ARTICLE

Critically Thinking about Critical Thinking

Robert Weissberg

# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

“Critical thinking” has mesmerized academics across the political spectrum;

even high school students are now being called upon to “think critically.”

Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa’s widely praised Academically Adrift favorably

cites the term some eighty-seven times while excoriating contemporary higher

education.1 In “The Evidence of Things Unnoticed: An Interpretive Preface to

the National Association of Scholars’ ReportWhat Does Bowdoin Teach? How

a Contemporary Liberal Arts College Shapes Students,” Peter Wood criticizes

Bowdoin for replacing critical thinking with a grab bag of trendy notions such as

“social justice” and “sustainability.”2 It is no exaggeration to say that “critical

thinking” has quickly evolved into a scholarly industry.3 As of April 11, 2013,

Amazon.com lists some 48,559 titles on critical thinking. To be sure, scholars

can battle over whether the Left or Right “owns” critical thinking,4 but everyone

Acad. Quest.DOI 10.1007/s12129-013-9375-2

1Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 2011).2Peter Wood, “The Evidence of Things Unnoticed: An Interpretive Preface to the National Association ofScholars’ Report What Does Bowdoin Teach? How a Contemporary Liberal Arts College ShapesStudents” (New York: National Association of Scholars, 2013), http://www.nas.org/images/documents/What_Does_Bowdoin_Teach.pdf.3See, for example, Albert Keith Whitaker, “Critical Thinking in the Ivory Tower,” Academic Questions16, no. 1 (Winter 2002–03): 50–58. Also see, “Critical Thinking,” Wikipedia, accessed April 11, 2013,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking.4For a sampling of these battles, see PeterWood, “The Curriculum of Forgetting,”Chronicle of Higher Education,Innovations (blog), November 21, 2011, http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/the-curriculum-of-forgetting/30914; “AILACT Responds to Peter Wood,” Rail (blog), May 3, 2012, http://railct.com/2012/05/03/ailact-responds-to-peter-wood/; and Peter Wood, “Leaf-Taking,” Chronicle of Higher Education, Innovations (blog),December 4, 2011, http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/leaf-taking/31017.

Robert Weissberg is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Champaign, IL 61820; rweissbe@illinois.edu. He is the author of many books, most recentlyThe Limits of Civic Activism: Cautionary Tales on the Use of Politics (2004), Pernicious Tolerance: HowTeaching to “Accept Differences” Undermines Civil Society (2008), and Bad Students, Not Bad Schools(2010), all published by Transaction.

agrees that like apple pie and motherhood, critical thinking is an unquestionable

“good” and universities—even high schools—need to do more to foster this

skill.

Unfortunately, calls for students to “think critically” almost always

sidestep the prodigious problem of transforming a high-sounding idea into

something that can be usefully interjected into lessons, let alone calibrated to

show progress (or failure). Yes, we all agree that critical thinking is an

honored element of Western thought, even traceable to Socrates, but it hardly

follows that most people, including a majority of college students, can master

this skill. Indeed, acquiring it may be impossible or largely cost-ineffective.

Worse, given all the documented deficiencies of today’s college students, the

critical thinking crusade may entail unrecognized opportunity costs to the

neglect of more valuable lessons.

Skepticism acknowledged, let me offer a brief tour of the obstacles

awaiting those who want to do more than admonish fellow professors to

teach “critical thinking.”

Defining and Measuring

Definitions of critical thinking abound, but all share certain traits, notably

an ability to use reason to move beyond the acquisition of facts to uncover

deep meaning. For illustrative purposes, here’s a detailed (but quite typical)

definition offered by a website devoted to explicating the term:

It entails the examination of those structures or elements of thought

implicit in all reasoning: purpose, problem, or question-at-issue;

assumptions; concepts; empirical grounding; reasoning leading to

conclusions; implications and consequences; objections from alternative

viewpoints; and frame of reference. Critical thinking—in being

responsive to variable subject matter, issues, and purposes—is

incorporated in a family of interwoven modes of thinking, among

them: scientific thinking, mathematical thinking, historical thinking,

anthropological thinking, economic thinking, moral thinking, and

philosophical thinking.

