Developing Critical Thinking Skills

Have you ever found yourself in situations where your thinking was flawed and you reached undesirable consequences? If you have, then you probably analyzed a particular situation in the wrong manner. In order to be able to avoid such errors, it is necessary to be able to develop critical thinking skills. Critical thinking is a process that involves the analytical evaluation of a situation. By thinking critically, you will be able to discriminate the different points of view associated with a situation. The skill will enable you to find every possible way of solving the problem. The aim is to derive the best possible solution for a particular problem, by weighing the substantial and insubstantial, as well as concrete and abstract factors governing a situation. In order to be able to master the art of critical thinking, it is vital to understand three very important components that are required for you to be able to think critically—concept, preparation and approach. If you do not know much about developing critical thinking skill, the following lines will surely prove to be of great help.

 

The first step of developing critical thinking skills is to keep your mind open. A closed-mind is effectively cut off from the reality and in such a case a closed-mind thinker cannot debate, cannot be reasoned with and cannot process new input. Thus, it is absolutely imperative to keep your mind free of jargon, hang-ups and disillusionment in order to be able to accept every point of view and in order to understand and analyze situations effectively.

 

In order to be able to think correctly, it is absolutely vital to follow the correct rules of reasoning. Thus, it is important to understand the knowledge of reasoning, such as the laws of logic, the ideas behind scientific reason and the principles that distinguish good and bad reasoning.

 

While reading something, the best way to learn it and register it in mind is to process it first in your mind. After assimilating the information, try to comprehend the key points. Assess the arguments, evidences and assumptions present in the information.

 

Egocentric thinking is the act of thinking on the lines of a subconscious bias, in favor of oneself. Self-reflection is required to tackle an egocentric mind. Once you have identified the egocentric core, you can tackle the problem by replacing the attitude with a more rational thought or by thinking along the lines of, ‘what would a rational person feel or do in such a situation’.

 

It is very important to analyze the key components first and then compare each of them, to figure out their similarities and dissimilarities. Now, based on the facts that you have compared, try to form an idea. To give shape and support to your idea, try to make logical connections between the facts.

 

By analyzing a given text, you will be able to develop the critical thinking skills. Take a comprehensive passage, which unfolds few sequences of a story. After reading the passage carefully, create a logical link between the events of the story. To improve the analyzing skill further, try to assign a title for the passage.

 

Disciplined questioning also promotes critical thinking. One of the most effective ways to develop critical thinking skill is to answer the questions based on a few hypothetical problems. Even if you fail to answer all the questions, you will be able to analyze the concepts. Moreover, you will be able to distinguish between the facts and the assumptions. Complicated and challenging though, it is an effective way to gain the skill of critical thinking.

 

Solving a puzzle can help you learn how to develop critical thinking skills. This could be a simple exercise of connecting a number of dots in a predefined manner to form an image. These sort of exercises will help you to think out of the box.

 

Good critical thinking skills require not just a vast repertoire of knowledge, but attitude, practice and persistence. You can only bring the right sort of motivation and attitude by gauging your inner-self and reflecting on the reasons for belief and action. This will help you hone your critical thinking skills and also help better your attitude for future situations or dilemmas.

 

To improve or develop one’s critical thinking skills one must identify the prominence of reflecting on the reasons for credence and feat. One must also be willing to participate in meaningful debate, to make errors, to break old rules and deal with intellectual complexities and concepts. Hope this article familiarizes you with how you can develop vital critical thinking skills.