Teaching Critical Thinking for Transfer

Across Domains
Dispositions, Skills, Structure Training, and Metacognitive Monitoring
Diane E Halpern
California State University, San Bernardino

Advances in technology and changes in necessary work- chologists probe for the origin of these beliefs, they find
place skills have made the ability to think critically more that believers in psychic phenomena often use scientific
important than ever before, yet there is ample evidence jargon and fundamental concepts of scientific understand-
that many adults consistently engage in flawed thinking. ing, but the words do not match their usual definitions
Numerous studies have shown that critical thinking, de- and the concepts are misunderstood,
fined as the deliberate use of skills and strategies that A recent article in the popular magazine Life (Miller,
increase the probability of a desirable outcome, can be 1997) provides insights into paranormal beliefs. Miller
learned in ways that promote transfer to novel contexts. quoted from his interview with someone he described as
A 4-part empirically based model is proposed to guide a physicist-astrologer: "To me, astrology was in the most
teaching and learning for critical thinking: (a) a disposi- flaky class of crystal-healing, useless poppycock . . .
tional component to prepare learners for efforiful cogni- until I began to see the data" (p. 46). The data that
tive work, (b) instruction in the skills of critical thinking, changed this physicist into a devotee of astrology were " a
(c) training in the structural aspects of problems and few, small, but significant correlations" (p. 46), scattered
arguments to promote transcontextual transfer of criti- among a large number of nonsignificant correlations. This
cal-thinking skills, and (d) a metacognitive component evidence sounds like an operational definition of a Type
that includes checking for accuracy and monitoring I error to most psychologists, but to most people in the
progress toward the goal. real world (where the real world is defined as those who
have, at best, a fuzzy understanding of the principles
of probability), these are convincing data. Although the
differences may be more apparent, there are many simi-

H
ere are some scary facts about the critical-think- larities between the methods used by people with little
ing practices of college students and the Ameri- or no scientific training and the scientific method. Like
can public in general: Approximately 78% of scientists, all people seek meaningful causal connections
women and 70% of men read their horoscopes, with many among the myriad of correlated events that they encoun-
believing that these horoscopes are so often correct that ter, often looking especially hard for causal explanations
they were written especially for them (Lister, 1992); they for unusual events. It's not that occult beliefs arise in the
phone their personal psychics, at a cost that many cannot absence of reasoning; they are more likely caused by bugs
afford, for advice on matters that range from how to in the reasoning process. Naive and flawed reasoning
invest their money to whether a loved one should be practices, such as illusory correlations (believing that two
disconnected from life support systems; they spend huge variables are correlated when they are not), are resistant
sums of money on a variety of remedies for which there to change because they make sense to the individual, and
is no evidence that they work or are even safe to t a k e - - for the most part, the individual believes that they work.
sometimes with disastrous results. In a survey of college
students, more than 99% expressed their belief in at least
one of the following: channeling, clairvoyance, precogni- Editor's note. Articles based on APA award addresses are given spe-
tion, telepathy, psychic surgery, psychic healing, healing cial consideration in the American Psychologist's editorial selection
crystals, psychokinesis, astral travel, levitation, the Ber- process.
A version of this article was originally presented as part of an
muda triangle mystery, UFOs, plant consciousness, auras, Award for Distinguished Career Contributions to Education and Train-
or ghosts, and more than 65% reported that they person- ing in Psychologyaddress at the 105thAnnual Conventionof the Ameri-
ally experienced at least one of these phenomena (Mes- can PsychologicalAssociation, Chicago, IL, August 1997.
ser & Griggs, 1989).
Beliefs in paranormal phenomena pose a problem Correspondence concerning this article should be ad-
A u t h o r ' s note.
dressed to Diane E Halpern, Department of Psychology, California
for psychologists who want to understand how people State University, San Bernardino, 5500 University Parkway, San Bernar-
create and maintain these beliefs when there is no credi- dino, CA 92407-2397. Electronic mail may be sent to dhalpern@
ble evidence that they have any basis in fact. When psy- wiley.csusb.edu.

