CRITICAL

THINKING ANALYSIS
PROF. ERIC P. PALIGAT
Associate Professor III
National Police College
Philippine National Police Academy
Philippine National Police Training Institute
National Forensic Science Training Institute
Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency
National Fire Training Institute
PNPTI-National Training Center
 Sub-Topics
 Define Critical Thinking
 Classic Methods of Critical Thinking

 Methods to Elicit Critical Thinking

 Steps and Personal Abilities for Critical

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 Definition of
Critical Thinking
 Critical thinking is the ability to think
clearly and rationally, understanding
the logical connection between ideas.
 Critical thinking has been the subject
of much debate and thought since the
time of early Greek philosophers such
as Plato and Socrates and has
continued to be a subject of discussion
into the modern age, for example the
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ability to recognize fake news.
 Critical thinking might be described as the
ability to engage in reflective and independent
thinking.
 In essence, critical thinking requires you to use
your ability to reason. It is about being an active
learner rather than a passive recipient of
information.
 Critical thinkers rigorously question ideas and
assumptions rather than accepting them at face
value. They will always seek to determine
whether the ideas, arguments and findings
represent the entire picture and are open to
finding that they do not.
 Critical thinkers will identify, analyze and solve
problems systematically rather than by intuition 4
or instinct.
 Classic Methods
of Critical Thinking
 Critical thinking has a useful sequence to
follow:
 1. Itemize opinion(s) from all relevant sides of
an issue and collect logical argument(s)
supporting each.
 2. Break the arguments into their constituent
statements and draw out various additional
implication(s) from these statements.
 3. Examine these statements and
implications for internal contradictions.
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 4. Locate opposing claims between the
various arguments and assign relative
weightings to opposing claims:
 * Increase the weighting when the claims
have strong support especially distinct
chains of reasoning or different news
sources, decrease the weighting when
the claims have contradictions.
 * Adjust weighting depending on
relevance of information to central issue.
 * Require sufficient support to justify any
incredible claims; otherwise, ignore these
claims when forming a judgment. 6
 5. Assess the weights of the various claims.
 Mind maps provide an effective tool for organizing and
evaluating this information; in the final stages, one can
assign numeric weights to various branches of the
mind map.
 Critical thinking does not assure that one will reach
either the truth or correct conclusions. First, one may
not have all the relevant information; indeed,
important information may remain undiscovered, or
the information may not even be knowable. Second,
one's bias(es) may prevent effective gathering and
evaluation of the available information.
 Critical thinking may be distinguished, but not
separated, from feeling. Refusal to recognize their
interaction in real life leads to various forms of self-
deception, individually and socially; and at the left,
right, and mainstream of economic, political, and
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religious issues.
Methods to Elicit
Critical Thinking

