to evidence that confirms the hypothesis and to ignore evidence that counts against it or for some competing hypothesis. Detectives, intelligence agencies, and investigators of airplane accidents are well advised to gather relevant evidence systematically and to postpone even tentative adoption of an explanatory hypothesis until the collected evidence rules out with the appropriate degree of certainty all but one explanation. Dewey’s analysis of the critical thinking process can be faulted as well for requiring acceptance or rejection of a possible solution to a defined problem, with no allowance for deciding in the light of the available evidence to suspend judgment. Further, given the great variety of kinds of problems for which reflection is appropriate, there is likely to be variation in its component events. Perhaps the best way to conceptualize the critical thinking process is as a checklist whose component events can occur in a variety of orders, selectively, and more than once. These component events might include (1) noticing a difficulty, (2) defining the problem, (3) dividing the problem into manageable sub-problems, (4) formulating a variety of possible solutions to the problem or sub-problem, (5) determining what evidence is relevant to deciding among possible solutions to the problem or sub-problem, (6) devising a plan of systematic observation or experiment that will uncover the relevant evidence, (7) carrying out the plan of systematic observation or experimentation, (8) noting the results of the systematic observation or experiment, (9) gathering relevant testimony and information from others, (10) judging the credibility of testimony and information gathered from others, (11) drawing conclusions from gathered evidence and accepted testimony, and (12) accepting a solution that the evidence adequately supports (cf. Hitchcock 2017: 485).

Checklist conceptions of the process of critical thinking are open to the objection that they are too mechanical and procedural to fit the multi-dimensional and emotionally charged issues for which critical thinking is urgently needed (Paul 1984). For such issues, a more dialectical process is advocated, in which competing relevant world views are identified, their implications explored, and some sort of creative synthesis attempted.

If one considers the critical thinking process illustrated by the 11 examples, one can identify distinct kinds of mental acts and mental states that form part of it. To distinguish, label and briefly characterize these components is a useful preliminary to identifying abilities, skills, dispositions, attitudes, habits and the like that contribute causally to thinking critically. Identifying such abilities and habits is in turn a useful preliminary to setting educational goals. Setting the goals is in its turn a useful preliminary to designing strategies for helping learners to achieve the goals and to designing ways of measuring the extent to which learners have done so. Such measures provide both feedback to learners on their achievement and a basis for experimental research on the effectiveness of various strategies for educating people to think critically. Let us begin, then, by distinguishing the kinds of mental acts and mental events that can occur in a critical thinking process.

• Observing : One notices something in one’s immediate environment (sudden cooling of temperature in Weather , bubbles forming outside a glass and then going inside in Bubbles , a moving blur in the distance in Blur , a rash in Rash ). Or one notes the results of an experiment or systematic observation (valuables missing in Disorder , no suction without air pressure in Suction pump )
• Feeling : One feels puzzled or uncertain about something (how to get to an appointment on time in Transit , why the diamonds vary in spacing in Diamond ). One wants to resolve this perplexity. One feels satisfaction once one has worked out an answer (to take the subway express in Transit , diamonds closer when needed as a warning in Diamond ).
• Wondering : One formulates a question to be addressed (why bubbles form outside a tumbler taken from hot water in Bubbles , how suction pumps work in Suction pump , what caused the rash in Rash ).
• Imagining : One thinks of possible answers (bus or subway or elevated in Transit , flagpole or ornament or wireless communication aid or direction indicator in Ferryboat , allergic reaction or heat rash in Rash ).
• Inferring : One works out what would be the case if a possible answer were assumed (valuables missing if there has been a burglary in Disorder , earlier start to the rash if it is an allergic reaction to a sulfa drug in Rash ). Or one draws a conclusion once sufficient relevant evidence is gathered (take the subway in Transit , burglary in Disorder , discontinue blood pressure medication and new cream in Rash ).
• Knowledge : One uses stored knowledge of the subject-matter to generate possible answers or to infer what would be expected on the assumption of a particular answer (knowledge of a city’s public transit system in Transit , of the requirements for a flagpole in Ferryboat , of Boyle’s law in Bubbles , of allergic reactions in Rash ).
• Experimenting : One designs and carries out an experiment or a systematic observation to find out whether the results deduced from a possible answer will occur (looking at the location of the flagpole in relation to the pilot’s position in Ferryboat , putting an ice cube on top of a tumbler taken from hot water in Bubbles , measuring the height to which a suction pump will draw water at different elevations in Suction pump , noticing the spacing of diamonds when movement to or from a diamond lane is allowed in Diamond ).
• Consulting : One finds a source of information, gets the information from the source, and makes a judgment on whether to accept it. None of our 11 examples include searching for sources of information. In this respect they are unrepresentative, since most people nowadays have almost instant access to information relevant to answering any question, including many of those illustrated by the examples. However, Candidate includes the activities of extracting information from sources and evaluating its credibility.
• Identifying and analyzing arguments : One notices an argument and works out its structure and content as a preliminary to evaluating its strength. This activity is central to Candidate . It is an important part of a critical thinking process in which one surveys arguments for various positions on an issue.
• Judging : One makes a judgment on the basis of accumulated evidence and reasoning, such as the judgment in Ferryboat that the purpose of the pole is to provide direction to the pilot.
• Deciding : One makes a decision on what to do or on what policy to adopt, as in the decision in Transit to take the subway.

By definition, a person who does something voluntarily is both willing and able to do that thing at that time. Both the willingness and the ability contribute causally to the person’s action, in the sense that the voluntary action would not occur if either (or both) of these were lacking. For example, suppose that one is standing with one’s arms at one’s sides and one voluntarily lifts one’s right arm to an extended horizontal position. One would not do so if one were unable to lift one’s arm, if for example one’s right side was paralyzed as the result of a stroke. Nor would one do so if one were unwilling to lift one’s arm, if for example one were participating in a street demonstration at which a white supremacist was urging the crowd to lift their right arm in a Nazi salute and one were unwilling to express support in this way for the racist Nazi ideology. The same analysis applies to a voluntary mental process of thinking critically. It requires both willingness and ability to think critically, including willingness and ability to perform each of the mental acts that compose the process and to coordinate those acts in a sequence that is directed at resolving the initiating perplexity.

Consider willingness first. We can identify causal contributors to willingness to think critically by considering factors that would cause a person who was able to think critically about an issue nevertheless not to do so (Hamby 2014). For each factor, the opposite condition thus contributes causally to willingness to think critically on a particular occasion. For example, people who habitually jump to conclusions without considering alternatives will not think critically about issues that arise, even if they have the required abilities. The contrary condition of willingness to suspend judgment is thus a causal contributor to thinking critically.

Now consider ability. In contrast to the ability to move one’s arm, which can be completely absent because a stroke has left the arm paralyzed, the ability to think critically is a developed ability, whose absence is not a complete absence of ability to think but absence of ability to think well. We can identify the ability to think well directly, in terms of the norms and standards for good thinking. In general, to be able do well the thinking activities that can be components of a critical thinking process, one needs to know the concepts and principles that characterize their good performance, to recognize in particular cases that the concepts and principles apply, and to apply them. The knowledge, recognition and application may be procedural rather than declarative. It may be domain-specific rather than widely applicable, and in either case may need subject-matter knowledge, sometimes of a deep kind.

Reflections of the sort illustrated by the previous two paragraphs have led scholars to identify the knowledge, abilities and dispositions of a “critical thinker”, i.e., someone who thinks critically whenever it is appropriate to do so. We turn now to these three types of causal contributors to thinking critically. We start with dispositions, since arguably these are the most powerful contributors to being a critical thinker, can be fostered at an early stage of a child’s development, and are susceptible to general improvement (Glaser 1941: 175)

8. Critical Thinking Dispositions

Educational researchers use the term ‘dispositions’ broadly for the habits of mind and attitudes that contribute causally to being a critical thinker. Some writers (e.g., Paul & Elder 2006; Hamby 2014; Bailin & Battersby 2016a) propose to use the term ‘virtues’ for this dimension of a critical thinker. The virtues in question, although they are virtues of character, concern the person’s ways of thinking rather than the person’s ways of behaving towards others. They are not moral virtues but intellectual virtues, of the sort articulated by Zagzebski (1996) and discussed by Turri, Alfano, and Greco (2017).

On a realistic conception, thinking dispositions or intellectual virtues are real properties of thinkers. They are general tendencies, propensities, or inclinations to think in particular ways in particular circumstances, and can be genuinely explanatory (Siegel 1999). Sceptics argue that there is no evidence for a specific mental basis for the habits of mind that contribute to thinking critically, and that it is pedagogically misleading to posit such a basis (Bailin et al. 1999a). Whatever their status, critical thinking dispositions need motivation for their initial formation in a child—motivation that may be external or internal. As children develop, the force of habit will gradually become important in sustaining the disposition (Nieto & Valenzuela 2012). Mere force of habit, however, is unlikely to sustain critical thinking dispositions. Critical thinkers must value and enjoy using their knowledge and abilities to think things through for themselves. They must be committed to, and lovers of, inquiry.

A person may have a critical thinking disposition with respect to only some kinds of issues. For example, one could be open-minded about scientific issues but not about religious issues. Similarly, one could be confident in one’s ability to reason about the theological implications of the existence of evil in the world but not in one’s ability to reason about the best design for a guided ballistic missile.

Facione (1990a: 25) divides “affective dispositions” of critical thinking into approaches to life and living in general and approaches to specific issues, questions or problems. Adapting this distinction, one can usefully divide critical thinking dispositions into initiating dispositions (those that contribute causally to starting to think critically about an issue) and internal dispositions (those that contribute causally to doing a good job of thinking critically once one has started). The two categories are not mutually exclusive. For example, open-mindedness, in the sense of willingness to consider alternative points of view to one’s own, is both an initiating and an internal disposition.

Using the strategy of considering factors that would block people with the ability to think critically from doing so, we can identify as initiating dispositions for thinking critically attentiveness, a habit of inquiry, self-confidence, courage, open-mindedness, willingness to suspend judgment, trust in reason, wanting evidence for one’s beliefs, and seeking the truth. We consider briefly what each of these dispositions amounts to, in each case citing sources that acknowledge them.

