critical thinking moral education

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Critical Thinking and Moral Education

1988, Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children

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Craig Gibson

Mark Weinstein

Peter A Facione

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Educational Theory

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Critical thinking can help its practitioners understand the issues in society. The authors discuss the method involved in evaluating the validity of arguments and the need for teaching and using critical thinking skills across the curriculum. Introduction Critical thinking, simply stated, is arriving at conclusions based on the legitimacy of one's research. "Legitimacy" is the operative word here, for the critical thinking process eradicates faulty thinking patterns and, in particular, those known as fallacies. Why is this process important in today's teaching climate? With controversies like the 2000 Presidential election, the McVeigh execution, the Megan's Law Internet connection, and, above all, the September 11th tragedy, there can be little doubt that improved critical thinking could provide a means of combating tendencies that might undermine some basic democratic rights on no firmer foundation than raw emotion, popular opinion, ideology and certain infle...

John Eigenauer

Ample literature on the instruction of critical thinking in higher education can help colleges and universities make proper decisions about teaching and assessing critical thinking.

Harvey Siegel

The eighties witnessed a growing accord that the heart of education lies exactly where traditional advocates of a liberal education always said it was-in the processes of inquiry, learning and thinking rather than in the accumulation of disjointed skills and senescent information. By the decade's end the movement to infuse the K-12 and post-secondary curricula with critical thinking (CT) had gained remarkable momentum. This success also raised vexing questions: What exactly are those skills and dispositions which characterize CT? What are some effective ways to teach CT? And how can CT, particularly if it becomes a campus-wide, district-wide or statewide requirement, be assessed? When asked by the individual professor or teacher seeking to introduce CT into her own classroom, such questions are difficult enough. But they take on social, fiscal, and political dimensions when asked by campus curriculum committees, school district offices, boards of education, and the educational t...

Education's Epistemology: Rationality, Diversity, and Critical Thinking

Professor of Philosophy

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This collection extends and further defends the “reasons conception” of critical thinking that Harvey Siegel has articulated and defended over the last three-plus decades. This conception analyzes and emphasizes both the epistemic quality of candidate beliefs, and the dispositions and character traits that constitute the “critical spirit”, that are central to a proper account of critical thinking; argues that epistemic quality must be understood ultimately in terms of epistemic rationality; defends a conception of rationality that involves both rules and judgment; and argues that critical thinking has normative value over and above its instrumental tie to truth. Siegel also argues, contrary to currently popular multiculturalist thought, for both transcultural and universal philosophical ideals, including those of multiculturalism and critical thinking themselves. Over seventeen chapters, Siegel makes the case for regarding critical thinking, or the cultivation of rationality, as a preeminent educational ideal, and the fostering of it as a fundamental educational aim. A wide range of alternative views are critically examined. Important related topics, including indoctrination, moral education, open-mindedness, testimony, epistemological diversity, and cultural difference are treated. The result is a systematic account and defense of critical thinking, an educational ideal widely proclaimed but seldom submitted to critical scrutiny itself.

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Religious Educator Vol. 18 No. 3 · 2017

Critical thinking in religious education, shayne anderson.

Shayne Anderson, "Critical Thinking in Religious Education," Religious Educator 18, no. 3 (2018): 69–81.

Shayne Anderson ( [email protected] ) was an instructor at South Ogden Junior Seminary when this article was published.

A common argument in an increasingly secular world today is that religion poses a threat to world peace and human well-being. Concerning the field of religious education, Andrew Davis, an honorary research fellow at Durham University, argues that religious adherents tend to treat others who do not agree with them with disrespect and hostility and states that efforts to persuade them to behave otherwise would be “profoundly difficult to realize.” [1] Consequently, he believes that religious education should consist only of a moderate form of pluralism. Religious education classes, in his view, should not make claims of one religion having exclusive access to the truth.

Others argue that religious education should consist only of teaching about religion in order to promote more democratic ways of being. [2] Their perception is that religion is yet another distinguishing and divisive tool used by those who seek to discriminate against others, thus impeding the progress of pluralistic democracies. Further, those perceived as religious zealots, so the argument goes, are the least apt to give critical thought to either their own beliefs or the beliefs of others. [3] This reasoning, in which religion and critical thinking are viewed as antithetical, is especially prevalent in popular culture, outside the measured confines of peer-reviewed publishing.

