Critical Thinking

critical thinking
course handout

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Acorn Training - Critical Thinking - Handbook

Critical Thinking
Companies around the globe are dependent upon active critical thinkers in order to
develop, produce and disseminate their goods and services. Managers in a position of
creating change within their organisations need to learn, exhibit and teach critical
thinking skills to their colleagues and employees. Why? Because making decisions in
today’s world—a world of increasing pressure, uncertainty, conflicting ideas and opinions
create challenges that managers need to adeptly navigate. Understanding key methods of
critical thinking helps managers learn to address the right problems, identify risks and
make better decisions.

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Acorn Training - Critical Thinking - Handbook

What is Critical Thinking?
An ability to present, evaluate, and interpret data, to develop lines of argument and make
sound judgements.
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QAA, Framework for Higher Education Qualifications

Critical thinking is the ability to look at our thought processes and apply standards to the
information we use as the basis of our reasoning and to the structure of our thinking. It
teaches us to draw conclusions based on the evidence and to build rational arguments to
support those conclusions. In doing so it makes us more able to recognise the fallacies in
the arguments made by others and to identify the flaws in their reasoning.
Characteristics of Critical Thinking
1. It is purposeful.
2. It is responsive to and guided by intellectual standards (relevance, accuracy, precision,
clarity, depth, and breadth).
3. It supports the development of intellectual traits in the thinker of humility, integrity,
perseverance, empathy, and self-discipline.
4. The thinker can identify the elements of thought present in thinking about any
problem, such that the thinker makes the logical connection between the elements and
the problem at hand.
5. It is self-assessing and self-improving. The thinker takes steps to...