• Attentiveness : One will not think critically if one fails to recognize an issue that needs to be thought through. For example, the pedestrian in Weather would not have looked up if he had not noticed that the air was suddenly cooler. To be a critical thinker, then, one needs to be habitually attentive to one’s surroundings, noticing not only what one senses but also sources of perplexity in messages received and in one’s own beliefs and attitudes (Facione 1990a: 25; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001).
• Habit of inquiry : Inquiry is effortful, and one needs an internal push to engage in it. For example, the student in Bubbles could easily have stopped at idle wondering about the cause of the bubbles rather than reasoning to a hypothesis, then designing and executing an experiment to test it. Thus willingness to think critically needs mental energy and initiative. What can supply that energy? Love of inquiry, or perhaps just a habit of inquiry. Hamby (2015) has argued that willingness to inquire is the central critical thinking virtue, one that encompasses all the others. It is recognized as a critical thinking disposition by Dewey (1910: 29; 1933: 35), Glaser (1941: 5), Ennis (1987: 12; 1991: 8), Facione (1990a: 25), Bailin et al. (1999b: 294), Halpern (1998: 452), and Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo (2001).
• Self-confidence : Lack of confidence in one’s abilities can block critical thinking. For example, if the woman in Rash lacked confidence in her ability to figure things out for herself, she might just have assumed that the rash on her chest was the allergic reaction to her medication against which the pharmacist had warned her. Thus willingness to think critically requires confidence in one’s ability to inquire (Facione 1990a: 25; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001).
• Courage : Fear of thinking for oneself can stop one from doing it. Thus willingness to think critically requires intellectual courage (Paul & Elder 2006: 16).
• Open-mindedness : A dogmatic attitude will impede thinking critically. For example, a person who adheres rigidly to a “pro-choice” position on the issue of the legal status of induced abortion is likely to be unwilling to consider seriously the issue of when in its development an unborn child acquires a moral right to life. Thus willingness to think critically requires open-mindedness, in the sense of a willingness to examine questions to which one already accepts an answer but which further evidence or reasoning might cause one to answer differently (Dewey 1933; Facione 1990a; Ennis 1991; Bailin et al. 1999b; Halpern 1998, Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001). Paul (1981) emphasizes open-mindedness about alternative world-views, and recommends a dialectical approach to integrating such views as central to what he calls “strong sense” critical thinking. In three studies, Haran, Ritov, & Mellers (2013) found that actively open-minded thinking, including “the tendency to weigh new evidence against a favored belief, to spend sufficient time on a problem before giving up, and to consider carefully the opinions of others in forming one’s own”, led study participants to acquire information and thus to make accurate estimations.
• Willingness to suspend judgment : Premature closure on an initial solution will block critical thinking. Thus willingness to think critically requires a willingness to suspend judgment while alternatives are explored (Facione 1990a; Ennis 1991; Halpern 1998).
• Trust in reason : Since distrust in the processes of reasoned inquiry will dissuade one from engaging in it, trust in them is an initiating critical thinking disposition (Facione 1990a, 25; Bailin et al. 1999b: 294; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001; Paul & Elder 2006). In reaction to an allegedly exclusive emphasis on reason in critical thinking theory and pedagogy, Thayer-Bacon (2000) argues that intuition, imagination, and emotion have important roles to play in an adequate conception of critical thinking that she calls “constructive thinking”. From her point of view, critical thinking requires trust not only in reason but also in intuition, imagination, and emotion.
• Seeking the truth : If one does not care about the truth but is content to stick with one’s initial bias on an issue, then one will not think critically about it. Seeking the truth is thus an initiating critical thinking disposition (Bailin et al. 1999b: 294; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001). A disposition to seek the truth is implicit in more specific critical thinking dispositions, such as trying to be well-informed, considering seriously points of view other than one’s own, looking for alternatives, suspending judgment when the evidence is insufficient, and adopting a position when the evidence supporting it is sufficient.

Some of the initiating dispositions, such as open-mindedness and willingness to suspend judgment, are also internal critical thinking dispositions, in the sense of mental habits or attitudes that contribute causally to doing a good job of critical thinking once one starts the process. But there are many other internal critical thinking dispositions. Some of them are parasitic on one’s conception of good thinking. For example, it is constitutive of good thinking about an issue to formulate the issue clearly and to maintain focus on it. For this purpose, one needs not only the corresponding ability but also the corresponding disposition. Ennis (1991: 8) describes it as the disposition “to determine and maintain focus on the conclusion or question”, Facione (1990a: 25) as “clarity in stating the question or concern”. Other internal dispositions are motivators to continue or adjust the critical thinking process, such as willingness to persist in a complex task and willingness to abandon nonproductive strategies in an attempt to self-correct (Halpern 1998: 452). For a list of identified internal critical thinking dispositions, see the Supplement on Internal Critical Thinking Dispositions .

Some theorists postulate skills, i.e., acquired abilities, as operative in critical thinking. It is not obvious, however, that a good mental act is the exercise of a generic acquired skill. Inferring an expected time of arrival, as in Transit , has some generic components but also uses non-generic subject-matter knowledge. Bailin et al. (1999a) argue against viewing critical thinking skills as generic and discrete, on the ground that skilled performance at a critical thinking task cannot be separated from knowledge of concepts and from domain-specific principles of good thinking. Talk of skills, they concede, is unproblematic if it means merely that a person with critical thinking skills is capable of intelligent performance.

Despite such scepticism, theorists of critical thinking have listed as general contributors to critical thinking what they variously call abilities (Glaser 1941; Ennis 1962, 1991), skills (Facione 1990a; Halpern 1998) or competencies (Fisher & Scriven 1997). Amalgamating these lists would produce a confusing and chaotic cornucopia of more than 50 possible educational objectives, with only partial overlap among them. It makes sense instead to try to understand the reasons for the multiplicity and diversity, and to make a selection according to one’s own reasons for singling out abilities to be developed in a critical thinking curriculum. Two reasons for diversity among lists of critical thinking abilities are the underlying conception of critical thinking and the envisaged educational level. Appraisal-only conceptions, for example, involve a different suite of abilities than constructive-only conceptions. Some lists, such as those in (Glaser 1941), are put forward as educational objectives for secondary school students, whereas others are proposed as objectives for college students (e.g., Facione 1990a).

The abilities described in the remaining paragraphs of this section emerge from reflection on the general abilities needed to do well the thinking activities identified in section 6 as components of the critical thinking process described in section 5 . The derivation of each collection of abilities is accompanied by citation of sources that list such abilities and of standardized tests that claim to test them.

Observational abilities : Careful and accurate observation sometimes requires specialist expertise and practice, as in the case of observing birds and observing accident scenes. However, there are general abilities of noticing what one’s senses are picking up from one’s environment and of being able to articulate clearly and accurately to oneself and others what one has observed. It helps in exercising them to be able to recognize and take into account factors that make one’s observation less trustworthy, such as prior framing of the situation, inadequate time, deficient senses, poor observation conditions, and the like. It helps as well to be skilled at taking steps to make one’s observation more trustworthy, such as moving closer to get a better look, measuring something three times and taking the average, and checking what one thinks one is observing with someone else who is in a good position to observe it. It also helps to be skilled at recognizing respects in which one’s report of one’s observation involves inference rather than direct observation, so that one can then consider whether the inference is justified. These abilities come into play as well when one thinks about whether and with what degree of confidence to accept an observation report, for example in the study of history or in a criminal investigation or in assessing news reports. Observational abilities show up in some lists of critical thinking abilities (Ennis 1962: 90; Facione 1990a: 16; Ennis 1991: 9). There are items testing a person’s ability to judge the credibility of observation reports in the Cornell Critical Thinking Tests, Levels X and Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005). Norris and King (1983, 1985, 1990a, 1990b) is a test of ability to appraise observation reports.

Emotional abilities : The emotions that drive a critical thinking process are perplexity or puzzlement, a wish to resolve it, and satisfaction at achieving the desired resolution. Children experience these emotions at an early age, without being trained to do so. Education that takes critical thinking as a goal needs only to channel these emotions and to make sure not to stifle them. Collaborative critical thinking benefits from ability to recognize one’s own and others’ emotional commitments and reactions.

Questioning abilities : A critical thinking process needs transformation of an inchoate sense of perplexity into a clear question. Formulating a question well requires not building in questionable assumptions, not prejudging the issue, and using language that in context is unambiguous and precise enough (Ennis 1962: 97; 1991: 9).

Imaginative abilities : Thinking directed at finding the correct causal explanation of a general phenomenon or particular event requires an ability to imagine possible explanations. Thinking about what policy or plan of action to adopt requires generation of options and consideration of possible consequences of each option. Domain knowledge is required for such creative activity, but a general ability to imagine alternatives is helpful and can be nurtured so as to become easier, quicker, more extensive, and deeper (Dewey 1910: 34–39; 1933: 40–47). Facione (1990a) and Halpern (1998) include the ability to imagine alternatives as a critical thinking ability.

Inferential abilities : The ability to draw conclusions from given information, and to recognize with what degree of certainty one’s own or others’ conclusions follow, is universally recognized as a general critical thinking ability. All 11 examples in section 2 of this article include inferences, some from hypotheses or options (as in Transit , Ferryboat and Disorder ), others from something observed (as in Weather and Rash ). None of these inferences is formally valid. Rather, they are licensed by general, sometimes qualified substantive rules of inference (Toulmin 1958) that rest on domain knowledge—that a bus trip takes about the same time in each direction, that the terminal of a wireless telegraph would be located on the highest possible place, that sudden cooling is often followed by rain, that an allergic reaction to a sulfa drug generally shows up soon after one starts taking it. It is a matter of controversy to what extent the specialized ability to deduce conclusions from premisses using formal rules of inference is needed for critical thinking. Dewey (1933) locates logical forms in setting out the products of reflection rather than in the process of reflection. Ennis (1981a), on the other hand, maintains that a liberally-educated person should have the following abilities: to translate natural-language statements into statements using the standard logical operators, to use appropriately the language of necessary and sufficient conditions, to deal with argument forms and arguments containing symbols, to determine whether in virtue of an argument’s form its conclusion follows necessarily from its premisses, to reason with logically complex propositions, and to apply the rules and procedures of deductive logic. Inferential abilities are recognized as critical thinking abilities by Glaser (1941: 6), Facione (1990a: 9), Ennis (1991: 9), Fisher & Scriven (1997: 99, 111), and Halpern (1998: 452). Items testing inferential abilities constitute two of the five subtests of the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (Watson & Glaser 1980a, 1980b, 1994), two of the four sections in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level X (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005), three of the seven sections in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005), 11 of the 34 items on Forms A and B of the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (Facione 1990b, 1992), and a high but variable proportion of the 25 selected-response questions in the Collegiate Learning Assessment (Council for Aid to Education 2017).

Experimenting abilities : Knowing how to design and execute an experiment is important not just in scientific research but also in everyday life, as in Rash . Dewey devoted a whole chapter of his How We Think (1910: 145–156; 1933: 190–202) to the superiority of experimentation over observation in advancing knowledge. Experimenting abilities come into play at one remove in appraising reports of scientific studies. Skill in designing and executing experiments includes the acknowledged abilities to appraise evidence (Glaser 1941: 6), to carry out experiments and to apply appropriate statistical inference techniques (Facione 1990a: 9), to judge inductions to an explanatory hypothesis (Ennis 1991: 9), and to recognize the need for an adequately large sample size (Halpern 1998). The Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005) includes four items (out of 52) on experimental design. The Collegiate Learning Assessment (Council for Aid to Education 2017) makes room for appraisal of study design in both its performance task and its selected-response questions.

Consulting abilities : Skill at consulting sources of information comes into play when one seeks information to help resolve a problem, as in Candidate . Ability to find and appraise information includes ability to gather and marshal pertinent information (Glaser 1941: 6), to judge whether a statement made by an alleged authority is acceptable (Ennis 1962: 84), to plan a search for desired information (Facione 1990a: 9), and to judge the credibility of a source (Ennis 1991: 9). Ability to judge the credibility of statements is tested by 24 items (out of 76) in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level X (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005) and by four items (out of 52) in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005). The College Learning Assessment’s performance task requires evaluation of whether information in documents is credible or unreliable (Council for Aid to Education 2017).

