Critical Thinking and Decision Making
Claire Belisle
Management 350
Paul Harvey
May 26, 2003
Critical Thinking and Decision Making
Through the exploration of critical thinking and decision-making, it becomes evident that the two are quite often linked. While critical thinking can take place without the need to make a decision, one would think that making a decision should never take place without thinking critically about the decision that needs to be made. On the other hand, there are times when it seems that decisions are made without any critical thinking involved.
What is Critical Thinking?
Through a review of the text, Readings in Critical Thinking, the reader will note that critical thinking is “a set of skills and attitudes [whereby an individual reacts] with systematic evaluation to what [he/she] has heard or read” (3). The Little Brown Compact Handbook notes, “CRITICAL here does not mean ‘negative’ but ‘skeptical,’ ‘exacting,’ ‘creative’ ” (281). Using this information, it can be determined that critical thinking is a process by which an individual evaluates information being heard or read to determine the validity of the information and any other issues that may be imbedded in the information.
Readings in Critical Thinking recommends evaluation of information based on a set of questions as follows:
1. What are the issues and the conclusions?
2. What are the reasons?
3. What words or phrases are ambiguous?
4. What are the value conflicts and assumptions?
5. What are the descriptive assumptions?
6. Are there any fallacies in the reasoning?
7. How good is the evidence?
8. Are there rival causes?
9. Are the statistics deceptive?
10. What significant information is omitted?
11. What reasonable conclusions are possible? (11)
While it is not necessary to directly use these questions when evaluating information, they are helpful in learning the process of critical thinking and as...