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 1. Observation
 Observational skills are the starting point for critical
thinking. People who are observant can quickly
sense and identify a new problem. Those skilled in
observation are also capable of understanding why
something might be a problem. They may even be
able to predict when a problem might occur before
it happens based on their experience.
 Improve your observation skills by slowing down
your pace of processing information and training
yourself to pay closer attention to your
surroundings. You might practice mindfulness
techniques, journaling or actively listening during
and outside of work to thoroughly examine what
you’re hearing or seeing. Then, consider if you
notice trends in behavior, transactions or data that
might be helpful for your team to address. 9
 2. Analysis
 Once a problem has been identified, analysis skills
become essential. The ability to analyze and
effectively evaluate a situation involves knowing
what facts, data or information about the problem
are important. This also often includes gathering
unbiased research, asking relevant questions about
the data to ensure it’s accurate and assessing the
findings objectively.
 Improve your analytical skills by taking on new
experiences. For example, you might read a book
about a concept you’re unfamiliar with or take an
online math class to push yourself to think in new
ways and consider new ideas. Doing so can help
you build the skills to interpret new information and
make rational decisions based on sound analysis.
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 3. Inference
 Inference is a skill that involves drawing conclusions
about the information you collect and may require
you to possess technical or industry-specific
knowledge or experience. When you make an
inference, that means you are developing answers
based on limited information. For example, a car
mechanic may need to infer what is causing a car’s
engine to stall at seemingly random times based on
the information available to them.
 Improve your inference skills by placing focus on
making educated guesses rather than quickly
drawing conclusions. This requires slowing down to
look for as many clues as possible—such as images,
data or reports—that might help you evaluate a
situation. Carefully consider all the pieces of the
puzzle together before making a decision. 11
 4. Communication
 Communication skills are important when it comes
time to explain and discuss issues and their
possible solutions with colleagues and other
stakeholders. Communication is an important skill
to have and improve on for many purposes at work
including critical thinking.
 Improve your communication skills within the
context of critical thinking by engaging in difficult
discussions, for example, where you and another
participant may hold differing views about the topic.
Maintain good communication habits like active
listening and respect to try to understand their
perspective and explain your ideas in a calm,
rational manner. This can help prepare you to
evaluate solutions more effectively with your
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colleagues.
 5. Problem-Solving
 After you’ve identified a problem, analyzed it and
explored possible remedies, the final step is to
execute the solution.
 Problem-solving often requires critical thinking to
implement the best solution and understand
whether or not the solution is working as it relates
to the goal.
 Improve your problem-solving skills by setting
goals to acquire more industry knowledge within
your field. Problem-solving at work typically
becomes easier if you have a strong
understanding of industry-specific information. It
can also be helpful to observe how others around
you solve problems at work—take note of their
techniques and ask questions about their process. 13
 Steps and Personal Abilities
for Critical Thinking
 While there’s no universal standard for
what skills are included in the critical
thinking process, we’ve boiled it down
to the following six.
 Focusing on these can put you on the
path to becoming an exceptional
critical thinker.

