Literature Review: Critical Thinking Role and Reason to Implement

By Jodi Mata

There is question among instructors as to the true fundamental benefits of critical thinking in the classrooms.  When one instructor tells another instructor that her students did critical thinking today in their writing, this does not mean both instructors understand how critical thinking and hopeful inquiry generated through true effort are academically beneficial. It is important for educators to see the roles critical thinking and inquiry based learning have to both student work during academia as well a student approach to life and their personal or communal spaces.  Many educators have been approaching the subject of critical thinking’s role in academia, studying why, how, and if it is effective in the last five years.  There is much to be reinforced after the brief studies already completed, and ultimately the invitation for critical thought is in the hands of the educator.  

It is my stance that students need to approach subjects that have some relationship to them, subjects they may have formed habitual attitudes toward and no longer assess their opinions on these subjects.  Often times these will be subjects at home, or subjects they do not approach in academia because students or instructors do not find them “academic” enough.  However, it is important for students to make critical thinking, persistence, effort and academic action part of their lives, because improving living spaces is at the heart of the issue, both personally and professionally.  Students are not enclosed in the confines of the institution forever.  Instead, they go out into the professional sphere and the actions, attitudes and ways of thinking they carry into that sphere are the attitudes which shape and affect overall living conditions for entire societies.  Therefore, critical thinking, inquiry, effort and persistence with close to home, “I can make a difference” topics in writing courses is necessary to reinforce these  values in students’ daily thoughts, making them what could seem not a habitual action, but a natural seeming reaction.  

Phan, Huy P. “Reflective Thinking, Effort, Persistence, Disorganisation, and Academic Performance: A Mediational Approach.” Electronic Journal of Research in Educational Psychology. 2009. 927-952.

In this study, the question under investigation was if understanding, reflection, and critical thinking will help students in “effort expenditure.”  The study was done on 331 freshman psychology students.  The results were that critical reflection improves persistence and effort although it is a bit less organized thinking, and organization is good for learning.  Phan concludes that, “the odds of a student answering ‘yes’ (that they would expend effort in study) is 2.19 times higher for someone who reports engagement of critical thinking” (Phan 941).  Also, habitual action (the same thing Mezirow criticizes) increases student organization.  This is probably because habitual thinking is simply recalling what has been stored without conscious deep thought, so it is easy and methodical.  However, habitual action has negative effects on persistence and effort, which are the mediators to good academic performance.  Therefore, it is clear that habitual action, caused by habitual thinking, is bad for student effort and academic achievement, but critical thinking increases students’ efforts and academic successes quite clearly. Therefore, critical thinking is necessary because “From a theoretical and practical perspective, students who see learning as having the initiative and capability to reflect, articulate and to generate new theoretical knowledge are more likely to succeed academically” (944).

Critical thinking is shown to increase academic performance, and should be incorporated.  It seems logical that critical assessment of one’s beliefs, values, and reactions is valuable for autonomous thought as Mezirow suggests.  Mezirow found thinking for oneself as a lifelong process necessary to student success in professional, social, and personal spaces.  Peter Kittle and Glen Bledsoe contend with this idea.

Bledsoe, Glen L. “Collaborative Digital Writing: The Art of Writing Together Using Technology.” Literacy Tools in the Classroom. Ed Beach, Richard, Gerald Campano, and Brian Edmiston.   Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 2010.

Kittle, Peter. “Student Engagement and Multimodality: Collaboration, Schema, Identity.” Literacy Tools in the Classroom. Ed Beach, Richard, Gerald Campano, and Brian Edmiston.   Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 2010.

Kittle and his editors support the “inquiry stance” or the idea that student personal identity is discovered through engaging multimodal assignments.  He says this is so because “the nature of a particular assignment completed in the class had a lasting impact on both the students and me” (165).  Essentially, Kittle found himself identifying students by their multimodal projects and students were identifying themselves by the same in emails to him.  Exploring something they are interested in and find identity in reinforces agency, which Bledsoe encourages in order for students to graduate “having the potential or capacity to enact change in status quo practices, beliefs, or self perceptions” (52).  Simply getting students to critically think in relation to the topics they explore for classes is not enough.  Students need critical thinking as a life-long regularity in order to make choices beneficial to themselves, and to others.

It is logical that autonomous thought is the way people resist oppression and make changes to better their own spaces as Paulo Friere argued.  It makes sense that critical thinking should go beyond just the change of a perspective, or even the tough to budge habit of mind, and cause students to feel a call to action, moving out into the community to enact the changes they see necessary to better their lives and spaces as Beach, Campano and Edmiston assert.  Carl Nagin finds it important to note that students are not to be prepared to study for an entire lifetime, but rather, students are being prepared to handle an array of influences in their professional world through an academic and autonomous thought process.