April 1998 • American Psychologist 449

Copyright 1998 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0003-066X/98/$2.00
Vok 53, No. 4, 449-455
Furthermore, for many believers in paranormal phenom- and asked, "Will we be smart enough?" The answer to
ena, the laws of the paranormal have to work only some this question will determine the quality of life and the
of the time, so believers see no value in disconfirming future of the United States and the whole planet. The
evidence. most important reason for making the enhancement o f
Consider a lead editorial in a recent edition of USA critical-thinking skills the primary objective of higher
Today entitled "Forget Day-Care Research--Trust Your education is that the rest of the world has changed and
Instincts" (Parker, 1997). The readers of USA Today were is continuing to change at an accelerating rate. As Hunt
urged to ignore the results of the National Institute of persuasively argued, the workforce is one critical place
Child Health and Human Development' s seven-year study where the dizzying pace of change can be witnessed. The
on day care. Instead, they were asked to rely on Parker's number of jobs available in manufacturing is shrinking;
intuition about the negative effects of day care. As Scarf those workers with poor cognitive skills can expect more
(1997) recently noted, when the results of a scientific competition for fewer jobs that pay poorly, while at the
study of day care are pitted against intuition or the obser- same time, there is an increased demand for a new type
vations of a single individual, the general public tends to of worker--this new job category has been dubbed the
find these two sources of information equally compelling. "knowledge worker" 'or the "symbol analyst" to de-
Everyone has some experience with children and opin- scribe someone who can carry out multistep operations,
ions about child rearing, and everyone believes that their manipulate abstract and complex symbols and ideas, ef-
personal experiences and those of people whom they trust ficiently acquire new information, and remain flexible
are as valid and reliable as inferences made from large- enough to recognize the need for continuing change and
scale studies. Numerous adages exemplify these beliefs, new paradigms for lifelong learning. Many of psycholo-
including "experience is the best teacher" (a misquote gy's subdisciplines--human learning, life span develop-
from Benjamin Franklin, who said that it was a dear or ment, program evaluation, cognition, social psychology,
expensive teacher; Dawes, 1994) and "seeing is be- psychometrics, industrial-organizational psychology,
lieving." Faceless statistical averages gleaned from large and others--can be used to bring about fundamental
samples are no match for vivid examples that are experi- changes in educational systems. The rate at which knowl-
enced personally. Even statistically astute psychologists, edge has been growing is exponential, and the most val-
who quickly criticize experimental designs with small ued asset of any society in the coming decades is a knowl-
sample sizes (especially when they do not like the conclu- edgeable, thinking citizenry--human capital is the wisest
sions), willingly accept their own personal experiences investment.