Argument analysis abilities : The ability to identify and analyze arguments contributes to the process of surveying arguments on an issue in order to form one’s own reasoned judgment, as in Candidate . The ability to detect and analyze arguments is recognized as a critical thinking skill by Facione (1990a: 7–8), Ennis (1991: 9) and Halpern (1998). Five items (out of 34) on the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (Facione 1990b, 1992) test skill at argument analysis. The College Learning Assessment (Council for Aid to Education 2017) incorporates argument analysis in its selected-response tests of critical reading and evaluation and of critiquing an argument.

Judging skills and deciding skills : Skill at judging and deciding is skill at recognizing what judgment or decision the available evidence and argument supports, and with what degree of confidence. It is thus a component of the inferential skills already discussed.

Lists and tests of critical thinking abilities often include two more abilities: identifying assumptions and constructing and evaluating definitions.

In addition to dispositions and abilities, critical thinking needs knowledge: of critical thinking concepts, of critical thinking principles, and of the subject-matter of the thinking.

We can derive a short list of concepts whose understanding contributes to critical thinking from the critical thinking abilities described in the preceding section. Observational abilities require an understanding of the difference between observation and inference. Questioning abilities require an understanding of the concepts of ambiguity and vagueness. Inferential abilities require an understanding of the difference between conclusive and defeasible inference (traditionally, between deduction and induction), as well as of the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions. Experimenting abilities require an understanding of the concepts of hypothesis, null hypothesis, assumption and prediction, as well as of the concept of statistical significance and of its difference from importance. They also require an understanding of the difference between an experiment and an observational study, and in particular of the difference between a randomized controlled trial, a prospective correlational study and a retrospective (case-control) study. Argument analysis abilities require an understanding of the concepts of argument, premiss, assumption, conclusion and counter-consideration. Additional critical thinking concepts are proposed by Bailin et al. (1999b: 293), Fisher & Scriven (1997: 105–106), Black (2012), and Blair (2021).

According to Glaser (1941: 25), ability to think critically requires knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning. If we review the list of abilities in the preceding section, however, we can see that some of them can be acquired and exercised merely through practice, possibly guided in an educational setting, followed by feedback. Searching intelligently for a causal explanation of some phenomenon or event requires that one consider a full range of possible causal contributors, but it seems more important that one implements this principle in one’s practice than that one is able to articulate it. What is important is “operational knowledge” of the standards and principles of good thinking (Bailin et al. 1999b: 291–293). But the development of such critical thinking abilities as designing an experiment or constructing an operational definition can benefit from learning their underlying theory. Further, explicit knowledge of quirks of human thinking seems useful as a cautionary guide. Human memory is not just fallible about details, as people learn from their own experiences of misremembering, but is so malleable that a detailed, clear and vivid recollection of an event can be a total fabrication (Loftus 2017). People seek or interpret evidence in ways that are partial to their existing beliefs and expectations, often unconscious of their “confirmation bias” (Nickerson 1998). Not only are people subject to this and other cognitive biases (Kahneman 2011), of which they are typically unaware, but it may be counter-productive for one to make oneself aware of them and try consciously to counteract them or to counteract social biases such as racial or sexual stereotypes (Kenyon & Beaulac 2014). It is helpful to be aware of these facts and of the superior effectiveness of blocking the operation of biases—for example, by making an immediate record of one’s observations, refraining from forming a preliminary explanatory hypothesis, blind refereeing, double-blind randomized trials, and blind grading of students’ work. It is also helpful to be aware of the prevalence of “noise” (unwanted unsystematic variability of judgments), of how to detect noise (through a noise audit), and of how to reduce noise: make accuracy the goal, think statistically, break a process of arriving at a judgment into independent tasks, resist premature intuitions, in a group get independent judgments first, favour comparative judgments and scales (Kahneman, Sibony, & Sunstein 2021). It is helpful as well to be aware of the concept of “bounded rationality” in decision-making and of the related distinction between “satisficing” and optimizing (Simon 1956; Gigerenzer 2001).

Critical thinking about an issue requires substantive knowledge of the domain to which the issue belongs. Critical thinking abilities are not a magic elixir that can be applied to any issue whatever by somebody who has no knowledge of the facts relevant to exploring that issue. For example, the student in Bubbles needed to know that gases do not penetrate solid objects like a glass, that air expands when heated, that the volume of an enclosed gas varies directly with its temperature and inversely with its pressure, and that hot objects will spontaneously cool down to the ambient temperature of their surroundings unless kept hot by insulation or a source of heat. Critical thinkers thus need a rich fund of subject-matter knowledge relevant to the variety of situations they encounter. This fact is recognized in the inclusion among critical thinking dispositions of a concern to become and remain generally well informed.

Experimental educational interventions, with control groups, have shown that education can improve critical thinking skills and dispositions, as measured by standardized tests. For information about these tests, see the Supplement on Assessment .

What educational methods are most effective at developing the dispositions, abilities and knowledge of a critical thinker? In a comprehensive meta-analysis of experimental and quasi-experimental studies of strategies for teaching students to think critically, Abrami et al. (2015) found that dialogue, anchored instruction, and mentoring each increased the effectiveness of the educational intervention, and that they were most effective when combined. They also found that in these studies a combination of separate instruction in critical thinking with subject-matter instruction in which students are encouraged to think critically was more effective than either by itself. However, the difference was not statistically significant; that is, it might have arisen by chance.

Most of these studies lack the longitudinal follow-up required to determine whether the observed differential improvements in critical thinking abilities or dispositions continue over time, for example until high school or college graduation. For details on studies of methods of developing critical thinking skills and dispositions, see the Supplement on Educational Methods .

12. Controversies

Scholars have denied the generalizability of critical thinking abilities across subject domains, have alleged bias in critical thinking theory and pedagogy, and have investigated the relationship of critical thinking to other kinds of thinking.

McPeck (1981) attacked the thinking skills movement of the 1970s, including the critical thinking movement. He argued that there are no general thinking skills, since thinking is always thinking about some subject-matter. It is futile, he claimed, for schools and colleges to teach thinking as if it were a separate subject. Rather, teachers should lead their pupils to become autonomous thinkers by teaching school subjects in a way that brings out their cognitive structure and that encourages and rewards discussion and argument. As some of his critics (e.g., Paul 1985; Siegel 1985) pointed out, McPeck’s central argument needs elaboration, since it has obvious counter-examples in writing and speaking, for which (up to a certain level of complexity) there are teachable general abilities even though they are always about some subject-matter. To make his argument convincing, McPeck needs to explain how thinking differs from writing and speaking in a way that does not permit useful abstraction of its components from the subject-matters with which it deals. He has not done so. Nevertheless, his position that the dispositions and abilities of a critical thinker are best developed in the context of subject-matter instruction is shared by many theorists of critical thinking, including Dewey (1910, 1933), Glaser (1941), Passmore (1980), Weinstein (1990), Bailin et al. (1999b), and Willingham (2019).

McPeck’s challenge prompted reflection on the extent to which critical thinking is subject-specific. McPeck argued for a strong subject-specificity thesis, according to which it is a conceptual truth that all critical thinking abilities are specific to a subject. (He did not however extend his subject-specificity thesis to critical thinking dispositions. In particular, he took the disposition to suspend judgment in situations of cognitive dissonance to be a general disposition.) Conceptual subject-specificity is subject to obvious counter-examples, such as the general ability to recognize confusion of necessary and sufficient conditions. A more modest thesis, also endorsed by McPeck, is epistemological subject-specificity, according to which the norms of good thinking vary from one field to another. Epistemological subject-specificity clearly holds to a certain extent; for example, the principles in accordance with which one solves a differential equation are quite different from the principles in accordance with which one determines whether a painting is a genuine Picasso. But the thesis suffers, as Ennis (1989) points out, from vagueness of the concept of a field or subject and from the obvious existence of inter-field principles, however broadly the concept of a field is construed. For example, the principles of hypothetico-deductive reasoning hold for all the varied fields in which such reasoning occurs. A third kind of subject-specificity is empirical subject-specificity, according to which as a matter of empirically observable fact a person with the abilities and dispositions of a critical thinker in one area of investigation will not necessarily have them in another area of investigation.

The thesis of empirical subject-specificity raises the general problem of transfer. If critical thinking abilities and dispositions have to be developed independently in each school subject, how are they of any use in dealing with the problems of everyday life and the political and social issues of contemporary society, most of which do not fit into the framework of a traditional school subject? Proponents of empirical subject-specificity tend to argue that transfer is more likely to occur if there is critical thinking instruction in a variety of domains, with explicit attention to dispositions and abilities that cut across domains. But evidence for this claim is scanty. There is a need for well-designed empirical studies that investigate the conditions that make transfer more likely.

It is common ground in debates about the generality or subject-specificity of critical thinking dispositions and abilities that critical thinking about any topic requires background knowledge about the topic. For example, the most sophisticated understanding of the principles of hypothetico-deductive reasoning is of no help unless accompanied by some knowledge of what might be plausible explanations of some phenomenon under investigation.

Critics have objected to bias in the theory, pedagogy and practice of critical thinking. Commentators (e.g., Alston 1995; Ennis 1998) have noted that anyone who takes a position has a bias in the neutral sense of being inclined in one direction rather than others. The critics, however, are objecting to bias in the pejorative sense of an unjustified favoring of certain ways of knowing over others, frequently alleging that the unjustly favoured ways are those of a dominant sex or culture (Bailin 1995). These ways favour:

• reinforcement of egocentric and sociocentric biases over dialectical engagement with opposing world-views (Paul 1981, 1984; Warren 1998)
• distancing from the object of inquiry over closeness to it (Martin 1992; Thayer-Bacon 1992)
• indifference to the situation of others over care for them (Martin 1992)
• orientation to thought over orientation to action (Martin 1992)
• being reasonable over caring to understand people’s ideas (Thayer-Bacon 1993)
• being neutral and objective over being embodied and situated (Thayer-Bacon 1995a)
• doubting over believing (Thayer-Bacon 1995b)
• reason over emotion, imagination and intuition (Thayer-Bacon 2000)
• solitary thinking over collaborative thinking (Thayer-Bacon 2000)
• written and spoken assignments over other forms of expression (Alston 2001)
• attention to written and spoken communications over attention to human problems (Alston 2001)
• winning debates in the public sphere over making and understanding meaning (Alston 2001)

A common thread in this smorgasbord of accusations is dissatisfaction with focusing on the logical analysis and evaluation of reasoning and arguments. While these authors acknowledge that such analysis and evaluation is part of critical thinking and should be part of its conceptualization and pedagogy, they insist that it is only a part. Paul (1981), for example, bemoans the tendency of atomistic teaching of methods of analyzing and evaluating arguments to turn students into more able sophists, adept at finding fault with positions and arguments with which they disagree but even more entrenched in the egocentric and sociocentric biases with which they began. Martin (1992) and Thayer-Bacon (1992) cite with approval the self-reported intimacy with their subject-matter of leading researchers in biology and medicine, an intimacy that conflicts with the distancing allegedly recommended in standard conceptions and pedagogy of critical thinking. Thayer-Bacon (2000) contrasts the embodied and socially embedded learning of her elementary school students in a Montessori school, who used their imagination, intuition and emotions as well as their reason, with conceptions of critical thinking as

thinking that is used to critique arguments, offer justifications, and make judgments about what are the good reasons, or the right answers. (Thayer-Bacon 2000: 127–128)

Alston (2001) reports that her students in a women’s studies class were able to see the flaws in the Cinderella myth that pervades much romantic fiction but in their own romantic relationships still acted as if all failures were the woman’s fault and still accepted the notions of love at first sight and living happily ever after. Students, she writes, should

be able to connect their intellectual critique to a more affective, somatic, and ethical account of making risky choices that have sexist, racist, classist, familial, sexual, or other consequences for themselves and those both near and far… critical thinking that reads arguments, texts, or practices merely on the surface without connections to feeling/desiring/doing or action lacks an ethical depth that should infuse the difference between mere cognitive activity and something we want to call critical thinking. (Alston 2001: 34)

Some critics portray such biases as unfair to women. Thayer-Bacon (1992), for example, has charged modern critical thinking theory with being sexist, on the ground that it separates the self from the object and causes one to lose touch with one’s inner voice, and thus stigmatizes women, who (she asserts) link self to object and listen to their inner voice. Her charge does not imply that women as a group are on average less able than men to analyze and evaluate arguments. Facione (1990c) found no difference by sex in performance on his California Critical Thinking Skills Test. Kuhn (1991: 280–281) found no difference by sex in either the disposition or the competence to engage in argumentative thinking.