Nagin, Carl and NWP.  Because Writing Matters: Improving Student Writing in Our Schools. Jossey Bass, SanFrancisco, 2006.

        This book discusses the history of writing instruction in public schools as well as through theory to demonstrate why writing matters so much in education and why the world should take another closer look at writing’s role.  This book draws on a multitude of perspectives while discussing this issue, from teachers, students, parents, and administrators to theorists and researchers. With support of the National Writing Project’s lengthy research, Nagin asserts that students should be taught not only to make it through classes, but to learn skills to improve their lives. Nagin states, “In today’s business world, writing is a ‘threshold skill’ for both employment and promotion” (17).  Nagin refers to Tracy Kidder and his ideas that writing “is a lifelong communicative mode learning whose craft and processes must be adapted for distinct purposes and context” (25).  The idea is that writing can deepen learning (25).  

The kind of thinking and approaching suggested by Nagin align well with the contentions from Gerald Graff that students would put more effort into writing if they had subjects which they could identify with, explore, learn something about themselves with, maybe make a change with, and this persistence promotes academic success in and of itself.  Eaker and Santas think this approach needs to go farther than text, because it is human nature for people to make quick decisions based on habitual thinking.  These decisions can greatly affect our world.

Eaker, Lisa and Ari Santas. “The Eyes Know It? The Training of the Eyes: A Theory of Visual Literacy.” Journal of Visual Literacy.  2009. Vol 28 No 2, pgs 163-185.

Through evidence of a study done by Weinburg in 2009, and five articles from John Dewey regarding human nature, Eaker and Santas argue that “Thinking with images is no easier or more generative of mind altering insights than reading through written texts” (164). However, teachers are not trained in this way and sometimes find less value in visual literacy.  Going off of Hume’s interests, it is clear that people with authority have used visual representations of magnificent things to oppress common people. With the speedy pace of new technologies, the ability to manipulate images is in the hands of everyone.  Thus, everyone has the ability to manipulate the other with these images if students are only taught to analyze written text and not the visual influences around them. These authors claim that “When words compete with what we see, we tend to believe our eyes first and foremost” (172).  It is important for people to train their thinking to become critical so as to make snap judgments useful.  After all, “When [the] thinking around images is made visible it is clear that what we think we see is often determined not by reflective analysis but by the interpretations that come most easily to us because of their familiarity” (175). Situations which present problems challenge those habitual ways of thinking and assist students in training those thoughts.

Even students who are trying very hard can demonstrate difficulties with thinking.  Some of this may stem from quick decision-making based on what they see.  This is a normal way to navigate society, however, these habitual ways of thinking are also harmful if students cannot reflect on them or criticize them and rely solely on those snap judgments when it comes to media in the hands of individuals and readily available to everyone.  Students may not find what is problematic with this way of thinking unless they see it in a clear example.  The events, situations, and essentially subjects students are likely to find interest in, and invest effort in, are likely to be the subjects they approach with a habit of mind and have not critically assessed.  Thus, it is good to pull situations from their own personal lives because this surprises them and disrupts that habitual thinking. Some of the most common themes in their lives, such as democracy, should also be questioned critically and made part of the critical assessment process according to Chomsky.  Democracy is problematic, but many Americans do not see this.

Chomsky, Noam.  Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda. Seven Stories Press, New York, 1997. Print

Chomsky gives multiple situations where the media and influences behind the media have manipulated American thought to move masses into action.  He claims that the democratic society of American is false because people are being censored and manipulated through propaganda, but because Americans fail to think critically regarding propaganda-like situations, then they become reinforcers of a false democracy.  He names John Dewey and his “circle” of people as propagandists.  

The situation of propaganda as proposed through a variety of arguable examples and situations by Chomsky in fact exists.  He wrote over 13 years ago and technology has soared since then.  Therefore, if the problem exists, and if students go through the university especially, with the idea that those subjects such as bullying, peer pressure, propaganda, or sports etiquette are not subjects then need to think critically about or approach in the academic realm, it is safe to say they may be losing an opportunity to have clear academic and autonomous thoughts on the subject in regular lives, find the will to invest themselves into the activity of researching, analyzing and acting on those thoughts, and finally students may just plain lose the opportunity of academic success.  Multimodal assignments which teach students to critically assess not only those decisions made by people in power positions, but to also critically analyze those living right next door with computer and other media technology.  It is shown that critical thought, persistence, and effort from students show clear lines to improvement toward academic actions within the schooling systems.  It is necessary to involve the “outside” practices and subjects also, in order to encourage, reinforce and ultimately model an autonomous way for students to approach their worlds, long after they have left the classroom.