Critical thinking can be seen as having two components: 1) a set of

information and belief generating and processing skills, and 2) the habit,

based on intellectual commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior.

It is thus to be contrasted with: 1) the mere acquisition and retention of

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information alone, because it involves a particular way in which

information is sought and treated; 2) the mere possession of a set of

skills, because it involves the continual use of them; and 3) the mere use of

those skills (“as an exercise”) without acceptance of their results.5

Quite a mouthful of verbiage, but to put some meat on these abstract

bones, let me recall my own effort to impart these skills when I taught

graduate seminars on American electoral politics. One weekly topic was the

perennial effort to limit money in elections. I began by highlighting past

failed campaign finance reforms, stressing the obstacles of enforcing laws

that made it a crime for those who wrote the laws (Congress) to receive

certain donations. Then I discussed First Amendment guarantees of free

speech where monetary contributions were defined as “speech.” I pointed out

how money was only one of multiple campaign-related resources (including,

for example, celebrity status, possessing an eminent name, or access to

ample volunteer labor), so limiting cash donations hardly leveled the playing

field. Lectures further explained how the complexity of campaign finance

laws might prove troublesome (including criminal penalties) for cash-poor

candidates unable to hire skilled staff to ensure compliance. Then on to how

restricting contributions meant that candidates must now target many more

(small) donors than in the past and this, in turn, makes fund-raising far more

time-consuming while requiring professional assistance. The impetus for

endless pandering was also mentioned, along with how contribution limits

helped incumbents and therefore perpetuated the status quo. I continued with

how exemptions for spending one’s own fortune would encourage rich

people to seek office, since they would be immune to laws restricting

donations. This hardly ended it and I went on for at least two hours

connecting dozens of nonobvious but politically important “dots.”

This snippet illustrates my personal effort to teach by example. And I

followed the same “connect-the-nonobvious-dots” approach in an additional

thirteen lectures, all the while encouraging students to attempt what I was

demonstrating.

5Michael Scriven and Richard Paul, “Critical Thinking as Defined by the National Council forExcellence in Critical Thinking,” statement presented at the Eighth Annual International Conferenceon Critical Thinking and Education Reform, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, CA, August1988, available under the title, “Defining Critical Thinking,” at The Critical Thinking Community,http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766.

Critically Thinking about Critical Thinking

My experience was not a happy one. Boredom and confusion seemed

common. I invited students to figure out the implications of a particular law

or policy, but with little success. Students were also encouraged to discuss

possible trade-offs between, say, free speech and limiting donations, while I

put critical thinking questions on the take-home essay examinations. Despite

my efforts, when all was said and done, I conceded defeat—only a handful

apparently benefited. Yes, most probably enjoyed the exercise and learned

something new, but when prodded to perform similar analyses on topics not

yet covered in class, the results, including exams, were dismal.

Now, I confess that my pedagogical techniques may have been deficient,

but my sad experience raises the issue of assessing success in thousands of

very different schools and varied majors. And what about instructors who

themselves lack this skill or just disdain it?

How, then, are educators to teach critical thinking? Can we boil down

these long, often kitchen sink-style definitions into tests that can be

administered to students of different abilities and interests? That definitions

are generally similar but differ in key details only exacerbates this

measurement quandary.

Not surprisingly, admonitions to teach critical thinking far exceed

well-crafted, demonstrably valid tests calibrating it. Perhaps it is assumed that

critical thinking is so obvious that it hardly requires scientific measurement. But

there is some good news. Arum and Roksa describe such an instrument that they

and others use—the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA)—and for better or

worse, this one instrument must suffice for our analysis.6 According to its

proponents, the CLA is designed to tap general skills, not specific knowledge.

