Critical thought analysis: Bridging the gap between academia and business

Abstract

Critical thought has been taught to students in varying degrees over the years, but employers believethat critical thinking skills are still lacking in employees (Braun 2004). Some of the barriers betweenemployer expectations and academia concerning critical thought arise from a lack of congruityregarding the meaning of critical thought. However, nearly all researchers agree teaching criticalthinking skills is a desirable aim of education (Hemming, 2000). According to Cheung (2002), criticalthinking covers four dimensions: (1) cognitive, (2) motivational, (3) ideological, and (4) behavioral.However, other definitions of critical thought range from critical thinking originating from the lefthemisphere of the brain to critical thinking involving higher level thought (University of Phoenix 2007).Cognitive theorists also believe logic skills are not attainable until age six or seven (University ofPhoenix 2007). Piaget (2007) stated cognitive development theory is comprised of four stages: (1)sensorimotor stage, (2) pre-operational stage, (3) concrete operational stage, and (4) formaloperations stage. According to Piaget (2007), higher level thinking is attained at level four; however,according to Riegel (2007), higher level thinking is not attainable at stage four, and he has "postulateda fifth stage called Dialectical Reasoning" (para. 10-11). Critical thinking skills are critical for analyticsdue to the increasing amount of information dispersed to individuals and analyzing the credibility of thedata. According to Lunney (2003), individuals have difficulty analyzing data, because critical thinkingabilities vary from high to low; however, Lunney (2003) believes critical thinking skills can be learnedthrough further education. The following further analyzes critical thinking definitions as critical thinkingrelates to education and how the analysis of critical thinking relates to thinking critically and furtherdeveloping metacognitive awareness.