Can critical thinking be taught?

Critical thinking is one of the most important skills that our youth need to be future-proofed.

A MEAL of fried rice and a drink costs three dollars. If the rice costs two dollars more than the drink, how much does the drink cost? If you answered one dollar; welcome to the club of the majority of people who answered this question wrongly! The correct answer is 50 cents (the rice costs 2.50 - which is two dollars more than the drink and the total is three dollars).

Answering such a seemingly easy question wrongly has a neurological root that is at the heart of the quest of critical thinking. The human brain represents only 1% of the body mass but uses 20% of the energy in the body. It is wired to conserve its energy and avoid any computationally demanding operations.

In his book “Thinking Fast and Slow,” the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman identified two systems of thinking; System 1 which is fast, energy efficient and full of shortcomings, and System 2 which is slow, deliberate and consumes high energy. If I ask you what is 2+2, you will effortlessly answer, 4. This is System 1 in action. However, if you are asked what is 123X27, you will need to think carefully to do the mental math. This is when we need System 2.

As System 1 utilises many shortcuts, it can make mistakes and has many biases. It applies the “rule of thumb” and does not go into the details of a given situation before arriving at a quick conclusion. This is adequate, indeed necessary, to deal with many of the situations we face daily, until we face a question like the one I started this article with.

Critical thinking is what System 2 does. It is the disciplined exercise of systematically, objectively and impartially considering and evaluating facts, observations, assumptions and claims before arriving at judgements, solutions, decisions and conclusions. Critical thinking is a skill and process that can be developed and perfected and is highly valued by employers.

The “Future of Jobs” report published by the World Economic Forum in 2016 surveyed senior executives from 371 leading global firms asking them about the skills that they are looking for in the people they recruit.

Critical thinking featured very highly, second only to complex problem solving in the list of top 10 employability skills. This probably does not come as a surprise to you. Critical thinking is a buzz word that everyone is talking about; policymakers promote it, employers want it, universities pledge to inculcate it and students are supposed to acquire it.

The question is then can we develop critical thinking and how can we do that?

Traditionally, universities assumed that critical thinking would organically emerge as students take various courses in their selected field of study. However, research conducted by New York University sociologist Richard Arum studying several thousand undergraduates throughout their years at university found that “large numbers didn’t learn the critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication skills that are widely assumed to be at the core of a college education.”

Clearly, the systematic development of critical thinking requires a carefully designed student experience that establishes the mental habits and attitudes necessary for this skill to take root.

To address this, and other challenges related to producing futureready graduates, Heriot-Watt University Malaysia created the EmPOWER Programme that all undergraduate students go through. The programme has six domains namely:

1. Global Citizenship, Leadership & Impact;

2. Emotional Intelligence, Resilience & Happiness;

3. People skills;

4. Entrepreneurship, Innovation & Creativity;

5. Critical Thinking & Decision Making; and

6. Employability & Industrial Relevance

Students learn how the brain functions and what the different thinking biases are. Critical thinking is taught and practised as a step-by-step process that they use regularly to make decisions and to solve challenges that face them in a variety of contexts and situations. The process has the following logical steps that any one can apply to yield better conclusions, solutions and decisions. The process is documented so that it can be reviewed and improved upon.

Identification: Write a clear and concise Challenge Statement. The statement should be accurate and based on facts (not opinions);

Review: Gather the available information and evaluate them paying special attention to examining conflicting reports of a situation or event;

Analysis: Inspect the available data with emphasis on identifying and challenging your own assumptions; Exploration: Propose possible solutions/stands/decisions and evaluate them based on clear criteria; and

Evaluation: After implementing the selected solution or the decision, evaluate its effectiveness and document the learnt lessons for future improvement. Christopher Hitchens said: “The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.”

Critical thinking is one of the most important skills that our youth need to be future-proofed in the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and education should help them acquire it.

PROF MUSHTAK AL-ATABI Provost and CEO Heriot-Watt University Malaysia

Critical thinking is a skill and process that can be developed and perfected and is highly valued by employers.

Prof Mushtak

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