Importance Of Critical Thinking In Higher Education

Question: Discuss about the Importance Of Critical Thinking In Higher Education. Answer: Introduction (Liu et al., 2014) describes Critical thinking is the intellectual disciplines process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing or evaluating information gathered from or generated by observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action This essay shows one of the most important skills considered to be an essential for higher education. () The article Assessing Critical Thinking in Higher Education: Current state and Direction For Next Generation gives an insight of a qualitative analysis which talks about how critical thinking plays an important role in higher education. The present study aims at assessing whether the interactive educational models are effective or not. This essay gives an outline about how critical thinking is required in order to enlarge and widen the horizon of a student. It will arguable describe the main requirements of the desired outcomes. This essay will also analyze about the concept critical thinking and will evaluate and analyze that how lack of understanding makes them suffer in the future. This essay will also give a framework of how critical thinking can be categorized into skills, knowledge, attitudes, values and ethics. However in order to understand in a more elaborated of issue, there is a need of obtaining from an insiders view point, therefore it will discuss about the positive points of critical thinking. The Nature of Critical Thinking Critical thinking denotes a general idea of what it demands, but it stays as a concept over which there a lot of arguments and uncertainties about what it include and how will it manifest further. However in a wider term critical thinking is knows as a cognitive skill that is related to rational judgment for an individual. Critical thinking brings the frameworks reviewed in the Markle et al., (2013). The engagement of the student is broadly recognized as an important influence on learning and achievement in higher education and is being widely researched and theorized. (Kahu, 2013) recently suggests that the hope to review existing assessment in light of the construct representation, item format and validity evidence will benefit higher education institution as they choose among available assessments. This method of critical thinking has gained widespread attention as recognition of the of higher education outcomes assessment has increased. (Fayolle, 2013) the percentage of higher ed ucation institution using an external measure of the outcomes of student learning has increased. There is several other research framework of critical thinking as discussed by (Moore, 2013). These kinds of depositions, which is either seen as habits or attitudes, involves inquisitiveness, fair mindedness, a desire to be well informed, flexibility and a respect towards different point of views. Behavioral Perspective Teaching practice and student behavior is given the most emphasis in the higher education the lack of critical thinking causes great loss in colleges and further studies. Critical thinking, which is also known logical thinking, should be ingrained in a person from their childhood (McPeck, 2016). The value of reasoning and logic in any form of study or general behavior should be present in each and every human being. Otherwise they will learn to follow things blindly which will end them nowhere. The engagement of the student is seen as an evolving construct from an early age, it captures a range of institutional practice and the behavior of student with respect to the to the students achievement and satisfaction, including social teaching practice social and academic integration and to work on time (Goetsch, Davis, 2014). Critical thinking helps a person to learn actively, helps them to compete with the academic challenge, more importantly it helps them to think more profusely which helps them to produce better results in exam. Pragmatic research suggests that people who develops critical thinking competency at a very young age. All people can taught to think critically, however especially in higher education it is even more important. At time there are students who do not develop critical thinking which creates a problem for them in future. Multiple theme of Assessments Interest in seeking the perception from both students and academics was highlighted by the disparity on measures of active learning, work related learning and interaction between these associates in a large scale. There are two aspect of critical thinking, general and domain. There is an importance of giving an argument in the academic writing; there is still a lack of understanding in students of the implementation or misconception. () States that in a prior study the majority of the students felt that argumentation means presenting their original opinions and views. There is a severe need of originality, each individual is unique and they have their own thoughts which has to be enhanced and therefore it is important think critically and not what the tutors spoon feed the, there is another famous misconception is that the argument is manifested only through an adversarial stance in writing. However (Fairclough, 2014) explains that every argument should be sensitive and connect with different point of views, where he evaluates the thought rather than criticizing the cause and therefore incorporating those claims which are closest to their own position (Evans, 2013). There are many reasons why critical thinking is important. In todays technological world, most of the learnings and information is taken from the computer and mobile. It has become a computer- mediate world, where people blindly believe sources like Google and all the various other information given there. ICT is introduced in most of the schools these days and therefore from a very young age students blindly follows it. This also hampers there critical thinking as this block their thought process and makes them completely dependent on the technology. Conceptual Framework Critical thinking is normally generalized and it makes the students as stereotypical members of the society as stated by (Chan, 2013). However By understanding the difficult array of factors influencing a students engagement and by embedding these phenomena and process within the wider socio-culture context, and the uniqueness of an individuals experience becomes more clearly and therefore then the need of in depth knowledge or study of an individual student arises. Even though this essay talks about the importance of critical thinking in higher education, however this wideness or in depth thinking arises because of few factors i.e. the structural factor, psycho-socio influences, socio cultural context and the distal and proximal consequences. Conclusion The aim of this essay was to show the importance of critical thinking in higher education from different point of view and to provide with ideas from authors and from the articles to understand the importance of it. The evaluation of this essay has been done secondarily mostly. The essay talks about various numbers of factors such as analysis, reasoning, evaluation and argumentation. These factors differs along with their individual dimension, however with this essay the seriousness of critical thinking has been understood. The depth of the cause has been perfectly evaluated in this essay. This essay found that irrespective of levels, every individual has the power and ability to think critically however this power should be sharpened and enhanced with activities. References: Chan, Z. C. (2013). A systematic review of critical thinking in nursing education.Nurse Education Today,33(3), 236-240. Evans, C. (2013). Making sense of assessment feedback in higher education.Review of educational research,83(1), 70-120. Fairclough, N. (2014).Critical language awareness. Routledge. Fayolle, A. (2013). Personal views on the future of entrepreneurship education.EntrepreneurshipManagement Regional Development,25(7-8), 692-701. Goetsch, D. L., Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson. Kahu, E. R. (2013). Framing student engagement in higher education.Studies in higher education,38(5), 758-773. Lea, M. R., Street, B. (2014). understanding textual practices in higher education.Writing: Texts, processes and practices, 62. Liu, O. L., Frankel, L., Roohr, K. C. (2014). Assessing Critical Thinking in Higher Education: Current State and Directions for Next?Generation Assessment.ETS Research Report Series,2014(1), 1-23. McPeck, J. E. (2016).Critical thinking and education. Routledge. Moore, T. (2013). Critical thinking: Seven definitions in search of a concept.Studies in Higher Education,38(4), 506-522.