Critical thinking

References
Internal links Engineer-it main page Strategies page
Definitions Wikipedia The Foundation for critical thinking
Papers The discipline of critical thinking An IES strategy report Experiences of a critical thinking approach in engineering practice A 3-page IES Journal paper
Case Studies Manufacturing robot cranes (page 27) A manufacturer uses critical thinking Inventing a bionic hand (page 39)

Athena, godess of wisdom

Rodin's thinker

Critical thinking implies the use of principles and processes that are used when addressing situations of complex uncertainty, i.e. that may involve: competing goals; high levels of risk; technical, environmental and societal issues.

It is mainly concerned with ethos i.e. the principles that guide your actions.

Critical thinkers discipline their minds to reduce the risk of unsatisfactory outcomes.

Use of the word critical here denotes that this mode of thinking (a) is critical in the sense of being analytical about ideas and (b) is an essential strategy in situations of complex uncertainty.

Guiding principles

Critical thinkers constantly look for guiding principles. They observe how others operate successfully and seek to identify the principles that have contributed to that succes. They then use these principles. Here are some guiding principles:

Actions

• Test proposals, critique, review.
• Use, where appropriate the Engineer-it strategies
• Reflect: question, consult, challenge, be challenged, expect to be challenged.
• Submit to reason. Use logic and evidence to the limits of their potential before making informed judgements.
• Think for yourself but not by yourself.
• Adopt a system approach: consider the system as a whole as well as its parts
• Adopt a holistic approach: take account of all relevant isues.
• Be humble, be prepared to change your mind.
• Learn from successes, learn from failures.
• If a feaure can be quantified, quantify it. Use predictive models, use data.
• Be sceptical about the valididity of all information.
• Constantly seek to improve products and processes.

Seek to be:

• honest, trustworthy
• open, friendly, respectful
• committed
• collaborative, inclusive

Avoid being:

• autocratic
• deferential

Learning for critical thinking

The development of good habits should start as early as practical in your life. That learning for critial thinking should start in primary school and be addressed continuously in education is becoming recognised. Critical thinking should be treated as a discipline in education i.e. as a branch of learning - see Section 4 (page 10) of the Discipline for critical thinking paper.

However, you cannot rely on being coached to be a critical thinker. People need to discippline their minds to develop critical thinking skills, Strategies for doing this include:

• Be a student of crtitical thinking. Collect guiding principles. Write them down,memorise and use them.
• Watch how other people operate and identify the principles that guide them to be successful. Discuss the issues with them. Add their good ideas to your list of principles.
• Read about contexts where critical thinking was needed to identify principles
• Identify the reasons for people to be unsuccessful. Actively avoid copying them.
• Remember that some guiding princples are context specific. You are not using a set of fixed rules that result in success. You need to use critical thinking about your critical thinking strategies.
• If you have a leadership role, tell those who take direction from you about the principles that you intend to use and that you expect them to use.