as valid and sufficient data (Dawes, 1994). This is why The information explosion is yet another reason why
testimonials are so compelling, a fact that advertisers specific instruction in thinking needs to be provided. Peo-
use to their advantage, and a single counterexample that ple now have an incredible wealth of information avail-
supports a favored view ( " I know a person who" phe- able, quite literally at their fingertips, via the Internet and
nomenon) is often used to disprove a conclusion derived other remote services with only a few minutes of search
from a large study (Gilovich, 1991). The primacy of time on the computer. The problem has become knowing
personal experience is bolstered by two common themes what to do with the deluge of data. The information has
that are repeated like a mantra in the popular media: (a) to be selected, interpreted, digested, evaluated, learned,
Science, like the government, cannot be trusted, and (b) and applied or it is of no more use on a computer screen
anyone can lie with statistics. When the bases of personal than it is on a library shelf. If people cannot think intelli-
beliefs are viewed in this context, it is easy to understand gently about the myriad issues that confront them, then
why large crowds gathered in Roswell, New Mexico, in they are in danger of having all of the answers but still
the summer of 1997 to celebrate the golden anniversary of not knowing what the answers mean. The dual abilities
the landing of alien life-forms on earth. Bertrand Russell of knowing how to learn and knowing how to think
summed up the situation well when he said, "Most peo- clearly about the rapidly proliferating information that
ple would sooner die than think, in fact they d o " (as they will be required to deal with will provide the best
quoted in Bolander, 1987, p. 69). education for citizens of the 21 st century.
Given all of these examples, it is not surprising that
many colleges in the United States and other places Teaching for Critical Thinking
throughout the world now require all students to take a The goal of helping students improve their critical-think-
course in critical thinking as part of their general educa- ing abilities represents a major change in the way the
tion program. There is virtually no disagreement over the teaching and learning process is viewed. The term critical
need to help college students improve how they think. thinking refers to the use of those cognitive skills or
Both George Bush and Bill Clinton supported the na- strategies that increase the probability of a desirable out-
tional education goal for higher education that declared c o m e - - i n the long run, critical thinkers will have more
that it was a national priority to enhance critical thinking desirable outcomes than "noncritical" thinkers (where
in college students, although this national priority was "desirable" is defined by the individual, such as making
never funded (National Education Goals Panel, 1991). good career choices or wise financial investments). Criti-
Hunt (1995) examined the skills that will be needed cal thinking is purposeful, reasoned, and goal-directed.
by the workforce in the early decades of the next century It is the kind of thinking involved in solving problems,

