Developing criticalthinking in higher education

Abstract

There is a general recognition that the process of higher education should be not confined to the development of skills and understandings which are narrow in their scope and application. Higher education is also being called upon to demonstrate educational quality and effectiveness (Glen & Jarnieson 1993). Many social and political forces are feeding this movement , such as a widespread concern about costs, programme duplication and proliferation, dwindling central government finances and confusion over the role and purposes of higher education. One response to these forces has been the movement to measure educational outcomes. Critical thinking is one of these outcomes (Miller 1992). The ever-changing and increasing complex state of knowledge development is demanding higher-order thinking skills in students of all disciplines. In virtually every academic discipline, critical thinking has been adopted as an educational goal. There is, therefore, almost universal agreement that one of the defining characteristics o f higher education is that any programme of studies worthy of the name of higher education should offer the student significant opportunities to develop her critical abilities (Barnett 1987). Certainly the development of the student's critical abilities should not be forgotten when we are thinking about the kind of intellectual 'maturity' to be fostered in higher education (Hallden 1987). It has only recently been addressed in nursing education circles (Jones & Brown 1991). Studies presenting longitudinal data provide mixed findings regarding the impact on nursing education of critical thinking (Berger 1984, Bauwens & Gerhard 1987, KintgenAndrews 1991, Sullivan 1987). However , a c o m m o n theme running throughout the nursing literature is that critical thinking is abstract and therefore difficult to measure (Huckman 1993). Furthermore, we do not have any clear, generally held view as to what the development of the student's critical abilities, within the context o f professional education, actually amounts to (McPeek 1981). In other words, the development of critical abilities in professional education is a complex affair and demands specific attention if we are to do justice to it. This paper argues that critical thinking goes beyond the nursing proces that it is a superordinate concept under which problemsolving and the nursing process are subsumed. Critical thinking is both a philosophical orientation toward thinking and a cognitive process characterised by reasoned judgement and reflective thinking. Critical thinking is predicated on an intellectual opposition toward challenging accepted visions of truth and an openness to identifying new possibilities and explanations (Jones & Brown 1993).