The critics propose a variety of remedies for the biases that they allege. In general, they do not propose to eliminate or downplay critical thinking as an educational goal. Rather, they propose to conceptualize critical thinking differently and to change its pedagogy accordingly. Their pedagogical proposals arise logically from their objections. They can be summarized as follows:

• Focus on argument networks with dialectical exchanges reflecting contesting points of view rather than on atomic arguments, so as to develop “strong sense” critical thinking that transcends egocentric and sociocentric biases (Paul 1981, 1984).
• Foster closeness to the subject-matter and feeling connected to others in order to inform a humane democracy (Martin 1992).
• Develop “constructive thinking” as a social activity in a community of physically embodied and socially embedded inquirers with personal voices who value not only reason but also imagination, intuition and emotion (Thayer-Bacon 2000).
• In developing critical thinking in school subjects, treat as important neither skills nor dispositions but opening worlds of meaning (Alston 2001).
• Attend to the development of critical thinking dispositions as well as skills, and adopt the “critical pedagogy” practised and advocated by Freire (1968 [1970]) and hooks (1994) (Dalgleish, Girard, & Davies 2017).

A common thread in these proposals is treatment of critical thinking as a social, interactive, personally engaged activity like that of a quilting bee or a barn-raising (Thayer-Bacon 2000) rather than as an individual, solitary, distanced activity symbolized by Rodin’s The Thinker . One can get a vivid description of education with the former type of goal from the writings of bell hooks (1994, 2010). Critical thinking for her is open-minded dialectical exchange across opposing standpoints and from multiple perspectives, a conception similar to Paul’s “strong sense” critical thinking (Paul 1981). She abandons the structure of domination in the traditional classroom. In an introductory course on black women writers, for example, she assigns students to write an autobiographical paragraph about an early racial memory, then to read it aloud as the others listen, thus affirming the uniqueness and value of each voice and creating a communal awareness of the diversity of the group’s experiences (hooks 1994: 84). Her “engaged pedagogy” is thus similar to the “freedom under guidance” implemented in John Dewey’s Laboratory School of Chicago in the late 1890s and early 1900s. It incorporates the dialogue, anchored instruction, and mentoring that Abrami (2015) found to be most effective in improving critical thinking skills and dispositions.

What is the relationship of critical thinking to problem solving, decision-making, higher-order thinking, creative thinking, and other recognized types of thinking? One’s answer to this question obviously depends on how one defines the terms used in the question. If critical thinking is conceived broadly to cover any careful thinking about any topic for any purpose, then problem solving and decision making will be kinds of critical thinking, if they are done carefully. Historically, ‘critical thinking’ and ‘problem solving’ were two names for the same thing. If critical thinking is conceived more narrowly as consisting solely of appraisal of intellectual products, then it will be disjoint with problem solving and decision making, which are constructive.

Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives used the phrase “intellectual abilities and skills” for what had been labeled “critical thinking” by some, “reflective thinking” by Dewey and others, and “problem solving” by still others (Bloom et al. 1956: 38). Thus, the so-called “higher-order thinking skills” at the taxonomy’s top levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation are just critical thinking skills, although they do not come with general criteria for their assessment (Ennis 1981b). The revised version of Bloom’s taxonomy (Anderson et al. 2001) likewise treats critical thinking as cutting across those types of cognitive process that involve more than remembering (Anderson et al. 2001: 269–270). For details, see the Supplement on History .

As to creative thinking, it overlaps with critical thinking (Bailin 1987, 1988). Thinking about the explanation of some phenomenon or event, as in Ferryboat , requires creative imagination in constructing plausible explanatory hypotheses. Likewise, thinking about a policy question, as in Candidate , requires creativity in coming up with options. Conversely, creativity in any field needs to be balanced by critical appraisal of the draft painting or novel or mathematical theory.

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Critical thinking

Advice and resources to help you develop your critical voice.

Developing critical thinking skills is essential to your success at University and beyond.  We all need to be critical thinkers to help us navigate our way through an information-rich world. 

Whatever your discipline, you will engage with a wide variety of sources of information and evidence.  You will develop the skills to make judgements about this evidence to form your own views and to present your views clearly.

One of the most common types of feedback received by students is that their work is ‘too descriptive’.  This usually means that they have just stated what others have said and have not reflected critically on the material.  They have not evaluated the evidence and constructed an argument.

What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking is the art of making clear, reasoned judgements based on interpreting, understanding, applying and synthesising evidence gathered from observation, reading and experimentation. Burns, T., & Sinfield, S. (2016)  Essential Study Skills: The Complete Guide to Success at University (4th ed.) London: SAGE, p94.

Being critical does not just mean finding fault.  It means assessing evidence from a variety of sources and making reasoned conclusions.  As a result of your analysis you may decide that a particular piece of evidence is not robust, or that you disagree with the conclusion, but you should be able to state why you have come to this view and incorporate this into a bigger picture of the literature.

Being critical goes beyond describing what you have heard in lectures or what you have read.  It involves synthesising, analysing and evaluating what you have learned to develop your own argument or position.

Critical thinking is important in all subjects and disciplines – in science and engineering, as well as the arts and humanities.  The types of evidence used to develop arguments may be very different but the processes and techniques are similar.  Critical thinking is required for both undergraduate and postgraduate levels of study.

What, where, when, who, why, how?

Purposeful reading can help with critical thinking because it encourages you to read actively rather than passively.  When you read, ask yourself questions about what you are reading and make notes to record your views.  Ask questions like:

• What is the main point of this paper/ article/ paragraph/ report/ blog?
• Who wrote it?
• Why was it written?
• When was it written?
• Has the context changed since it was written?
• Is the evidence presented robust?
• How did the authors come to their conclusions?
• Do you agree with the conclusions?
• What does this add to our knowledge?
• Why is it useful?

Our web page covering Reading at university includes a handout to help you develop your own critical reading form and a suggested reading notes record sheet.  These resources will help you record your thoughts after you read, which will help you to construct your argument. 

Reading at university

Developing an argument

Being a university student is about learning how to think, not what to think.  Critical thinking shapes your own values and attitudes through a process of deliberating, debating and persuasion.   Through developing your critical thinking you can move on from simply disagreeing to constructively assessing alternatives by building on doubts.

There are several key stages involved in developing your ideas and constructing an argument.  You might like to use a form to help you think about the features of critical thinking and to break down the stages of developing your argument.

Features of critical thinking (pdf)

Features of critical thinking (Word rtf)

Our webpage on Academic writing includes a useful handout ‘Building an argument as you go’.

Academic writing

You should also consider the language you will use to introduce a range of viewpoints and to evaluate the various sources of evidence.  This will help your reader to follow your argument.  To get you started, the University of Manchester's Academic Phrasebank has a useful section on Being Critical. 

Academic Phrasebank

Developing your critical thinking

Set yourself some tasks to help develop your critical thinking skills.  Discuss material presented in lectures or from resource lists with your peers.  Set up a critical reading group or use an online discussion forum.  Think about a point you would like to make during discussions in tutorials and be prepared to back up your argument with evidence.

For more suggestions:

Developing your critical thinking - ideas (pdf)

Developing your critical thinking - ideas (Word rtf)

Published guides

For further advice and more detailed resources please see the Critical Thinking section of our list of published Study skills guides.

Study skills guides  

This article was published on 2024-02-26

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Critical thinking

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Many educators and educational scholars have championed the educational aim of critical thinking. It is not obvious what critical thinking is, and philosophers of education accordingly have developed accounts of critical thinking that attempt to state what it is and why it is valuable—i.e., why educational systems should aim to cultivate it in students. These accounts generally (though not universally) agree that critical thinkers share at least the following two characteristics: (1) they are able to reason well—i.e., to construct and evaluate various reasons that have been or can be offered for or against candidate beliefs, judgments, and actions; and (2) they are disposed or inclined to be guided by reasons so evaluated—i.e., actually to believe, judge, and act in accordance with the results of such reasoned evaluations. Beyond this level of agreement lie a range of contentious issues.

One cluster of issues is epistemological in nature. What is it to reason well? What makes a reason, in this sense, good or bad? More generally, what epistemological assumptions underlie (or should underlie) the notion of critical thinking? Does critical thinking presuppose conceptions of truth , knowledge, or justification that are objective and “absolute,” or is it compatible with more “relativistic” accounts emphasizing culture , race, class , gender, or conceptual scheme?

These questions have given rise to other, more specific and hotly contested issues. Is critical thinking relevantly “neutral” with respect to the groups who use it, or is it in fact politically biased , unduly favouring a type of thinking once valued by white European males—the philosophers of the Enlightenment and later eras—while undervaluing or demeaning types of thinking sometimes associated with other groups, such as women, nonwhites, and non-Westerners—i.e., thinking that is collaborative rather than individual, cooperative rather than confrontational, intuitive or emotional rather than linear and impersonal? Do standard accounts of critical thinking in these ways favour and help to perpetuate the beliefs, values, and practices of dominant groups in society and devalue those of marginalized or oppressed groups? Is reason itself, as some feminist and postmodern philosophers have claimed, a form of hegemony ?

Other issues concern whether the skills, abilities, and dispositions that are constitutive of critical thinking are general or subject-specific. In addition, the dispositions of the critical thinker noted above suggest that the ideal of critical thinking can be extended beyond the bounds of the epistemic to the area of moral character, leading to questions regarding the nature of such character and the best means of instilling it.