450 April 1998 • American Psychologist

formulating inferences, calculating likelihoods, and mak- titious assessment is not feasible, but some clever at-
ing decisions. Critical thinkers use these skills appropri- tempts have come close. Lehman and Nisbett (1990), for
ately, without prompting, and usually with conscious in- example, examined the spontaneous transfer of selected
tent in a variety of settings. That is, they are predisposed thinking skills in an out-of-the-classroom, real-world en-
to think critically. When people think critically, they are vironment. They phoned students at home several months
evaluating the outcomes of their thought processes--how after the completion of their course work and posed ques-
good a decision is or how well a problem is solved (Halp- tions under the guise of a household survey. Results were
ern, 1996). Critical thinking also involves evaluating the supportive of the idea that the students had learned and
thinking process--the reasoning that went into the con- spontaneously used the thinking skills that had been
clusion one arrived at or the kinds of factors considered taught in their college classes when the questions were
in making a decision. In the term critical thinking, the asked in an ecologically valid setting (their own homes),
word critical is not meant to imply "finding fault," as with novel topics, several months after the semester had
it might be used in a pejorative way to describe someone ended. This sort of assessment provides evidence that
who is always making negative comments. It is used critical thinking can be learned with approPriate instruc-
instead in the sense of "critical" that involves evaluation tion and that it can and does transfer to novel domains
or judgment, ideally with the goal of providing useful of knowledge. There are numerous other successful re-
and accurate feedback that serves to improve the thinking ports of the transfer of critical-thinking skills to a variety
process. of settings (Kosonen & Winne, 1995; Nisbett, 1993; Per-
Critical-thinking skills are often referred to as higher kins & Grotzer, 1997).
order cognitive skills to differentiate them from simpler
(i.e., lower order) thinking skills. Higher order skills are
A Four-Part Model for Enhancing Critical
relatively complex; require judgment, analysis, and syn- Thinking
thesis; and are not applied in a rote or mechanical manner. In critical-thinking instruction, the goal is to promote
Higher order thinking is thinking that is reflective, sensi- the learning of transcontextual thinking skills and the
tive to the context, and self-monitored. Computational awareness of and ability to direct one's own thinking
arithmetic, for example, is not a higher order skill, even and learning. Although thinking always occurs within a
though it is an important skill, because it involves the domain of knowledge, the usual methods that are used
rote application o f well-learned rules with little concern for teaching content matter are not optimal for teaching
for context or other variables that would affect the out- the thinking skills that psychologists and other educators
come. By contrast, deciding which of two information want students to use in multiple domains because instruc-
sources is more credible is a higher order cognitive skill tion in most courses focuses on content knowledge (as
because it is a judgment task in which the variables that might be expected) instead of the transferability of criti-
affect credibility are multidimensional and change with cal-thinking skills. For this reason, instruction" in critical
the context. In real life, critical-thinking skills are needed thinking poses unique problems. Fortunately, there al-
whenever people grapple with complex issues and messy, ready are powerful models of human learning that can
ill-defined problems. be used as a guide for the redesign of education for
thinking. The basic principles of these models are taken
Can Better Thinking Be Learned? from cognitive psychology, the empirical branch of psy-
There are numerous, qualitatively different types of evi- chology that deals with questions about how people think,
dence showing that students can become better thinkers as learn, and remember, or more specifically, how people
a result of appropriate instruction. Indicators of positive acquire, utilize, organize, and retrieve information.
change include self-reports, gains in adult cognitive de- It is clear that a successful pedagogy that can serve
velopment, higher scores on commercially available and as a basis for the enhancement of thinking will have to
research versions of tests of critical thinking, superior incorporate ideas about the way in which learners orga-
responses to novel open-ended questions (graded nize knowledge and internally represent it and the way
blindly--without the rater knowing if the student re- these representations change and resist change when new
ceived instruction in critical thinking), and changes in information is encountered. Despite all of the gains that
the organization of information, among others (reviewed cognitive psychologists have made in understanding what
in Halpem, 1996). The goal of instruction designed to happens when people learn, most teachers do not apply
help students become better thinkers is transferability to their knowledge of cognitive psychology (Schoen, 1983).
real-world, out-of-the-classroom situations. With this The model that I am proposing for teaching thinking
goal in mind, the ideal learning assessment would occur skills so they will transfer across domains of knowledge
naturally in the course of one's life, in multiple settings, consists of four parts: (a) a dispositional or attitudinal
and would provide comparable measures before, during, component, (b) instruction in and practice with critical-
and long after the instruction. It would describe what an thinking skills, (c) structure-training activities designed
individual thinks and does when reading a newspaper to facilitate transfer across contexts, and (d) a metacogni-
editorial, selecting a career objective, or voting on a bond rive component used to direct and assess thinking. Each
issue at times when the individual is not aware of being of these components is grounded in theories and research
assessed. Unfortunately, this sort of intrusive and surrep- in cognitive psychology. The underlying idea is that the

