WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY
Developing Your Critical Thinking Skills
Critical Thinking Skills
Critical thinking skills are the navigational tools needed for everyday life and in any professional journey. They enable you to analyze and solve complex problems effectively, allowing you to gain a competitive edge and empowering you to make smarter decisions.
With these skills, you’ll be able to think outside the box, adapt to change, and handle risks with greater efficiency. By improving your critical thinking abilities, you're setting yourself up to succeed in any field.
This guide explores different types of critical thinking skills and how you can learn and apply them in your everyday life.
What Are Critical Thinking Skills?
Critical thinking skills refer to your ability to analyze, evaluate, and interpret information in a logical and systematic manner to determine possible solutions. Think of it as employing objective reasoning and sound judgment to assess situations, solve problems, make decisions, and draw meaningful conclusions.
These skills assist you in thinking clearly and making sensible decisions when needed to solve problems, make better choices, think independently, consider multiple viewpoints, and apply thoughtful analysis to complex issues.
Why Are Critical Thinking Skills Important?
Critical thinking skills are highly valued by employers and are crucial in today's job market for several reasons. Let’s have a look at why these skills are important:
- Decision-making: You can make informed decisions based on careful analysis, which leads to more effective decision-making, minimizing risks and maximizing opportunities.
- Effective problem-solving: These skills provide the foundation for effective problem-solving in different professional contexts. These skills equip you to effectively identify, define, and analyze problems from different perspectives.
- Promote open-mindedness: Critical thinking leads to innovative ideas and approaches that will make you challenge assumptions. These challenges lead to innovative ideas and approaches.
- Effective communication: By enabling you to clearly organize your thoughts and articulate ideas, critical thinking skills promote effective communication.
What are the Benefits of Having Critical Thinking Skills?
As mentioned above, critical thinking skills are crucial in every profession and enable you to stand out and succeed in your field. Let’s explore some of the benefits of critical thinking skills and how they add value to your profession:
Stronger analytical abilities: You enhance your analytical thinking capabilities, allowing you to gather, assess, and interpret data effectively. Using logical reasoning, you can identify patterns, extract relevant insights, and draw meaningful conclusions from complex information. This skill is valuable in problem-solving, decision-making, and strategic planning.
Flexibility: Being flexible enables you to adapt to changing circumstances and swiftly navigate uncertainties. By considering multiple perspectives, evaluating information gathered, and adjusting your thinking, you can adapt your strategies and approaches to respond effectively to evolving situations. This adaptability is crucial in today's fast-changing work environments.
Lifelong learning: By embracing a growth mindset and engaging in lifelong learning, you can acquire new skills, question assumptions, seek new knowledge, critically evaluate your beliefs, and stay relevant in your chosen field.
Vision clarity: Having a clear vision enables you to forecast situations and goals. Critical thinking skills provide a framework for purposeful action. This concept also guarantees that your efforts are consistently directed toward achieving the desired outcomes.
Endless possibilities: Solid critical thinking skills allow you to uncover an array of potential outcomes, ideas, and opportunities to go beyond the familiar.
Examples of Critical Thinking Skills in the Workplace
Critical thinking skills can be applied in many ways across various professions. Here are some practical examples:
Analysis: You can ask relevant questions, evaluate evidence, and draw logical conclusions based on available information. You can uncover a trend or problem through analysis and make a well-informed decision based on your findings.
Evaluation: You can weigh different perspectives, consider biases or limitations, and make informed judgments about the quality and validity of information or claims presented. You can distinguish between credible and unreliable sources by evaluating evidence, claims, or proposals and determining the best cause of action.
Creative thinking: Thinking creatively means being innovative, embracing new perspectives, and engaging in divergent thinking to discover fresh insights and possibilities.
Inference: You can draw logical conclusions based on available evidence, observations, or patterns. By making reasoned judgments and connecting pieces of information, you can delve deeper into complex situations leading to better solutions.
Reflection: You can critically examine your thoughts, beliefs, and experiences. By displaying self-awareness and introspection, you enhance self-directed learning and promote continuous improvement.