That is, unlike other SAT-like tests the CLA does not consist of multiple

clear-cut questions that can be scored objectively that are independent of

one another. Instead, what is assessed is a student’s ability to integrate

complex material holistically to reach a reasoned conclusion.

Specifically, students are given three complicated case studies, fictitious

but realistic. Factual background material is included in the test. Students are

given ninety minutes to write these essays. The data reported by Arum and

Roksa derive from a sample of 2,322 students from similar backgrounds at

four-year institutions on twenty-four campuses. The test is given to freshmen

and repeated when those same students become sophomores. Considerable

6Arum and Roksa, Academically Adrift, chap. 1 and 2, and the Methodological Appendix explicated themeasurement strategy in detail.

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effort is made to sort out possible confounding factors like race/ethnicity,

SAT scores, familiarity with English, and high school curriculum. The

student sample was drawn from highly selective, selective, and less selective

schools.

In one required essay students are asked to advise a firm named DynaTech

about purchasing a new airplane, although one of them had recently crashed.

The various pros and cons are offered and students must sort out the

conflicting evidence and arguments. Another case study asks students to

compose a memo regarding reducing crime, and again, various pieces of

conflicting information are provided.

All three student essays are evaluated according to a detailed scoring

manual: how facts are applied, quality and clarity of arguments, reliability of

supplied evidence, ability to synthesize complex information, and soundness

of the recommendations. All and all, Arum and Roksa stress, these tasks are

“real-world” related and differ from conventional course examinations, for

which students learn specific material to be regurgitated during testing. Arum

and Roksa also provide statistical evidence that the CLA is reliable and valid.

To simplify matters, we’ll take their word that the CLA satisfies the technical

requirement of a “good measure,” though compared to other standardized

tests the CLA is still in its infancy.

Does the University Really Need Instruction in Critical Thinking?

What might motivate a professor to add critical thinking to a syllabus,

especially since professors are already pressured to embrace lots of other

“good ideas” such as multiculturalism and diversity in course offerings?

Going one step further, while covering, say, the contribution of women to the

American Revolution is relatively straightforward, how are the habits of

critical thinking to be taught? Translating any typically complicated

definition into something tangible is no simple matter. Should enlightened

administrators hire self-designated experts on critical thinking to coach

befuddled professors? Might schools implore college textbook publishers to

include critical thinking exercises in introductory texts? What about

resistance from teachers who already feel overburdened by administrative

dictates regarding the insertion of multiculturalism, sustainability, social

justice, and similar ideologically infused material that may have little to do

with substantive course content?

Critically Thinking about Critical Thinking

Underlying these practical issues are more serious academic freedom

issues. College professors are not K–12 teachers whose lesson plans are

determined by administrators or state legislators with scarcely any room for

deviation. A huge gap exists between acknowledging the importance of

critical thinking versus requiring it across the board regardless of discipline

or the professor’s teaching agenda. Speaking personally and as a critical

thinking fan, I would resist any administrator dictating my lectures, just as I

would refuse to follow gratuitous orders to insert the alleged benefits of

diversity into coursework. And I suspect many academics share my view

regarding professional independence.

Compounding the situation is the fuzzy, often vacuous nature of critical

thinking. A professor might insist, “Yes I teach it,” while an outside

observer unfamiliar with the subject matter might disagree. And how much

class time should professors devote to critical thinking? Twenty minutes on

day one and that’s that? Might critical thinking, like multiculturalism,

infuse everything? Moreover, with so many varying definitions of “critical

thinking” out there, who will impose one out of dozens as the gold

standard? And how do we deal with the ideologically driven teacher who

twists teaching critical thinking into a weapon to attack pet hates? After all,

critical thinking requires being “critical.” Clearly, this is a bureaucratic

mess that may require endless acrimonious meetings before anything of

practical use emerges.