April 1998 • American Psychologist 451

general research-based principles of how adults learn can finable thinking skills that students can be taught to rec-
be used to enhance their critical-thinking skills (Angelo, ognize and apply appropriately and (b) if these thinking
1993). skills are recognized and applied, the students will be
more effective thinkers. A general list of skills that would
Dispositions for Efforlful Thinking and Learning
be applicable in almost any class would include under-
Critical thinking is more than the successful use of a standing how cause is determined, recognizing and crit-
particular skill in an appropriate context. It is also an icizing assumptions, analyzing means-goals relation-
attitude or disposition to recognize when a skill is needed ships, giving reasons to support a conclusion, assessing
and the willingness to apply it. Sears and Parsons (1991) degrees of likelihood and uncertainty, incorporating iso-
called these dispositions the ethic of a critical thinker. lated data into a wider framework, and using analogies
There are large differences among cognitive tasks in the to solve problems.
effort that is required in learning and thinking. For exam- A short taxonomy of critical-thinking skills is pro-
ple, most people effortlessly learn the plot of a television posed as a guide for instruction: (a) verbal reasoning
sitcom they are watching, but they need to expend con- skills--This category includes those skills needed to
certed mental effort and cognitive monitoring to learn comprehend and defend against the persuasive techniques
how to analyze complex arguments or how to convert a that are embedded in everyday language; (b) argument
word problem into a spatial display. Similarly, routine analysis skills--An argument is a set of statements with
problems tend to be solved with habitual solutions, some- at least one conclusion and one reason that supports the
times so effortlessly that the problem solver has no con- conclusion. In real-life settings, arguments are complex,
scious awareness of the process. By contrast, critical with reasons that run counter to the conclusion, stated
thinking requires the conscious exertion of mental effort. and unstated assumptions, irrelevant information, and
In other words, it is cognitive work. Learners need to intermediate steps; (c) skills in thinking as hypothesis
understand and be prepared for the effortful nature of testing--The rationale for this category is that people
critical thinking so they do not abandon the process too function like intuitive scientists to explain, predict, and
soon, believing that the thinking should have been easier control events. These skills include generalizability, rec-
or accomplished more quickly. The development of ex- ognition of the need for an adequately large sample size,
pertise in any area requires deliberate, effortful, and in- accurate assessment, and validity, among others; (d) like-
tense cognitive work (Wagner, 1997). Not surprisingly, lihood and uncertainty--Because very few events in life
critical thinking is no exception to these general can be known with certainty, the correct use of cumula-
principles. tive, exclusive, and contingent probabilities should play
It is important to separate the disposition or willing- a critical role in almost every decision; (e) decision-
ness to think critically from the ability to think critically. making and problem-solving skills--In some sense, all
Some people may have excellent critical-thinking skills of the critical-thinking skills are used to make decisions
and may recognize when the skills are needed, but they and solve problems, but the ones that are included here
also may choose not to engage in the effortful process involve generating and selecting alternatives and judging
of using them. This is the distinction between what peo- among them. Creative thinking is subsumed under this
ple can do and what they actually do in real-world con- category because of its importance in generating alterna-
texts. It is of no value to teach students the skills of tives and restating problems and goals.
critical thinking if they do not use them. Good instruc- The categories and skills listed in this taxonomy
tional programs help learners decide when to make the have face validity and, thus, can be easily communicated
necessary mental investment in critical thinking and when to the general public and students. They represent one
a problem or argument is not worth the effort. An ex- possible answer to the question of what college graduates
tended session of generating alternatives and calculating need to know and be able to do so that they can compete
probabilities is a reasonable response to a diagnosis of and cooperate in the world's marketplace and function
cancer; it is not worth the effort when the decision in- as effective citizens in a complex democratic community.
volves the selection of an ice-cream flavor. Taken together, these five categories (sometimes referred
A critical thinker exhibits the following dispositions to as "macroabilities") define an organizational rubric
or attitudes: (a) willingness to engage in and persist at a for a skills approach to critical thinking. They have the
complex task, (b) habitual use of plans and the suppres- benefit of focusing on skills that are teachable and gener-
sion of impulsive activity, (c) flexibility or open-mind- alizable and, therefore, would help to bridge the gap
edness, (d) willingness to abandon nonproductive strate- between thinking skills that can be taught in college and
gies in an attempt to self-correct, and (e) an awareness those skills that are needed in the workplace.
of the social realities that need to be overcome (such as
the need to seek consensus or compromise) so that
Structure Training to Promote Transfer
thoughts can become actions. When one is teaching for thinking, the goal is to have
students not only understand and successfully use the
A Skills Approach to Critical Thinking particular skill or strategy being taught but also be able
Critical-thinking instruction is predicated on two as- to recognize where that particular skill might be appro-
sumptions: (a) that there are clearly identifable and de- priate in novel situations. The critical component in an

