A Survey on Critical Thinking in Education Scenario

Abstract

Critical thinking has been a controversial issue among philosophers, researchers and educationalists, although there is no general consensus on a definition. Everyone thinks; it is our nature to do so. But much of our thinking, left to it-self, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed or down-right prejudiced. Yet the quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends precisely on the quality of our thought. Excellence in thought, however, must be systematically cultivated. Critical thinking is that mode of thinking - about any subject, content, or problem - in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon them. Critical thinking is not a matter of accumulating information. A person with a good memory and who knows a lot of facts is not necessarily good at critical thinking. A critical thinker is able to deduce consequences from what he/she knows, and he/she knows how to make use of information to solve problems, and to seek relevant sources of information to inform himself / herself. Critical thinking should not be confused with being argumentative or being critical of other people. Although critical thinking skills can be used in exposing fallacies and bad reasoning, critical thinking can also play an important role in cooperative reasoning and constructive tasks. Critical thinking can help us acquire knowledge, improve our theories, and strengthen arguments. It is self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in a fair-minded way.