A much-debated question is whether and how education differs from indoctrination. Many theorists have assumed that the two are distinct and that indoctrination is undesirable, but others have argued that there is no difference in principle and that indoctrination is not intrinsically bad. Theories of indoctrination generally define it in terms of aim, method, or doctrine. Thus, indoctrination is either: (1) any form of teaching aimed at getting students to adopt beliefs independent of the evidential support those beliefs may have (or lack); (2) any form of teaching based on methods that instill beliefs in students in such a way that they are unwilling or unable to question or evaluate those beliefs independently; or (3) any form of teaching that causes students to embrace a specific set of beliefs—e.g., a certain political ideology or a religious doctrine—without regard for its evidential status. These ways of characterizing indoctrination emphasize its alleged contrast with critical thinking: the critical thinker (according to standard accounts) strives to base his beliefs, judgments, and actions on the competent assessment of relevant reasons and evidence, which is something the victim of indoctrination tends not to do. But this apparent contrast depends upon the alleged avoidability of indoctrination, which itself is a philosophically contested issue.

A number of interrelated problems and issues fall under this heading. What is the place of schools in a just or democratic society? Should they serve the needs of society by preparing students to fill specific social needs or roles, or should they rather strive to maximize the potential—or serve the interests—of each student? When these goals conflict, as they appear inevitably to do, which set of interests—those of society or those of individuals—should take precedence ? Should educational institutions strive to treat all students equally? If so, should they seek equality of opportunity or equality of outcome? Should individual autonomy be valued more highly than the character of society? More generally, should educational practice favour a more-liberal view of the relation between the individual and society, according to which the independence of the individual is of fundamental importance, or a more-communitarian view that emphasizes the individual’s far-reaching dependence on the society in which she lives? These questions are basically moral and political in nature, though they have epistemological analogues , as noted above with respect to critical thinking.

Another set of problems and issues has to do with the proper educational approach to morality . Should education strive to instill particular moral beliefs and values in students? Or should it aim rather to enhance students’ ability to think through moral issues for themselves? If the latter, how should educators distinguish between good and bad ways to think about moral issues? Should moral education focus on students’ character—rather than on either the inculcation of particular beliefs and values or the development of the ability to think well about moral matters—and endeavour to produce particular traits, such as honesty and sensitivity? Or are all these approaches problematic in that they inevitably involve indoctrination (of an undesirable kind)? A related objection to the approaches mentioned is that moral beliefs and values are in some sense relative to culture or community; therefore, attempts to teach morality at least presuppose an indefensible moral absolutism and may even constitute a kind of moral “imperialism.” These large and complex questions are intimately connected with metaethics and moral epistemology—i.e., the part of moral philosophy concerned with the epistemic status of moral claims and judgments. Moral psychology and developmental psychology are also highly relevant to the resolution of these questions.

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Critical thinking.

• Derek Allen , Derek Allen University of Toronto
• Sharon Bailin , Sharon Bailin Simon Fraser University
• Mark Battersby Mark Battersby Capilano University
• , and  James B. Freeman James B. Freeman Hunter College of the City University of New York, Emeritus
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1179
• Published online: 27 October 2020

There are numerous definitions of critical thinking, but the core concept has been said to be careful, reasoned, goal-directed thinking. There are also many conceptualizations of critical thinking, which are generally more detailed than brief definitions, and there are different views about what the goal(s) of critical thinking instruction should be. Whether critical thinking is a good thing is a matter of debate. Approaches to teaching critical thinking vary, partly according to whether they focus on general principles of critical thinking or on subject-matter content or on a combination of both. A meta-analysis research report published in 2015 concluded that, subject to certain qualifications, a variety of critical thinking skills and dispositions can develop in students through instruction at all educational levels. Critical thinking instruction has been influenced by research in cognitive psychology that has suggested strategies for countering factors (e.g., biases) that the research has found to produce irrational beliefs. Methods of assessing critical thinking ability include teacher-designed tests and standardized tests. A research report published in 2014 on assessing critical thinking in higher education describes challenges involved in designing standardized critical thinking tests and proposes a framework for a “next-generation” assessment. The challenges include achieving a balance between the assessment's real-world relevance and its psychometric quality, and designing an assessment useful for instructional purposes and for comparisons of programs and institutions. The proposed framework is based partly on a review of existing frameworks of critical thinking in higher education. It has two analytical dimensions and two synthetic dimensions, and a dimension on understanding causation and explanation. Surveys show that employers value employees with strong critical thinking ability; this fact has significant implications for students, teachers, and administrators at all levels of education.

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Relationship between mental health and students’ academic performance through a literature review

• Open access
• Published: 17 September 2024
• Volume 4 , article number  119 , ( 2024 )

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• Cynthia Lizeth Ramos-Monsivais 1 ,
• Sonia Rodríguez-Cano 2 ,
• Estefanía Lema-Moreira   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2286-4902 3 &
• Vanesa Delgado-Benito 2  

Mindfulness has become increasingly popular to improve physical and mental health. Its implementation transcends boundaries of disciplines that study its impact. The aim of this study is to identify and analyze the benefits of mindfulness on mental health, academic performance, well-being, mindfulness and prosocial behavior of university students, as well as to identify the most effective way to achieve habituation to the practice. An analysis and systematic review of papers published in the Scopus database was conducted. It was found that publications on the implementation of mindfulness in higher education began in 2004. Their study has been developed in 22 countries, 15 are European, 3 Asians, 2 North American, one Latin American and one from Oceania. Spain is the only Spanish-speaking country. Academically, mindfulness stimulates creativity, exploratory thinking, critical thinking, attention regulation, increases concentration and improves the learning experience. In addition, immersive virtual reality experiences were found to positively influence habituation towards mindfulness practice among university students.

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1 Introduction

In recent decades, mindfulness has gained popularity as a technique for reducing stress, anxiety, and depression. As well as increasing the well-being and quality of life of people who practice it [ 1 ]. Its origin is found in the Buddhist tradition, as a way to achieve clarity of thought [ 2 ]. Although this technique has been practiced in the East for more than 25 centuries, in the West its popularity is recent [ 3 ]. However, its application is expanding more and more in different disciplines [ 4 ].

Social-emotional learning has been introduced in education. It refers to the training of attention, through meditation techniques, such as mindfulness, the most recent update of the programs that seek emotional intelligence [ 5 ]. This type of education is also known as contemplative education, which seeks to enhance the learning experience through reflection and personal perception [ 6 ].

Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as “awareness that develops by paying concrete, sustained, deliberate, and non-judgmental attention to the present moment” [ 7 , p. 13]. It facilitates maintaining mental calm and training attention [ 8 ]; in addition to increasing mental clarity and awareness [ 9 ].

In terms of operability, three qualities that people develop while practicing mindfulness and three qualities related to how the practice is carried out are recognized. The first are observation, description, and participation. While in the mode of practice, acceptance is required, in the present moment and in an effective manner [ 10 ].

Mindfulness can be practiced formally and informally. In formal practice, a specific time is set aside daily for guided meditations. Informal practice brings awareness to daily activities. That is, paying attention to sensations and perceptions while walking, driving, eating, cleaning, among other activities [ 7 ].

Mindfulness has been shown to improve physical and mental health. In terms of physical health, it favors the increase of Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BNDF) [ 11 ]. While in mental health it reduces symptoms of anxiety [ 12 ], stress [ 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ] and depression [ 12 ]. It also facilitates coping with change and uncertainty [ 14 ] and increases well-being [ 17 ].

1.1 How might the efficacy of mindfulness be evaluated?

Blood tests can be used to measure the effectiveness of mindfulness. A reduction in the levels of cortisol, the stress hormone [ 13 ]; and of increased BNDF can be observed after two weeks of practice [ 11 ]. Increased blood BNDF levels are a potential mediator between meditation practice and brain health [ 13 ]. BNDF measured in the blood by plasma or saliva is called peripheral BNDF [ 18 ].

BNDF is a modulator that regulates neuron growth. It allows the creation of new dendrites which improves communication between neurons; in other words, it promotes greater neuronal plasticity in the central and peripheral nervous system [ 11 , 13 , 18 , 19 , 20 ]. Its main function is at the level of the hippocampus and cerebral cortex, structures linked to learning and memory functions [ 13 ].

BNDF is produced in the central nervous system and peripheral tissues. Over time, its production tends to decrease. Its absence is related to psychiatric and neurological disorders such as emotional burnout, anxiety, depression and Alzheimer’s disease [ 13 ] However, some activities stimulate its production. Exercising, practicing yoga, undergoing controlled stress, traveling, acquiring new experiences, learning and mindfulness stimulate its production [ 13 , 20 ].

1.2 What are the reasons for integrating mindfulness into higher education?

The increase in mental health illnesses in college students has become a recognized concern [ 16 , 21 ]; which requires innovative interventions to address this reality [ 22 , 23 ]. In this sense, mindfulness emerges as a proposed solution [ 12 ], to prevent and reduce professional burnout [ 24 ]. Thus, there is growing interest in its applications in higher education [ 25 , 26 ].

In addition to the physical and mental health benefits, mindfulness practice promotes better academic performance [ 8 , 27 , 28 ]. Such as increased attention, learning and thinking [ 29 ]; and reduced pre-test anxiety [ 29 , 30 ].

Mindfulness practice also stimulates exploratory thinking [ 4 ], creative thinking [ 4 , 31 ], and critical thinking [ 2 ]. It increases spatial and sensory awareness [ 4 ], academic self-efficacy [ 32 , 33 ], productivity and task quality [ 8 ]; in addition to increasing the feeling of personal accomplishment [ 34 ].

On the other hand, it facilitates information retention [ 35 ], improves concentration [ 22 , 26 , 36 , 37 ], attention self-regulation skills [ 32 , 37 , 38 ] and allows for a perceived improvement in the overall learning experience [ 31 , 37 , 39 , 40 , 41 ]. This is because it is essentially training the brain that facilitates focusing attention. A faculty that, for William James, father of American psychology, constituted the root of judgment, character and will [ 42 ].

1.3 Technological immersion in mindfulness

Studies show that technology is increasingly present in the field of mindfulness practice. Evidence of that is the introduction of video games such as the one developed at the University of Wisconsin called tenacity. This is to improve mindfulness through breathing exercises [ 5 ]. Mobile applications such as Headspace and Calm have also been developed to promote meditation techniques [ 43 , 44 ].

In addition to the above, immersive environments incorporating Virtual Reality (VR) have been developed to stimulate mindfulness practice. Home meditation studio, tripp and maloka are some of the applications that virtual reality allows mindfulness practice in totally immersive environments.

1.4 Virtual reality and mindfulness in education

VR makes it possible to experience alternative realities perceived atmospherically [ 45 ]. It is applied in disciplines and sciences such as medicine, engineering, mathematics, dentistry and education [ 46 ]. In education it is used to improve academic performance [ 29 ], and increase attention, creativity, flow state, and habituation to practice [ 47 ].

Pascual et al. [ 48 ] state that, despite there being few studies related to the evaluation of mindfulness interventions using VR, it is considered a more effective platform than standalone mobile meditation apps for encouraging daily practice. Along those lines, results from Miller et al. [ 49 ] study indicates that VR-guided meditation practice is associated with increased positive affect compared to non-VR meditation.

In the case study by Malighetti et al. [ 50 ] it was found that techniques for the development of emotional intelligence such as increased awareness, identification of emotional states, increased resilience and self-control implemented through VR allowed greater mental regulation in terms of eating habits in patients with binge eating disorders. In that order, students with greater emotional regulation have greater self-efficacy [ 51 ].

VR mindfulness promotes mental health [ 52 ]. Studies show that it can reduce insomnia and stress [ 53 ] and improve learning [ 46 ]. Coupled with the above, Kwon et al. [ 30 ] found that incorporating virtual environments through VR is feasible for managing anxiety stemming from academic exams.