All of this brings us to one easily avoided, overriding question: Why? It is

not cynical to argue that fans of teaching critical thinking see it as something

akin to how the cultural Left views diversity—a virtue so imperative to a

“healthy” society that it is a compelling state interest to impose it on hapless

students regardless of their perspectives? Now for the bad news: justifica-

tions are moral in character—an “ought” lacking scientific basis. To

appreciate this nonempirical justification, here’s what Arum and Roksa offer:

In a rapidly changing economy and society, there is widespread

agreement that these individual capacities are the foundation for

effective democratic citizenship and economic productivity. “With all

the controversy over the college curriculum,” Derek Bok has

commented, “it is impressive to find faculty members agreeing almost

unanimously that teaching students to think critically is the principal aim

of undergraduate education.” Institutional mission statements also echo

this widespread commitment to developing students’ critical thinking.

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They typically include a pledge, for example, that schools will work to

challenge students to “think critically and intuitively,” and to ensure that

graduates will become adept at “critical, analytical, and logical

thinking.” These mission statements align with the idea that educational

institutions serve to enhance students’ human capital—knowledge,

skills, and capacities that will be rewarded in the labor market.7

This hardly ends their catalog of benefits, but this snippet should suffice.

Alas, the entire justification rests on appeal to authority, namely other

academics who, like Arum and Roksa, lack empirical evidence—or to be a

bit kinder, evidence that is not cited or remains to be discovered. When did

imparting a knack for critical thinking become “the principal aim of

undergraduate education”? I entered college in 1959 and only recently

encountered this imperative. Did Derek Bok survey a random sample of

professors about spending class time on teaching critical thinking? One

can only be reminded of all the diversity champions who insist that its

self-evident virtues make scientific documentation superfluous.

A little thought suggests that American democracy and our economy

hardly rests on critical thinking. First, and speaking as one who has written

about democracy for decades, I fail to see any connection between an ability

to think critically and the survival of American democratic institutions.

Reasonably honest elections, majority rule and minority rights, the rule of

law, due process, and all the rest that defines our democratic political order

hardly requires millions of citizens who think critically. Scholars have long

supplied compendiums of democratic citizenship, but I have never seen

“critical thinking” on the list. If it deserves inclusion, the justification for it

must be provided, not merely asserted.

Nor, for that matter, can I see a purely logical link between critical

thinking and democracy. If anything, the voting literature abounds with data

demonstrating that the majority of voters do not choose candidates by

thinking critically. Visceral voting choices or reliance on partisan affiliation

are far more common. If a widespread ability to think critically is vital to

democratic governance, we are doomed and democracy’s two-century

survival in the U.S. must be judged a mystery.

Ditto for any self-evident link between critical thinking and prosperity.

Yes, a plausible case can be made that some high-level jobs might

7Ibid., 2.

Critically Thinking about Critical Thinking

occasionally require critical thinking, but I can think of no reason why most

positions require this ability. I’d guess that less than a quarter of jobs demand

critical thinking, and even then this trait may be far subordinated to reliability,

tenacity, a penchant for cooperative behavior, and solid communication skills,

among many other attributes with a clear vocational benefit. Again, this is truth

by assertion and not a very convincing one at that.

It is equally plausible that our economy requires only a small number of

critical thinkers who are surrounded by armies lacking this skill but more

adept at other tasks. Apple and Microsoft hardly need five thousand or more

critical thinkers to flourish—and remember that Bill Gates dropped out of

Harvard, so where did he acquire his knack for critical thinking? A better

case can be made that American universities would help the economy more

by inculcating a knack for painful drudgery and persistence, the famous ratio

of 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration. Even Steve Jobs confessed

to being a grind.

Moreover, if, as is claimed, critical thinking is central to the Americaneconomy, where are the critical thinking tests to screen thousands of jobapplicants? Well, to be fair, firms are not exactly ignoring this ability. Rather,organizations that demand critical thinking have better, far cheaper, and moreaccessible proxies to assess this skill. Goldman Sachs and the like hardly need aninety-minute exam about whether to buy crash-prone airplanes. Instead theyinterview graduates from elite schools knowing full well that these applicantspossess the intellectual skills necessary to pass tough courses.