452 April 1998 • American Psychologist

ecologically valid critical-thinking process is recognizing When critical-thinking skills are taught so that they
or noticing that a particular thinking skill may be needed. transfer appropriately and spontaneously, students learn
This is the Achilles' heel of transfer. It can be thought to actively focus on the structure of problems or argu-
of as a problem of memory because recognizing the need ments so the underlying characteristics become salient,
for a particular skill involves the ability of external cues instead of the domain-specific surface characteristics.
to trigger retrieval processes in long-term memory, so The cues for recognizing all three of these situations as
information about a thinking skill can move into working sunk-costs arguments are not in the content area. There
memory, where it can be consciously considered. As is is not much similarity among an old car, an expensive
known from cognitive psychology, what gets remembered missile, and a bride-to-be. Information about sunk costs
at retrieval heavily depends on what occurred during needs to be represented in the learner's memory in a
learning. Information that is associated with material be- generic form so that it will be recalled whenever this
ing learned can function as an effective retrieval cue when type of argument is made, regardless of the subject matter.
the learning is completed. For example, if one went to On the basis of what is already known about adults'
high school with a next-door neighbor, seeing or thinking learning, students need spaced practice with different
about this neighbor in later years would bring a host of sorts of examples and corrective feedback to develop
high school memories to mind by moving them from the habit of "spontaneous noticing." Learning should be
their dormant state in long-term memory into the active arranged to facilitate retrieval of skills in a way that does
consciousness of working memory. The problem in learn- not depend on the content area.
ing thinking skills that are needed in multiple contexts The representation of information in memory is a
is that there are no obvious cues in the novel contexts difficult and abstract concept. I am not referring to mem-
that can trigger the recall of the thinking skills. Students ory in terms of its neurochemical underpinnings but
need to create retrieval cues from the structural aspects rather the relationship between the way information is
of a problem or argument, so when these structural as- stored and the way it is used for a particular purpose.
pects are present in the novel context, they can serve as Cognitive psychologists think of meaning as the way a
cues for retrieval. Hummel and Holyoak (1997) identified concept is embedded in a web of related concepts. A
structure sensitivity as a fundamental property that under- concept has a rich or deep meaning when it has many
lies human thought: "First thinking is structure sensitive. connections to other concepts. When activated, or
Reasoning, problem solving, and learning . . . depend brought to consciousness, concepts can act as a recall
cue for the related concepts to which they are connected.
on a capacity to code and manipulate relational knowl-
One way to promote effective organization is through the
edge" (p. 427). Thus, when one is teaching for the trans-
use of elaboration (and other techniques) that develop
fer of thinking skills, one should ensure that the structural
interconnected knowledge structures. In general, the
aspects of problems and arguments are made salient so
greater the number of connections to information stored
that they can function as retrieval cues. An example
in memory, the greater the likelihood that it will be
should help with this concept.
recalled.
Suppose that one is teaching students about "sunk When a person elaborates a concept, he or she forms
costs," a difficult concept for many students to grasp. many meaningful connections--the concept is related to
The general idea is that prior investments are not relevant other relevant concepts. There are many techniques that
to decisions about future costs. (If the prior investments can be used in elaboration. An especially effective tech-
are unrecoverable, they are, in effect, sunk or lost.) What nique is the use of thoughtful questions, which require
is relevant is the value of the object from the present and that learners create the necessary connections. This is
into the future. Thus, if a friend explains that he or she also a good technique because recalling a fact or concept
plans to spend $500 to repair a beat-up, old car because is different from learning it. The best way to ensure recall
the friend has already spent hundreds on its repair, he or is to practice r e c a l l - - n o t mindless practice, but meaning-
she is making a sunk-costs argument. The decision should ful practice with feedback. The questions used to develop
be based on whether the car is now worth a $500 repair; connected knowledge structures need to be drawn from
all of the previous costs are irrelevant for this decision. the real-world contexts that are frequently encountered
The goal of transferable thinking skills would be achieved in the workplace and in the exercise of citizenship. This
if students recognize sunk-costs arguments when they are requirement will virtually ensure face validity and will
being made in totally different settings and can apply be consistent with the "situated cognition" viewpoint
what has been learned about these arguments in the new that is popular in the cognitive science literature and with
settings. Psychologists and other educators want students one that I am extending to accommodate recall across
who will retrieve and use their knowledge of sunk costs domains (Glaser, 1992; Rogoff & Lave, 1984). Real-life
when they hear a senator urging Congress to spend mil- thinking is done in a context, and a good learning envi-
lions of dollars on a missile system because the military ronment provides a believable context for learning
has already invested billions into the missile system in exercises.
the past or when a friend explains that he plans to marry Learning tasks, like real-world thinking tasks,
a longtime girlfriend because they have already spent so should be rich in information. Some of the information
many years together. available may not be relevant, and part of the learning