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 1. Identification
 The first step in the critical thinking process is to
identify the situation or problem as well as the
factors that may influence it. Once you have a
clear picture of the situation and the people,
groups or factors that may be influenced, you can
then begin to dive deeper into an issue and its
potential solutions.
 How to improve: When facing any new situation,
question or scenario, stop to take a mental
inventory of the state of affairs and ask the
following questions:
 Who is doing what?
 What seems to be the reason for this happening?
 What are the end results, and how could they
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change?
 2. Research
 When comparing arguments about an issue,
independent research ability is key. Arguments are
meant to be persuasive—that means the facts and
figures presented in their favor might be lacking in
context or come from questionable sources. The
best way to combat this is independent verification;
find the source of the information and evaluate.
 How to improve: It can be helpful to develop an
eye for unsourced claims. Does the person posing
the argument offer where they got this information
from? If you ask or try to find it yourself and there’s
no clear answer, that should be considered a red
flag. It’s also important to know that not all sources
are equally valid—take the time to learn the
difference between popular and scholarly articles.16
 3. Identifying Biases
 This skill can be exceedingly difficult, as even
the smartest among us can fail to recognize
biases. Strong critical thinkers do their best to
evaluate information objectively. Think of
yourself as a judge in that you want to evaluate
the claims of both sides of an argument, but
you’ll also need to keep in mind the biases each
side may possess.
 It is equally important—and arguably more
difficult—to learn how to set aside your own
personal biases that may cloud your judgement.
Have the courage to debate and argue with your
own thoughts and assumptions. This is
essential for learning to see things from different
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viewpoints.
 How to improve: “Challenge yourself to identify the
evidence that forms your beliefs, and assess
whether or not your sources are credible,” offers
Ruth Wilson, director of development at Brightmont
Academy.
 First and foremost, you must be aware that bias
exists. When evaluating information or an
argument, ask yourself the following:
 Who does this benefit?
 Does the source of this information appear to have
an agenda?
 Is the source overlooking, ignoring or leaving out
information that doesn’t support its beliefs or
claims?
 Is this source using unnecessary language to sway
an audience’s perception of a fact? 18
 4. Inference
 The ability to infer and draw conclusions based
on the information presented to you is another
important skill for mastering critical thinking.
Information doesn’t always come with a summary
that spells out what it means. You’ll often need to
assess the information given and draw
conclusions based upon raw data.
 The ability to infer allows you to extrapolate and
discover potential outcomes when assessing a
scenario. It is also important to note that not all
inferences will be correct. For example, if you
read that someone weighs 260 pounds, you
might infer they are overweight or unhealthy.
Other data points like height and body
composition, however, may alter that conclusion.19
 How to improve: An inference is an
educated guess, and your ability to
infer correctly can be polished by
making a conscious effort to gather as
much information as possible before
jumping to conclusions. When faced
with a new scenario or situation to
evaluate, first try skimming for clues—
things like headlines, images and
prominently featured statistics—and
then make a point to ask yourself what
you think is going on.
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 5. Determining Relevance
 One of the most challenging parts of thinking
critically during a challenging scenario is
figuring out what information is the most
important for your consideration. In many
scenarios, you’ll be presented with information
that may seem important, but it may pan out to
be only a minor data point to consider.
 How to improve: The best way to get better at
determining relevance is by establishing a
clear direction in what you’re trying to figure
out. Are you tasked with finding a solution?
Should you be identifying a trend? If you figure
out your end goal, you can use this to inform
your judgement of what is relevant. 21
 Even with a clear objective, however, it can
still be difficult to determine what information
is truly relevant. One strategy for combating
this is to make a physical list of data points
ranked in order of relevance.
 When you parse it out this way, you’ll likely
end up with a list that includes a couple of
obviously relevant pieces of information at
the top of your list, in addition to some
points at the bottom that you can likely
disregard.
 From there, you can narrow your focus on
the less clear-cut topics that reside in the
middle of your list for further evaluation. 22
 6. Curiosity
 It’s incredibly easy to sit back and take
everything presented to you at face
value, but that can also be also a recipe
for disaster when faced with a scenario
that requires critical thinking. It’s true that
we’re all naturally curious—just ask any
parent who has faced an onslaught of
“Why?” questions from their child. As we
get older, it can be easier to get in the
habit of keeping that impulse to ask
questions at bay. But that’s not a winning
approach for critical thinking.
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 How to improve: While it might seem like
a curious mind is just something you’re
born with, you can still train yourself to
foster that curiosity productively. All it
takes is a conscious effort to ask open-
ended questions about the things you
see in your everyday life, and you can
then invest the time to follow up on these
questions.
 Being able to ask open-ended questions
is an important skill to develop—and
bonus points for being able to probe.

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 In Summary:
 Critical thinking is aimed at achieving the
best possible outcomes in any situation. In
order to achieve this it must involve
gathering and evaluating information from
as many different sources possible.
 Critical thinking requires a clear, often
uncomfortable, assessment of your personal
strengths, weaknesses and preferences and
their possible impact on decisions you may
make.
 Critical thinking requires the development
and use of foresight as far as this is
possible. As Doris Day sang, “the future’s 25
not ours to see”.
 Implementing the decisions made
arising from critical thinking must take
into account an assessment of
possible outcomes and ways of
avoiding potentially negative
outcomes, or at least lessening their
impact.
 Critical thinking involves reviewing the
results of the application of decisions
made and implementing change where
possible.
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 It might be thought that we are overextending
our demands on critical thinking in expecting
that it can help to construct focused meaning
rather than examining the information given and
the knowledge we have acquired to see if we
can, if necessary, construct a meaning that will
be acceptable and useful.
 After all, almost no information we have
available to us, either externally or internally,
carries any guarantee of its life or
appropriateness. Neat step-by-step
instructions may provide some sort of trellis on
which our basic understanding of critical
thinking can blossom but it doesn’t and cannot
provide any assurance of certainty, utility or
longevity. 27
THANK YOU!!!

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