In fact, if critical thinking is as valuable economically as is claimed, the

best test of this proposition would be a five-year follow-up on those who

have mastered that skill versus those who did not, while holding constant the

prestige of the degree, major, and similar factors relevant to career success.

Technically, this is predictive validity and essential to trying to convince

undergraduates to sharpen their thinking skills. Alas, we know nothing about

this outcome, but yet again, it is happily assumed.

All this adds up to a weak case for the CLA, since its value, whether for

promoting democracy or helping students land a job, is highly speculative.

This iffy usefulness is especially relevant as universities seek to trim budgets.

Imagine a school defending its plan to test two thousand students a year on

the CLA and paying to train dozens of newly hired employees to evaluate

and score the essays? I suspect that the only motivation might be if some

journalism school ranking service (e.g., U.S. News & World Report) suddenly

included CLA scores in their ratings. But even then, with so many other

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off-the-shelf indicators available, why would a school spend a small fortune

for yet another, particularly since it is pointless unless hundreds of other

schools likewise provide CLA data to facilitate comparisons?

Can Critical Thinking Be Taught?

Let’s for the moment assume that teaching critical thinking becomes the

latest educational trend. Would American education benefit?

Obviously, answers must be speculative, but I’d guess that the benefits would

be minimal, while a Pandora’s box of political consequences would be opened.

Let’s start with the information necessary to think critically. Recall that the CLA

test provided copious information to help students devise policy recommendations.

Yes, everything providedwas realistic, but what is not realistic is having ample and

freely supplied information at one’s fingertips. More realistic would be to give

students a few days to collect their own data, a task that would undoubtedly

increase the range of test scores. Better students would find more information

while slackers would be satisfied with far less. This is, of course, exactly what

occurs with paper assignments.

Their lack of basic knowledge was apparent to me when I encouraged

students to think critically about U.S. elections. Judging by their puzzled

looks, it soon became apparent that many students lacked even the most

rudimentary political knowledge, things like how primary elections work.8

Many were even clueless about recent presidential elections. These facts

had to be inserted into class discussion, so what began as an exercise in

critical thinking quickly regressed into a time-consuming tutorial on

American politics.

Paucity of elementary factual information among students acknowledged,

what is a professor to do when attempting to teach critical thinking to the

poorly informed? Require students to take remedial classes in what should

have been learned in high school? Assign basic background readings at the

beginning of the semester? Unfortunately, these solutions optimistically

assume that students are motivated to catch up while simultaneously

8The lack of factual information among college students is well-known to professors, though seldompublicly acknowledged. Unfortunately, few academics have the stomach to delve into this embarrassingissue. For an excellent analysis of this aversion to “boring” facts, see Michael J. Booker, “A Roof withoutWalls: Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy and the Misdirection of American Education,” Academic Questions20, no. 4 (Fall 2007): 347–55. Booker makes the key point that when students do not know facts, theysurvive the course by embracing the instructor’s opinions.

Critically Thinking about Critical Thinking

mastering the more advanced substantive material. The only solution that I

can imagine is to limit the teaching of critical thinking to more advanced

classes (akin to high school AP classes), but this elitist approach is hardly

what fans of critical thinking demand. Most enthusiasts see critical thinking

as a trait teachable to all students.

