Guide To Success: How to develop critical thinking.
A pop-quiz, if given a chance to magically obtain one of the three qualifications: IELTS band 8.5, Mastering calculus math and physics or Having developed critical skills – what would you choose? I bet almost all of you would be tempted to choose either being good at math or getting IELTS 8.5, however, surprisingly, neither of the options is correct. Why? Well, according to opinions of some of the biggest employers in the world, stated in multiple articles, including Forbes (The Top 10 Skills Recruiters Are Looking For In 2021 (forbes.com)), critical thinking is ranked as at the very least one of the top 3 skills favored by HR managers, while skills like “language proficiency” or “good at mathematics” do not even enter top 10. Clearly, “critical thinking”, whatever it is, is a much more required skill by the large companies, therefore, in this article I will be explaining what exactly it is and how to develop it.
In short, Generally, critical thinking is defined as “an intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action”. In short, critical thinking is sort of a skill that measures how good you are at making smartest decision based on the information you have. To exemplify, given the abovementioned quiz about choosing a piece of knowledge you may get, a person with really high critical thinking would have noticed that while the former two are good for the short term development, they would become absolute with time (for example after you get into university or move to a foreign country, the value of simply knowing English or mathematics would drop significantly), therefore it would be logical that critical thinking – which is a combination of such essential skills as: analytical thinking, communication and intelligence, is much more beneficial, as it cannot be easily acquired, as opposed to the knowledge of some specific subject. As a famous Greek philosopher Plato said: “One may be the smartest among men, while being the most uneducated one.”
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/critical-thinking-definition-with-examples-2063745-updated2020-10ac813131654257b3e637fe20050ef7.png)
How to develop/improve critical thinking skills?
Personally, I could confirm that one of the most effective way to reaching high critical thinking comes from admitting that your own opinion may not always be the correct one and starting questioning things you learn about. By constantly thinking about the reasons and implications of the things you learn in the world, understanding yourself and what role you are supposed to have in situations you experience. Other methods include reading fiction books, dealing with one’s bias, question and answer technique and always researching everything.
On final note, you should remember that even if you are lacking when it comes to the standardized test scores (IELTS, SAT, TOEFL) – persevere and do not get discouraged, as what actually matters for both University admission officers and Employees is your overall ability to think and effectively use the information you receive.