Kaplan-Rakowski et al. [ 29 ] study showed that students who meditated with VR performed better academically than those who meditated using videos. While Yang et al.’s [ 47 ] research, immersive virtual reality experiences were found to affect traits associated with students' creativity such as flow state and attention. When students were assigned creative challenges or challenges, those who participated in immersive VR produced better quality products. They also maintained a more stable attention level than the control group.

VR can impact long-term learning. According to Mohring and Brendel [ 45 ] it use in the educational context needs to be reflected upon, because it triggers human perception with far-reaching consequences and people using it hardly question the alternative reality experience it offers. Nevertheless, it can contribute significantly to students’ training through the development of enhanced digital skills and increased mindfulness.

According to Mohring and Brendel [ 45 ] VR can trace the path towards mindfulness in different educational contexts: in teaching and in transforming the relationship between society and the environment. A view that coincides with Whewell et al. [ 54 ] who argue that these immersive experiences contribute to the development of enhanced digital skills, increased student engagement, cultural competence and global mindfulness in university students. VR can foster the conditions for students to become global change agents “within the spheres of entrepreneurship and education” [ 54 , p.1].

However, mindfulness benefits require continuous practice. According to the study by Pascual et al. [ 48 ], meditation sessions are associated with a decrease in anxiety. Therefore, identifying how to introduce and implement an effective program is of the utmost relevance for updating the current educational system.

In that sense, this research aims to identify programs that have been implemented to incorporate mindfulness into higher education. From its beginnings to the present, it analyzes the scientific literature to understand the evolution of its implementation. It identifies the countries where these programs are carried out, the universities that participate, the years they have been carried out and the types of documents published.

Mindfulness's documented benefits for mental health, academic performance, well-being, and students' awareness and prosocial behavior are discussed. Finally, technology, specifically virtual reality, is addressed as a medium that facilitates mindfulness practice stimulation and habituation.

Therefore, the following research questions were defined: 1. How many publications are published per year? 2. In what language are they published? 3. What kind of documents are published? 4. Which universities are involved in the research? 5. In which countries are mindfulness and higher education being studied? 6. What is the impact of mindfulness on higher education students' mental health? 7. What is the impact of mindfulness on higher education students' academic performance? 8. What is the impact of mindfulness on higher education students’ well-being? 9. What is the impact of mindfulness on higher education students’ conscientiousness and prosocial behaviour? 10. Is virtual reality the most effective medium for fostering mindfulness among higher education students?

An analysis of scientific publications in the scopus database, which could be accessed through an institutional account of the University of Burgos in Spain as part of a research stay, was carried out. The information search was conducted using English keywords. The keywords used to elaborate the search string were mindfulness, meditation, university students and higher education students. This search string yielded 70 publications as of July 19, 2024.

All Scopus database publication types were considered inclusion criteria: articles, book chapters, papers, reviews, books and short surveys. In English and Spanish. All articles whose information was not available, were not aimed at higher education students, or did not address any meditation technique were excluded.

An Excel document with the articles' information was extracted for analysis. One article was not available so 69 documents were considered. It was found that 11 publications did not actually mention meditation techniques and were excluded. Also, 5 publications not directed at higher education students were not considered. This resulted in 53 selected research papers. Figure  1 illustrates the situation.

Flow diagram

To answer questions 6, 7 and 8, a subsequent analysis was carried out to identify the measurement variables used by the authors. Measurement variables were identified in the selected documents. The variables were divided into four categories. Mental health, academic achievement, well-being, and prosocial awareness and attitude.

The mental health category includes 9 variables: reduction of stress, anxiety, depression, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization burnout and negative mood. Also increased mental health, calmness and positive mood. Of the 53 items, 4 address some mental health elements and 23 also include elements from other categories.

Academic achievement is made up of 16 variables: academic performance, clinical performance, exploratory thinking, critical thinking, creative thinking, productivity, task quality, academic speed, persistence, observation skills, attention regulation skills, information retention, academic self-efficacy and concentration. Additionally, the learning experience and divergent and convergent creative writing will be improved. Of the 53 items, 5 address elements relating to academic achievement and 19 also include elements from other categories.

The well-being category consists of 13 variables: increased life satisfaction, well-being, sense of belonging, emotional self-regulation, quality of life, self-compassion, physical activity, resilience, non-judgmental acceptance, perceived social support, and sense of accomplishment. Also included are better dietary decision making and improved sleep quality. Of the 53 items, 1 addresses well-being items and 20 include items from other categories.

In the category awareness and prosocial behavior, 14 variables were integrated: increased mindfulness skills, spatial awareness, sensory awareness, self-awareness, dispositional mindfulness, empathy, benevolence, prosocial behavior, collectivism, a sense of transcendence, universalalism, mental clarity, responsibility and improved interpersonal relationships. Of the 53 items, one addresses element unique to prosocial awareness and behavior and 21 also include elements from other categories.

To answer question 8, an additional search integrating technology and virtual reality was included. Although the object of this study is directed primarily at higher education students, research that analyses mindfulness incorporation at other educational levels was considered in this question.

The results of the research are presented in this section. We start with the general findings and then answer the research questions.

3.1 General findings

Although all the investigations analysed are directed at higher education students, 27 do not specify the discipline or the educational program in which the students are enrolled. However, it was found that the educational programs where mindfulness effectiveness is most frequently studied is in medicine and nursing with six investigations, engineering with four, and then anaesthesiology, arts and design, sciences, modern dance, law midwifery, writing, pharmacy, literature, music, social work and design pedagogy with one respectively.

Regarding the duration of the programs, of the 53 studies analysed, 31 do not specify the duration of the practice in weeks, days or sessions. However, in six investigations the programs lasted 8 weeks and in five investigations, 6 weeks. The longest program consisted of 12 weeks and the shortest 1 day. About the analysis of keywords, Fig.  2 shows the identified word networks.

Visualization of keyword networks based on a VOSviewer version 1.6.20 elaboration

In this analysis, it was found that of the 418 keywords used, 30 have at least a frequency of occurrence of 5. It is highlighted that the words with a higher frequency of occurrence and greater connectivity are mindfulness and meditation. Next, the research questions are answered.

How many papers are published each year about mindfulness and higher education students?

According to Table  1 , publications on mindfulness in higher education began in 2004. In 2014, these rates began to remain constant. In the United States, the first publication was produced by the doctor Daniel Holland, associated with universities in Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Illinois, and Washington. At the University of Pennsylvania, the first program for developing resilience in children was developed. Furthermore, in the late 1990s, doctors Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, both affiliated with the same university, pioneered positive psychology [ 55 ].

As part of positive education, positive psychology was introduced to institutions. The concept of positive education succeeds the concept of emotional education. In addition to emotions, this approach incorporates other elements such as meditation in order to increase well-being [ 56 ].

What is the language in which mindfulness research is published? There are 53 documents in the collection, 50 of which are in English and three of which are in Spanish

Are there any published documents that discuss mindfulness and students in higher education? Publications were classified into five categories: articles, reviews, book chapters, presentations and books. As shown in Table  2 , each type of document has a different quantity.

There are several different types of documents published. Articles are the most frequently published. Review articles, presentations, book chapters, and books follow.

What are the publications of universities on mindfulness and higher education students?

A summary of the publications produced, the universities that participate in collaborations, and the most important findings are presented in this section according to the type of document, the language, and the year.

3.2 Spanish-language articles

There have been only three articles published in Spanish. These include one by the University of Almería in Spain in 2009, another by the University of Lisbon in Portugal in 2022 and another by the University of Granada in Spain in 2024. A study by Justo and Luque [ 57 ] demonstrated that mindfulness leads to a deepening of reflection and self-awareness, which in turn stimulates prosocial values like benevolence, collectivism, and the sense of universalism and transcendence. Sobral and Caetano [ 58 ] conducted a study in which individual and collective activities were incorporated into two courses, including mindfulness, using students' portfolios and teachers’ notes. On the other hand, in the study by García-Pérez et al. [ 23 ] mindfulness is considered as a starting point to guarantee mental health and improve the well-being of university students.

3.3 Articles in English

In 2014, two English-language publications were published. One by Nottingham Trent University in the United Kingdom and one by Duke University Medical Center in the United States. Greeson et al. [ 59 ] found that the Koru mindfulness training program improved sleep, improved mindfulness skills, increased self-compassion, and decreased stress among college students.

According to Van Gordon et al. [ 3 ], the Meditation, Awareness Training (MAT) program has been evaluated by college students. During the eighth weeks of training, the students demonstrated improved well-being and self-regulation skills in terms of thoughts, feelings, and behavior. A significant increase was also observed in dispositional mindfulness.

In 2015 only one paper was published by Newcastle University in Australia. In this study, after 7 weeks of practicing mindfulness, students showed an improvement in their well-being, sleep quality, increased concentration, mental clarity and a reduction in negative mood was observed [ 22 ].

In 2016, two articles were published, one by Chatham University in the United States, and another where two universities from two different countries participated, the National University of Ireland and Coleraine University in the United Kingdom. In the study by Noone et al. [ 2 ] it was found that dispositional mindfulness facilitates critical thinking. While in the research of Spadaro and Hunker [ 38 ] it was found that after 8 weeks of practicing mindfulness online, nursing students in the United States reduced anxiety and stress. They also increased mindfulness self-regulation skills.

There were three articles published in 2017. The first study was conducted by Ohio State University in the United States, the second by Ryerson University in Canada, and the third by the Department of Psychiatry at MoleMann Hospital for Mental Health in the Netherlands.

Using reflective writing and guided mindfulness meditations, Klatt [ 60 ] conducted research at Ohio University to increase awareness of students' life goals. According to Schwind et al. [ 37 ], mindfulness and loving-kindness meditation practice after eight weeks reduced anxiety, improved learning experience, increased sense of calm, concentration, and attention self-regulation skills among Canadian university students.

While in the research of Van D’Ijk et al. [ 61 ] it was found that after 8 weekly sessions of two hours daily using the mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program, students from the Netherlands reduced anxiety and negative emotional states. Improved mental health, life satisfaction and increased mindfulness skills were also observed. However, empathy was not increased.

In 2018, three articles were published. One by the University of Seville in Spain, one by the National University of Ireland and one where an international collaboration between 5 universities took place. The University of Southampton in the UK, the Helvetiapraxis Medical Centre in Switzerland, Kings College London in the UK, the Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Germany and the Poznan University of Medical Sciences in Poland.

Research conducted by Bernárdez et al. [ 9 ] revealed that software engineering students at the University of Seville in Spain improved their academic self-efficacy after 6 weeks of practicing mindfulness.

Lynch et al. [ 25 ] evaluated mindfulness-based coping with university life (MBCUL), an adaptation of the MBSR program. College students increased their mindfulness skills, decreased stress, anxiety, and depression after eight weeks. The study by Noone and Hogan [ 62 ] found that practicing mindfulness using the headspace mobile app for 6 weeks or 30 sessions increased dispositional mindfulness, but not critical thinking. Students at the National University of Ireland participated in this study.