What this lack of knowledge suggests is that a capacity for critical

thinking may be closely related to cognitive ability in general. After all,

absorbing copious amounts of information quickly, organizing it, dealing

with abstractions, and then drawing out implications is the common element

in both IQ and critical thinking. Arum and Roksa’s own data suggest this link

between high intelligence and skill at thinking critically: nearly half of all

students did not add to their critical thinking capacity over the first two years

of college, students at elite schools out-performed those a few notches below,

and students from racial and ethnic groups that generally lag academically

also lagged in acquiring this skill.9

To be politically incorrect, if a capacity for critical thinking mirrors IQ

(and I think it does) then efforts to foster this skill will fail just as every past

intervention to increase IQ has come up short. Worse, from the perspective of

critical thinking fans, previous interventions to boost IQ had the advantage of

beginning very early (e.g., Head Start), while efforts to develop critical

thinking target college-age students, and even then, for at most a few hours

per week. Thus understood, teaching critical thinking is redundant for the

smart and pointless for the less talented, although, conceivably, a few

middling students might pick up a thing or two.

If the past is any guide to the future, the current infatuation with critical

thinking will follow a familiar though unwelcome trajectory. That is,

egalitarians who peruse critical thinking test scores will, guaranteed, discover

“troubling” gaps in this talent. Yet more task forces will be appointed,

expensive recommendations will emerge, critical thinking coaches will be hired

and thousands of hours and lots of money will be spent for zero progress. And

rest assured, campus egalitarians will pour over these CLA essays to expunge

hidden racial bias from the test and scoring method. I can already see ambitious

but underemployed bureaucrats waiting for their gaps-in-critical thinking ship to

arrive so as to organize a three-day conference.

9Arum and Roksa, Academically Adrift, 122.

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Conclusions

What does this pursuit tell us about the modern academy? Two lessons are

clear. First, it yet again exposes the academy’s vulnerability to questionable

fads, a willingness to spend lavishly despite shaky evidence of value (a

parallel is the infatuation with diversity et al.). This is not to say that critical

thinking champions are fashion-minded opportunists—although I suspect a

few are of the catch-the-fad and advance-one’s-career variety.

Actually, getting in on the ground floor of a trend long before its demonstrated

failure is just about de rigueur in education. Today’s bureaucratically infused

campus culture invites it—why struggle with thorny research problems or spend

hours trying to teach writing when embracing fashionable nonsense is a far

superior career option? Imagine the consequences if the latest educational

panacea were a drug required to pass FDA-like scrutiny before being

implemented while advocates were liable for damages if the scheme turned

sour. The campus newspaper would overflow with ads like: “Did you pay

thousands of dollars on a course that stressed ‘critical thinking’ only to discover

that you learned nothing of intellectual or vocational value? Call Gonif and

Gonif and join our class action lawsuit and recover lost tuition plus punitive

damages. We have already won millions for students like you.”

The second point is an irony: Champions of critical thinking have

failed to apply their own medicine. Didn’t they stop to consider the net

value of this instruction given its easily foreseen tangible and intellectual

costs? How much time is to be wasted on this project that could have

been spent on substantive learning? What about yet more bureaucratic

expansion when administrative overhead increasingly devours the

university’s core mission? And what does a resource-eating critical

thinking test add when this talent can already be assessed from a verbal

SAT score that closely mirrors IQ? Might attempting to teach critical

thinking be pointless for mediocre students? How can one possibly

assert the link between critical ability and democracy when we have zero

data on this nexus? Worse, why do champions of critical thinking ignore

the absence of data on any alleged beneficial impact? Why the disdain

for science? And on and on. Obviously, we need critical thinking for

those who advocate critical thinking.

Let me end by reiterating my own commitment to critical thinking. I am

not opposed to it; rather I view it as appropriate to only the brightest, most

Critically Thinking about Critical Thinking

motivated students, less a skill that can be successfully taught to millions of

mediocre students (including high school students who struggle with basic

literacy). Moreover, even with topnotch students I’m not sure that critical

thinking is the highest priority. Speaking personally, I would subordinate it to

other skills, namely the ability to write and speak well and to apply the

scientific method, familiarity with history and literature, and a Calvinist work

ethic. Let’s not assume that just because a particular skill is valuable—and

critical thinking certainly is—it should be pushed at the expense of other

intellectual skills. This, I might add, is a conclusion that comes with a little

critical thinking.

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