April 1998 • American Psychologist 453

exercise involves deciding which information is im- Metocognitive Monitoring
portant to the problem. What is important in the teaching
Metacognition is the executive or " b o s s " function that
and learning of critical-thinking skills is what the learners
guides how adults use different learning strategies and
are required to do with the information. Learning exer-
make decisions about the allocation of limited cognitive
cises should focus on the critical aspects of the problems
resources. The term is usually defined as "what we know
and arguments that utilize the skills. The tasks should about what we know" and the ability to use this knowl-
require thoughtful analysis and synthesis. For example, edge to direct and improve the thinking and learning
the repeated use of "authentic" materials, or materials process. It refers to the self-awareness and planning func-
that are similar to real-world situations, is one teaching tions that guide the use of thinking skills. When engaging
strategy to enhance transfer (Derry, Levin, & Schauble, in critical thinking, students need to monitor their think-
1995). Thinking skills need to be explicitly and con- ing process, checking whether progress is being made
sciously taught and then used with many types of exam- toward an appropriate goal, ensuring accuracy, and mak-
ples so that the skill aspect and its appropriate use are ing decisions about the use of time and mental effort.
clarified and emphasized. Examples of elaborative ques- Metacognitive monitoring skills need to be made explicit
tions are presented in Table 1. and public so that they can be examined and feedback
can be given about how well they are functioning. A
few explicit guiding questions can be used as a way of
converting what is usually an implicit process into an
Table 1 explicit one. For example, students can be given a prob-
Examples of Relevant Tasks and Questions That lem or an argument to analyze and then asked the follow-
Require Learners to Attend to Structural Aspects ing questions before they begin the task: (a) How much
of a Problem or Argument time and effort is this problem worth? (b) What do you
already know about this problem or argument? (c) What
Draw a diagram or other graphic display that organizes the is the goal or reason for engaging in extended and careful
information. (This sort of task makes the structure of a thought about this problem or argument? (d) How diffi-
problem or argument clear.) cult do you think it will be to solve this problem or reach
What additional information would you want before
a conclusion? (e) How will you know when you have
answering the question? (This requires the thinkers-
learners to think about'what is missing from the reached the goal? (f) What critical-thinking skills are
information that is given.) likely to be useful in solving this problem or analyzing
Explain why you selected a particular multiple-choice this argument? As students work on the problem or argu-
alternative. Which alternative is second best? Why? (The ment, they should be asked to assess their progress to-
giving of reasons is a good way to focus on the thinking ward the g0al. (g) Are you moving toward a solution?
that went into an answer rather than the answer itself.) Finally, when the task is completed, the students should
State the problem in at least two ways. (Most real-world be asked to judge how well the problem was solved or
problems are fuzzy, that is, they really are potentially how well the argument was analyzed. Well-structured
many problems, each with its own possible solution.) questions will help students reflect on their learning and
Which information is most important? Which information is
may provide insights that will be useful in the future.
least important? Why? (This question focuses the learners'
attention on the value of different sorts of information.)
Categorize the findings in a meaningful way. (By grouping
Correcting Faulty Thinking Patterns
or labeling individual pieces of information, a structure The four-part model being proposed is designed for
emerges that is not apparent when they are kept teaching and learning a large and flexible repertoire of
separate.) critical-thinking skills, assessing their effectiveness, and
List two solutions for the problem. (This encourages a more
creative approach.) developing the disposition to use them. It is, by design,
What is wrong with an assertion that was made in the best suited for achieving the goal of transferable thinking
question? (This reminds the learners that problems often skills that are used across domains of knowledge. It rec-
contain misleading information.) ognizes the critical role played by dispositional attributes,
Present two reasons that support the conclusion and two provides examples of directed learning activities to facili-
reasons that do not support the conclusion. (Questions of tate the transfer of general skills across domains, and
this sort do not permit black-and-white reasoning.) provides examples for making metacognitive monitoring
Identify the type of persuasive technique that is used in the more active and conscious. How can this model be used
question. Is it valid, or is it designed to mislead the to get the horoscope-reading, psychic-phoning students
reader? Explain your answer. (Learners are required to
consider the motives and credibility of their information
in classes to think more critically about these topics?
source when responding to these questions.) First, like students, instructors need to understand
What two actions would you take to improve the design of a that this will be an effortful process. Beliefs that have
study that was described? (Learners need to think about been constructed over many years and the habits of mind
better types of evidence or procedures that might have that developed along with them will take multiple learn-
provided different results.) ing experiences, distributed over time and settings, before
I they will be successfully replaced with new ways of

454 April 1998 • American Psychologist

thinking and knowing about the world. Students need to critical components o f their education. The enhancement
be told to expect that a thoughtful consideration of evi- of critical-thinking skills is also the most challenging and
dence and arguments will require the expenditure of men- personally rewarding task in which psychologists and
tal effort so that they do not expect quick and easy an- educators can engage.
swers and will not be surprised by the amount o f effort
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