Belize/Study Skills/Student Success/Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is about being both willing and able to think. Ideally one develops critical thinking skills and at the same time the disposition to use those skills to solve problems and form good judgments.

Critical thinking is necessary when solving problems, making decisions pertaining to a particular circumstance. It is also important, because it enables one to analyze, evaluate, explain, and restructure our thinking, decreasing thereby the risk of acting on, or thinking with, a false premise. However, even with the use of critical thinking skills, mistakes can happen due to a thinker's egocentrism or incorrectly extending ones own belief system beyond its reasonable limits or failure to be in possession of the full facts. In addition, there is always the possibility of inadvertent human error.

Critical thinkers gather information from all senses, verbal and/or written expressions, reflection, observation, experience and reasoning. Critical thinking has its basis in [[intelligence intellectual criteria that go beyond subject-matter divisions and which include: clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, logic, significance and fairness.