How Will I Use Critical Thinking Skills?
By developing and applying critical thinking skills, you will be better equipped to navigate complex work environments, contribute to organizational success, and excel in your chosen career path.
These skills are applicable across various professional roles and industries. For example, with IT careers, you can use critical thinking skills in the following fields:
IT Career: In the IT industry, critical thinking skills are essential for problem-solving and troubleshooting. For example, you’ll be able to analyze the symptoms, gather relevant information, and evaluate potential causes. IT careers such as risk analysts, information manager and IT manager require solid critical thinking skills.
With health careers you can use critical thinking skills in the workplace. This includes:
Accurate diagnoses and treatment decisions: Critical thinking skills are crucial for the hospital environment and beyond. For instance, as a nurse or doctor with strong critical thinking skills, you will carefully assess a patient's symptoms, review medical history, and analyze test results. Most careers in healthcare such as community health workers, ICU nurses, medical records manager, etc., require these skills.
With education careers, you’ll discover how critical thinking skills are useful in the classroom and beyond:
Designing engaging classroom activities: As a teacher with strong critical thinking skills, you’ll design engaging classroom activities and questions. You can promote problem-solving and creative learning. Most careers in education such as teaching assistants, preschool teachers, and even high school teachers need these skills.
With business professions you incorporate critical thinking skills into everyday decisions in the workplace:
Evaluating market trends: As a decision-maker in business, critical thinking skills help you evaluate market trends, analyze financial data, and assess potential risks and opportunities. You’ll use logical reasoning and sound judgment to make informed business-related decisions such as product development, resource allocation, and business strategies. Most business-related careers such as project management, actuary, human resources management, etc., need these skills.
Critical thinking skills provide a foundation for thoughtful approaches in each field.
How Can I Learn Critical Thinking Skills?
At WGU, our curriculum is designed to foster critical thinking skills by incorporating interactive and thought-provoking course content.
Our courses are structured to encourage active learning and provide opportunities to apply critical thinking skills in different subject areas.
For example, in the Leavitt School of Health, the following degree programs teach critical thinking as part of the coursework:
- BS Nursing (BSRN)
- BS Nursing (RN- to BSN Degree), BSNU
- BS Nursing-Prelicensure (BSPRN)
In nursing and other health-related degrees, you’ll learn to:
- Identify reliable and credible sources of information.
- Identify different academic arguments concerning a particular issue.
- Identify potential sources of bias when analyzing a given issue.
- Gather relevant facts to form a judgment.
- Analyze data from various sources and contexts.
In critical thinking courses, you’ll encounter challenging concepts, case studies, and real-world scenarios that require critical analysis and problem-solving.
You’ll be able to engage in collaborative learning activities, such as group projects, discussions, and simulations. You’ll also complete a capstone project that integrates and applies the knowledge and skills you’ve acquired.
These activities encourage you to share ideas, consider diverse perspectives, and provide an opportunity to demonstrate your proficiency in critical thinking while also showcasing your ability to apply it practically.
Our goal at WGU is to provide a comprehensive learning experience that enhances your critical thinking skills.
Frequently Asked Questions
You can apply critical thinking to various aspects of everyday life, such as:
- Making logical decisions when solving problems.
- Assessing the credibility of the information you encounter online to avoid being misled or scammed.
- Understanding and questioning norms, biases, and stereotypes leading to a change in policies and social justice.
You must provide concrete examples to demonstrate your abilities as a critical thinker in your résumé.
For example, you can describe situations where you successfully applied critical thinking to solve problems or make decisions.
You can also provide relevant certifications or coursework if you’ve completed any courses or certifications related to critical thinking. Make sure that you highlight them in the education section of your résumé.
There are various factors that can limit your ability to think critically:
- Allowing emotions to influence your thinking process.
- Conforming to cultural and social norms.
- Lacking access to accurate information about a subject.
- Having insufficient time to thoroughly evaluate information.
- Lacking exposure to situations that require critical thinking.
