Critical Thinking and Its Relation to Strategic Processing

• In Event: Navigating the Murky Waters of Higher-Order, Critical, and Critical-Analytic Thinking

Abstract

In addition to overall ambiguity in the critical thinking literature, there is additional ambiguity in how critical thinking and strategic processing intersect. In this presentation we first set out to contrast the typical psychological view from the typical philosophical view of critical thinking. On one hand, in the typical psychological view, critical thinking is often conceptualized as a set of internal mental processes, which are often encapsulated as a set of skills or strategies (e.g., Pintrich et al., 1991). On the other hand, the typical philosophical view conceptualizes critical thinking as a set of habits that frame one’s approach to problems or tasks (e.g., Bailin & Siegel, 2003).

Following this theoretical analysis, we systematically reviewed the literature to see how studies conceptualized the relation of critical thinking and strategies (i.e., as one and the same, as overlapping, or as distinct constructs), what their respective measurements were, what other key variables were related to critical thinking and strategies in these studies, and finally, what salient findings emerged from studies that examined critical thinking and strategic processing. Using PsycInfo we identified studies that included the terms “critical thinking” and “strategy/strategies” in the abstract. 30 studies were identify from this search that also met our inclusion/exclusion criteria. These studied were then tabled using both a priori and iterative coding schemes.

Synthesis of these coded columns in the table were used to address each of our research questions. First, this synthesis revealed that 67% of the tabled studies conceptualized critical thinking as a subset of a broader set of strategies. In other words, critical thinking was comprised of a set of strategies that differed from other types of strategies (e.g., critical thinking strategies versus self-regulatory strategies). Second, retrospective self-report surveys were the predominant measurement of both strategies (67%) and critical thinking (70%). Furthermore, the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ; Pintrich et al., 1991) was by far the most frequent measurement of both critical thinking and strategies. Third, motivational variables were the most likely covariates or mediating variables presented in the analytical models, likely due to the motivation subscales of the MSLQ also being deployed often in these studies. Finally, the findings were mixed in terms of how critical thinking and strategies were related to each other, with some studies showing significant relations and others non-significant, as well as mixed findings of both constructs to learning outcomes.

Recommendations for future research include better theoretical grounding for the relation between strategy use and critical thinking that does not relegate critical thinking to a set of mental processes, but rather as a richer framework that includes habits and epistemic beliefs that guide strategies during learning tasks or problems. In turn, these more complex theoretical grounding should induce researchers to find more effective ways to measure critical thinking beyond the use of the MSLQ. Finally, these frameworks should guide us away from practical frameworks that turn critical thinking into a simple step-by-step process.

Authors

• Daniel Dinsmore, University of North Florida
  Presenting Author

• Luke K. Fryer, University of Hong Kong
  Presenting Author