There were three articles published in 2019. In the United Kingdom, Birmingham City University submitted the first study, in the United States, Lousville University submitted the second, and in Iceland, the University of Rhode Island submitted the third.

A study conducted by Dutt et al. [ 84 ] from the University of Birmingham has demonstrated that mindfulness reduces stress and helps to make better dietary decisions. The University of Rhode Island conducted a study in which Lemay et al. [ 63 ] found that after 6 weeks of practicing viyansa yoga, pharmacy students were able to increase their mindfulness skills and reduce their levels of stress and anxiety. Weingartner et al. [ 39 ] found that mindfulness and compassion training increased mindfulness skills, dispositional mindfulness, and empathy in medical students at Lousville University. As a result, interpersonal relationships, resilience, nonjudgmental acceptance, observational skills, and learning experiences were also improved.

In 2020, four papers were published. In the United States, there are four, one from the University of North Carolina, one from the University of Florida, one from Juiz de Fora in Brazil, and one from the Department of Psychological and Behavioral Sciences at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

At the University of North Carolina, a slow sensory experience linked to meditation techniques is introduced in the modern dance program to improve concentration [ 64 ]. According to the study by Bóo et al. [ 27 ], mindfulness increases academic performance, emotional self-regulation, and self-awareness in the UK. However, Damião et al. [ 65 ] found no significant increase in mindfulness skills of medical students at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Brazil, following a 6-week mindfulness training program. Stress, anxiety, or depression did not decrease. Quality of life and mental health also showed no change.

A study by Williams et al. [ 40 ] concluded that medical students at the University of Florida improved their mindfulness skills, perceived social support, empathy, and prosocial behavior after 11 weeks participating in the Promoting Resilience in Medicine (PRIMe) program, although they did not reduce stress. Behaviors characterized by empathy and prosociality. As a result, the general well-being and learning experience have also improved.

There were three articles published in 2021. First, the University of Manitoba in Canada, second, Bilkent University in Turkey, and third, Johns Hopkins University in the United States. Altay and Porter [ 4 ] found that mindfulness practice among design psychology students in Turkey increased non-judgmental acceptance, exploratory thinking, creative thinking, spatial awareness, sensory awareness, and empathy.

An evaluation of the effectiveness of the Headspace mobile application was conducted by Carullo et al. [ 33 ]. Over the course of four months, anesthesiology and medical students from the United States practiced mindfulness. Depression levels were reduced and personal accomplishments were increased. The level of emotional exhaustion nor the level of depersonalization burnout, however, did not improve. Based on research conducted by Litwiller et al. [ 21 ] among college students in Canada, mindfulness, meditation, Tai Chi, yoga, exercise, and animal therapy have been found to be effective in reducing stress, anxiety, depression, and negative mood.

The year 2022 saw the publication of nine papers. The first was completed by the Aix-Marseille University in France, the second by the Department of Anthropology at the University of Missouri in the United States, and the third by the University of Central Arkansas in the United States in collaboration with the University of Missouri. It was also submitted by the University of Illinois in the United States, Kirikkale University in Turkey, Arizona State University in the United States, the University of Seville in Spain, Brock University in Canada, and the University of Lisbon in Portugal.

Researchers in Turkey found that mindfulness practice increases life satisfaction among nursing students. According to Bernárdez et al. [ 8 ], mindfulness enhanced academic performance, productivity, task quality, and academic speed in Spanish students. Devillers-Réolon et al. [ 66 ] found that stress, anxiety, and depression were reduced in their research. The ability of French university students to regulate their attention did not improve, despite improvements in their well-being.

Researchers at Arizona State University found that mindfulness practice increased concentration, non-judgmental acceptance, and resilience among arts and design students. An opinion survey conducted by Klonoff-Cohen [ 67 ] revealed that college students in Illinois believe meditation and mindfulness exercises are effective coping mechanisms. The study by Sensiper [ 26 ] from the Anthropology Department concluded that after 10 weeks of structured in-class meditations, mindfulness exercises, contemporary text readings, and reflective writing, college students exhibited reduced anxiety, improved well-being, increased emotional self-regulation, concentration, and dispositional mindfulness.

As part of the research conducted by Sobral and Caetano [ 58 ], the University of Lisbon conducted a self-study on emotional education. Teachers evaluated the students’ portfolios in order to identify recurrent problems, and students evaluated mindfulness practices, collective and individual projects.

Strickland et al. [ 68 ] reported that mindfulness combined with a modified version of Dr. Robert Boice’s blocked writers program increased positive mood and resilience to stress and anxiety in students and teachers in higher education.

According to Woloshyn et al. [ 31 ], mindful writing stimulates creative thinking, increases empathy and prosocial behavior in higher education students and teachers in Canada. A positive emotional state can also be achieved through non-judgmental acceptance, increased self-awareness, self-compassion, and non-judgmental acceptance. In addition, it enhances well-being and the learning experience.

Six papers have been published in 2023. One by the University of Rome in Italy, one by Griffith University in Australia, another is the result of a collaboration between the University of South Carolina and Winthrop University both in the United States; and another due to collaboration between the Institute of Psychology of Lorand University in Hungary, the University of Vienna and the University of Artois in France.

One paper is the result of a collaboration between the University of the West of England in United Kingdom, and Dongguk University in South Korea. And another article was the result of a collaboration between University of Limoges, University of Montpellier and University of Paris Cité in France and University of Brussels in Belgium.

In the research by Fagioli et al. [ 32 ] University students in Italy practice mindfulness online for 28 days. An improved sense of belonging increased academic self-efficacy and self-regulation of attention skills were observed. In the study by García et al. [ 69 ], mindfulness was practiced for 1 week, 5 min daily. This exercise reduced anxiety, increased physical activity and improved sleep in United States students. Nagy et al. [ 70 ] found that mindfulness practice can increase persistence in those with a strong disposition toward a growth mindset or mindfulness.

In the research of Hagège et al. [ 71 ] it was found that the Meditation-Based Ethics of Responsibility (MBER) program had a positive impact on sense of responsibility and convergent and divergent creative writing tasks in undergraduate science students. In undergraduate music therapy students, it was found that eight weeks of practicing mindfulness can reduce stress and improve mindfulness and well-being [ 72 ]. While Pearson’s [ 73 ] looks for strategies on how mindfulness can be introduced into law education programs in Australia.

So far in 2024, three papers have been published. One by the Virginia Tech College of engineering. Another by the collaboration of Idaho State University and the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, in the United States. Another by Kaohsiung Medical University and Meiho University, both from Taiwan.

In the research of Giesler et al. [ 74 ] the Caring Action Leadership Mindfulness model is proposed to increase mental health and sense of belonging in undergraduate social work students. In the study by Liu et al. [ 75 ] it was found that practicing mindfulness for 50 min a week for 8 weeks reduced stress and increased mindfulness skills in nursing students. On the other hand, Martini et al. [ 76 ] found that although most engineering students after practicing mindfulness experienced a reduction in perceived stress, a sense of calm, increased energy, and greater concentration, other students who expressed feeling more tired and distressed after meditation practice.

3.4 Book chapters

Book chapters are rare. One by Queen Margaret University in 2015 and one by the University of Surrey in 2020, both UK universities. In the Oberski et al. [ 35 ] study, it was documented that mindfulness in college students allows for increased information retention and a positive emotional state. In Kilner-Johnson and Udofia’s [ 77 ] research, techniques for incorporating mindfulness in the humanities in higher education are proposed.

On the other hand, only one book was published by the University of Groningen in the Netherlands in 2021. This work addresses the benefits of incorporating mindfulness into higher education courses. It documents the results of the Munich model named mindfulness and meditation in the university context. It also includes practical exercises with instructions for implementation in educational institutions.

3.6 Conferences

Three conferences have been published from the United States. One in 2006 by the University of Arkansas, another by the University of Denver Colorado in 2021, and another by Northeastern University in 2023. Holland [ 6 ] presents a course developed and implemented in some universities in the United States through his personal experience, while Wu [ 41 ] states that sonic meditation for higher education students improves the learning experience. In the study by Grahame et al. [ 78 ] it was found that daily mindfulness practice enables engineering undergraduates to reduce stress.

3.7 Reviews

Six reviews have been published. One was in 2004 by Southeastern Illinois University in the United States. In 2017 there were 2 publications. One by the University of Portland in the United States and one by LaTrobe University in Australia. In 2019 the Medical Department of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands also published a review. In 2021, a collaboration between three UK universities—Queens University, the University of Suffolk and the University of York was published. In 2024 another was published by Padjadjaran University in Indonesia.

Holland [ 79 ] outlines how mindfulness can be incorporated into higher education and the benefits this can bring for students with disabilities and promote health. McConville et al. [ 33 ] found that mindfulness reduces stress, anxiety, and depression. It also increases mindfulness skills, empathy, a positive emotional state, and academic self-efficacy. Stillwell et al. [ 80 ] found that both the MBSR program, yoga, breath work, meditation, and mindfulness in nursing students reduced stress.

Breedvelt et al. [ 81 ] evaluated the effectiveness of meditation, yoga, and mindfulness on symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress in college students. They concluded that most publications regarding mindfulness have a high risk of bias, are of poor quality, and do not specify which technique provides the benefits. For it is unclear whether it is mindfulness, yoga or another meditation technique that is effective. McVeigh et al. [ 28 ] found that mindfulness practice in nursing students reduces stress, increases clinical academic performance and self-awareness. In the research of Yosep et al. [ 82 ] it was found that digital mindfulness through audios and videos is effective in improving the mental health of university students.

What are the countries where mindfulness and higher education students are most widely published?

Based on the description of the universities in question three, Fig.  3 illustrates the countries and locations where publications on mindfulness and higher education students have been published.

Geographical location of countries where mindfulness research has been conducted. Font: Own elaboration in the Mapchart application [ 83 ]

As can be seen, the United States leads in mindfulness research and higher education students. It is followed by the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Spain. Spain is the only Spanish-speaking country on the list.

On the other hand, although the research is carried out in 22 countries, the collaboration networks include 14 countries. Figure  4 shows the collaboration networks detected.

Cross-country collaboration networks based on a VOSviewer version 1.6.20 elaboration

Figure  4 shows a collaborative network of 14 countries composed of four nodes. One is formed by Austria, Belgium, Canada, France and Hungary in red. In green by the United Kingdom, Turkey, South Korea and Ireland. In blue, Germany, Switzerland and Poland and in yellow, Australia and the Netherlands.

What are the benefits of mindfulness practice for higher education students’ mental health?

Mindfulness practice reduces stress [ 21 , 25 , 28 , 33 , 38 , 59 , 63 , 66 , 80 , 84 ] anxiety [ 21 , 25 , 26 , 33 , 37 , 38 , 61 , 63 , 66 , 69 ] and depression [ 21 , 25 , 33 , 34 , 66 ].

Mindfulness reduces negative mood [ 21 , 22 , 61 ]. As well as increasing positive mood [ 31 , 33 , 35 , 68 ]. In research by Bernárdez et al. [ 9 ], mindfulness was found to reduce emotional exhaustion and depersonalization burnout. While Van D’Ijk et al. [ 61 ], that it improves mental health. Schwind et al. [ 37 ] found that it increases the feeling of calm.

