Promoting Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is an essential skill every university student should learn during the course of their studies, and many class learning outcomes state that students will learn how to analyse, synthesize, and evaluate information critically by the end of class. 

But what exactly is critical thinking, and how do we teach it? How faculty define and teach critical thinking skills is not always made explicit. Do certain approaches to critical thinking work better with one set of students, but not with others? Do critical thinking skills vary between the liberal arts, humanities, and natural sciences, and do different fields of study require different critical thinking skills? 

This teaching guide offers research that explores some of these questions, as well as a number of surveys of research that tries to quantify how critical thinking is being taught in higher education, whether these efforts are successful, as well as ideas about what seems to work better based on this research.

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• RESEARCH

  Examine selected research on promoting critical thinking:

  Thinking Critically about Critical Thinking(opens in new window). Academic Questions, 2013.

  Scientific research on how to teach critical thinking contradicts education trends(opens in new window). The Hechinger Report, 2019.

  Select research on critical thinking(opens in new window). Foundation for Critical Thinking.

  Critical Thinking: A Literature Review (PDF). Pearson's Research Reports, 2011.

  Teaching Critical Thinking Skills in Higher Education: A Review of the Literature(opens in new window). Journal of College Teaching and Learning, 2011.

  Strategies for Teaching Students to Think Critically: A Meta-Analysis(opens in new window). Review of Educational Research, 2013.

  Effectiveness of Critical Thinking Instruction in Higher Education: A Systematic Review of Intervention Studies(opens in new window). Higher Education Studies, 2014.

  Does College Teach Critical Thinking? A Meta-Analysis(opens in new window). Review of Educational Research, 2016.

  Feminist Pedagogy in the Classroom to Promote Critical Thinking(opens in new window). Psychology Today.

  Feminist Pedagogy: A Means for Bringing Critical Thinking and Creativity to the Economics Classroom(opens in new window). Alternative Pedagogies and Economic Education, 1992.

• APPLICATION

  Ready to promote critical thinking in your teaching? Here are some ideas and strategies to get you started:

  When thinking about teaching critical thinking in your classroom, begin by defining the specific skills (PDF) that your students will need to understand the subject matter of the class. For example, students in a media studies class may need to know how to think critically about media bias and ownership (PDF) and their impacts on reporting, while students in a science class may need to think about the specific research methods used in a study in order to critically evaluate the findings and their validity. This recent article on cross-disciplinary scientific learning(opens in new window) explores these ideas in more detail.

  Christopher Dwyer offers 3 simple activities(opens in new window) you can use with your students to help them develop their critical thinking and metacognition skills (thinking about thinking).

  These 2 critical thinking activities(opens in new window) are a good example of ways to integrate a range of different issues and problem-solving skills into a fun classroom exercise.

  For a critical thinking exercise that draws on issues of history, colonialism, race, and globalization take a look at this activity(opens in new window) using excerpts from Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth (preface by Jean-Paul Sartre). 

  This Ultimate Cheatsheet to Critical Thinking(opens in new window) by Wabisabi offers a creative take on the classic who, what, when, where, why, how questions to use with your students.