3.8 Stress reduction

In the case of Devillers-Réolon et al. [ 66 ] and Spadaro & Hunker [ 38 ] the mindfulness practice was conducted online and lasted for 17 days and 8 weeks respectively. Greeson et al. [ 59 ] study was also practiced online using the Koru program. Although the duration of this is not specified.

In Lynch et al. [ 25 ] research, the MBSR program was used for 8 weeks. While Stiwell et al. [ 80 ] the same program was used, although the duration of time is not specified. Of the five studies in which mindfulness is practiced traditionally through guided meditations, only one, that of Lemay et al. [ 63 ] indicates that the program lasted 6 weeks in 60-min sessions. The other investigations do not indicate weeks or practice sessions.

According to Yogeswaran and Morr [ 16 ] online mindfulness practice can be effective in addressing stress. However, at least for medical students, the evidence was not sufficient to prove its efficacy in decreasing symptoms of depression and anxiety. In contrast, the study by Ahmad et al. [ 12 ] found that, among university students in Toronto, Canada, internet-based Cognitive Behavioral Mindfulness Therapy interventions could reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress after 8 weeks.

What are the benefits of mindfulness practice on higher education students’ academic performance?

Mindfulness increases clinical performance [ 28 ] and academic performance [ 8 , 27 , 28 ]. Stimulates exploratory thinking [ 4 ], creative thinking [ 4 , 31 ] and critical thinking [ 2 ].

It increases productivity, task quality and academic speed [ 8 ]. As well, it also increases academic self-efficacy [ 9 , 32 , 33 ], improves the learning experience [ 31 , 37 , 39 , 40 , 41 ], and improves observation skills [ 39 ].

Coupled with the above, it improves information retention [ 35 ], increases concentration [ 22 , 26 , 36 , 37 ], and attention self-regulation skills [ 32 , 37 , 38 ]. Another finding in relation to academic performance is that mindfulness can increase persistence in people with a strong disposition toward mindfulness or a growth mindset [ 70 ].

3.9 What benefits does mindfulness practice have on higher education students?

Mindfulness practice increased perceived social support [ 31 , 40 ], improves well-being [ 3 , 22 , 26 , 31 , 40 , 66 ] and improve dietary decision-making [ 84 ]. It also increases sense of belonging [ 32 ], life satisfaction [ 61 , 85 ], physical activity [ 69 ]; and improves sleep quality [ 22 , 59 , 69 ]. Damião´s et al. [ 65 ] research showed no improvements in quality of life after the intervention.

Mindfulness allows increasing self-compassion [ 31 , 59 ], sense of personal achievement [ 34 ], self-regulation of thoughts, feelings and behaviors [ 3 , 26 , 27 ]. It stimulates the development of resilience for stress and anxiety management [ 36 , 39 , 68 ]; and it helps to manage the judgmental voice. That is, it facilitates non-judgmental acceptance [ 4 , 31 , 36 , 39 ].

What are the benefits of mindfulness practice on mindfulness and prosocial behavior in higher education students?

Mindfulness allows for increases in self-awareness [ 27 , 28 , 31 ], sensory and spatial awareness [ 4 ], mindfulness skills [ 25 , 33 , 39 , 40 , 59 , 61 , 63 ] and disposition toward mindfulness [ 3 , 26 , 39 , 68 ].

It also stimulates prosocial behavior [ 40 ], collectivism [ 31 , 57 ]. It increases empathy [ 4 , 31 , 33 , 39 , 40 ] and benevolence [ 57 ]. It improves interpersonal relationships [ 31 , 39 , 40 ], clarity of thought [ 22 ]; and increases the sense of universalism and transcendence [ 57 ].

Is virtual reality the most effective way to promote mindfulness among higher education students?

Virtual reality could facilitate mindfulness habituation. In the study by Navarrete et al. [ 86 ] conducted with university medical students in Valencia, Spain, it was found that those who participated in the virtual reality program meditated twice as long as those who only practiced through regular guided meditation. Along these lines, Pascual et al. [ 48 ] found that health professionals who practiced meditation completed more sessions than those who did not use VR.

Likewise, in the study by Modrego-Alarcón et al. [ 15 ] and Miller et al. [ 49 ] it was found that VR students acquired greater immersion and mindfulness practice. Therefore, immersive virtual reality environments favor habituation toward mindfulness practice.

4 Discussion

The benefits of mindfulness in higher education students at the psychoemotional level have been widely documented [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 87 ]. One of the most frequently highlighted benefits of mindfulness in higher education students is the positive effect on self-esteem, as evidenced by the findings of several studies [ 88 , 89 ]. Additionally, mindfulness has been shown to reduce stress levels [ 25 , 33 , 39 , 40 , 59 , 61 , 63 , 90 ]. These types of benefits have also been observed in other demographic groups. For example, a study conducted by Chandna et al. [ 91 ] with an adult population demonstrated that mindfulness practice was associated with significant improvements in self-esteem and self-efficacy.

As previously stated, mindfulness practice has been identified as a potential solution to the emotional difficulties experienced by higher education students in the current context [ 12 ]. The positive effects of mindfulness on students’ psychoemotional well-being have been demonstrated in numerous studies [ 66 , 67 , 85 ]. It can thus be inferred that these benefits will also affect other areas of students’ lives, reducing their difficulties both psychoemotionally and academically, for example.

In terms of academic performance, the findings of Bóo et al. [ 27 ], Bernárdez et al. [ 8 ] and McVeigh et al. [ 28 ] are worthy of note. This is not exclusive to students in higher education. A study by Artika et al. [ 92 ] with a sample of 469 secondary school students indicates that mindfulness is a significant predictor of student participation in the school context, with an associated increase in participation through improved self-esteem. In contrast, Cordeiro et al. [ 93 ] conducted an experimental study with a control group of third-grade students and found that mindfulness significantly enhanced cognitive flexibility and handwriting fluency.

Prosocial behaviour has been identified as another key area of interest by a number of studies [ 4 , 22 , 31 , 33 , 39 , 40 , 57 ]. A study by Akhavan et al. [ 90 ] demonstrates the efficacy of mindfulness practice in a sample of teachers, including enhanced relationships with students and reduced stress.

With regard to the manner in which these mindfulness programmes can be supported, the utilisation of VR has been found to confer considerable benefits [ 15 , 48 , 49 , 86 ]. This is primarily attributable to the degree of adherence to the programme. In their seminal work, Friedlander et al. [ 94 ] introduced the concept of the ‘therapeutic alliance’ to describe this phenomenon of patient adherence in a therapeutic context. They posited that it represents a crucial factor in the efficacy of any therapeutic intervention. In this case, although it is an educational context, the effects of such adherence are similar; therefore, it is worthwhile to explore the potential of the VR format as a key factor for the success of mindfulness.

5 Conclusions

In response to the research questions initially posed, it can be stated that they have been addressed, resulting in comprehensive data pertaining to the volume, language and year of publication of the various research projects. It is notable that there has been a significant increase in publications over the past four years, as well as the prevalence of the article format. As is to be expected, the majority of publications have been in English. It is also evident that universities in countries with an Anglo-Saxon tradition have published the most research on this topic, with the USA being the country with the highest volume of studies.

In answer to questions 6, 7, 8 and 9, it might be stated that mindfulness practice has been shown to promote mental health, academic performance, awareness, prosocial behaviour and well-being in student populations. Mindfulness practice might promote mental health, and well-being in the student population. The positive impact of this practice is not limited to how it is performed. That is, whether it is through traditional guided meditations, mobile applications, videos, online exercises or virtual reality.

However, according to the available literature, habituation is easier to acquire. Therefore, additional benefits can be obtained by increasing the number of sessions completed or minutes of practice. In answer to question 10, in studies where VR was effective for mindfulness practice, students practiced longer than those in the control group. Therefore, VR could be a more effective way to introduce contemplative science by introducing meditation techniques in higher education.

The objective has been fulfilled by analysing the benefits of mindfulness on mental health, academic performance, well-being, mindfulness and prosocial behaviour of university students, as well as identifying the most effective way to achieve habituation to the practice. It is also noteworthy that these benefits are highly relevant, and it would be beneficial to introduce mindfulness practice in the context of higher education.

6 Limitation and implication

One of the issues highlighted is the lack of comprehensive data that would allow for a more thorough comparison. For example, aspects such as the geographical location of the study subjects or the duration of the mindfulness programme applied mean that there are a large number of studies whose effectiveness is not entirely clear. At the same time, this is a topic that is becoming increasingly relevant, but there is still no consensus among researchers.

With regard to prospective implications, it is evident that the implementation of mindfulness in educational settings offers substantial advantages. Consequently, higher education institutions should facilitate the availability of structured mindfulness programmes for students. Undoubtedly, this would prove to be a valuable addition to their psycho-emotional and academic development.

Data availability

The author confirms that all data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article.

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Cynthia Lizeth Ramos-Monsivais

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C.L.R.M., S.M.C. and E. L. M have designed the study. C.L.R.M. and S.M.C. carried out the methodology and results sections. V. D. B. and C.L.R.M have written the Introduction C.L.R.M. and E.L.M. have written the Discussion, Conclusions and Limitations. All authors wrote and reviewed the manuscript.

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Ramos-Monsivais, C.L., Rodríguez-Cano, S., Lema-Moreira, E. et al. Relationship between mental health and students’ academic performance through a literature review. Discov Psychol 4 , 119 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44202-024-00240-4

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Received : 04 April 2024

Accepted : 09 September 2024

Published : 17 September 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s44202-024-00240-4

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THE GIRL IN THE LOCKED ROOM A GHOST STORY Novel Study Comprehension, Critical Thinking, Vocab, MCQs,

Subject: English

Age range: 8 - 14

Resource type: Worksheet/Activity

Last updated

19 September 2024

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THE GIRL IN THE LOCKED ROOM A GHOST STORY Novel Study: This is a Novel Study by MARY DOWNING HAHN consist of 33 Chapters divided into 8 Sections (80 pages). Each Section of this Novel Study comprised of following questions: 12 x Comprehension Questions (3 Worksheets) 4 x Critical Thinking Questions (1 Worksheet) 4 x Writing Prompts Questions (1 Worksheet) 10 x Vocabulary Words (Definition Required) (1 Worksheet) 4 x Chapter Review Questions (1 Worksheet) 5 x MCQ’s (1 Worksheet) 5 x True or False Questions (1 Worksheet) Answer Key is given (Where Applicable) (1 Worksheet) For ease of understanding and mastering literary skills, novel study is divided into a manageable size of Parts/Sections. Detail of the Chapters breakdown into Sections is as follows: SECTION 1: Chapter 1-4 SECTION 2: Chapter 5-8 SECTION 3: Chapter 9-12 SECTION 4: Chapter 13-16 SECTION 5: Chapter 17-20 SECTION 6: Chapter 21-24 SECTION 7: Chapter 25-28 SECTION 8: Chapter 29-33 Purpose of this Novel study is to improve learning & comprehension skills through high quality Literature by engaging the students in a way they forge personal connection with the Story & its Characters. Expose students to different emotions, experiences, and environments to build compassion, critical thinking and background knowledge. Worksheets are made in 8.5” x 11” Standard Letter Size. This resource is helpful in students’ assessment, Independent Studies, group activities, practice and homework. This product is available in PDF format and ready to print as well.

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