Reasons for why religion and critical thinking might be viewed as incompatible are as varied as the authors who generate the theories. They include the following: religions often claim to contain some amount of absolute truth, an idea in itself that critical theorists oppose; individual religions generally do not teach alternate views, a requisite for critical thinking; and, in critical theory, truth is comprised of “premises all parties accept.” [4] Theorist Oduntan Jawoniyi reduces the argument down to the fact that religious claims of truth “are empirically unverified, unverifiable, and unfalsifiable metaphysical truths.” [5]

One explanation for variations in opinions concerning the place of critical thinking in religious education may be that no consistent definition exists for critical thinking, a concept that stretches across several fields of study. For instance, the field of philosophy has its own nuanced definition of critical thinking, as does the field of psychology. My first aim in this article is to survey a range of definitions in order to settle upon a functional definition that will allow for faith while still fulfilling the objectives of critical thinking, and my second aim is to explore how this definition can apply to religious education in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Defining Critical Thinking

The first definition under consideration comes from a frequently cited website within the domain of critical thinking. Here critical theorists Michael Scriven and Richard Paul endeavor to encapsulate in one definition the wide expanse of critical thinking’s many definitions: “Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/ or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.” [6]

Assessing the definition in parts will allow for a thorough examination, beginning with a look at critical thinking as being active and intellectually disciplined. Such admonitions are repeated often in the scriptures. The thirteenth article of faith teaches that members of the Church “seek after” anything that is “virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy.” The Prophet Joseph Smith borrows terminology here from what he calls the “admonition of Paul”—from the book of Philippians, where Paul lists many of the same qualities and then suggests, “Think on these things” (Philippians 4:8).

Common scriptural words that suggest active, skillful, and disciplined thinking include inquiring , pondering , reasoning , and asking . Additional scriptures suggest such things as “study it out in your mind” (D&C 9:8) or “seek learning, even by study and also by faith” (D&C 88:118). Assuredly, the portion of the definition of critical thinking pertaining to intellectual discipline fits well within the objectives of the Church’s education program.

The next part of the definition given by Scriven and Paul includes “conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/ or evaluating information.” The Gospel Teaching and Learning handbook, used by teachers and leaders in the Seminaries and Institutes of Religion program of the Church, sets forth the “fundamentals of gospel teaching and learning.” [7] Included in these fundamentals are (a) identifying doctrines and principles, (b) understanding the meaning of those doctrines and principles, (c) feeling the truth and importance of those doctrines and principles, and (d) applying doctrines and principles. Comparing the definition for critical thinking to the fundamentals of gospel teaching and learning, one can argue that conceptualizing is akin to identifying and analyzing, both of which require the understanding sought for by the previously mentioned fundamentals. Synthesizing and evaluating can be a part of understanding and feeling the importance of a concept. Also, application is found in both the definition and the fundamentals of gospel teaching and learning. It is an integral part of critical thinking and effective religious education within the Church.

Finally, according to this definition, critical thinking assesses “information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.” This portion of the definition seems equally suited for religious education. So much of religion is based on personal experience and reflection on those experiences. Owing to the personal nature of religious observations, experiences, reflections, and reasoning, adherents often find them difficult to fully explain. This personal experience may be compared to a baseball player who has mastered the art of batting. Intellectually, the player may understand perfectly what must be done, as he or she may have practiced it innumerable times, but when asked to explain it to someone else the player is unable to do so. Such a situation does not detract from the fact that the batter has mastered the art, yet the explanation remains difficult. Additionally, religious experiences are often very personal in nature. Due to the value attributed to those experiences, a person may not choose to share them frequently because of a fear that others will not understand or may even attempt to degrade and minimize those experiences and the feelings associated with them. Thus, even on the occasion when someone attempts to articulate such experiences, they remain unexplained.

In a religious setting, information derived from observation, experience, and communication may come from meeting with others who share religious beliefs. Moroni 6:5 touches on this idea. “And the church [members] did meet together oft, to fast and to pray, and to speak with one another concerning the welfare of their souls.” Congregating has long been a cornerstone of religious experience. Doing so provides members opportunities for observation, experience, reflection, and communication, all of which make up the delicate tapestry of religious belief and behavior.

Adding to the definition given by Scriven and Paul, college professor and author Tim John Moore asserts that another quality important in critical thought is skepticism, verging on agnosticism, toward knowledge—calling into question whether reality can be known for certain. [8] This skepticism carries with it immediate doubt prior to being presented with knowledge. Others have termed it as a “doubtful mentality.” [9] This definition does not seem able to coexist with faith-motivated critical thinking. Many scriptures teach about the importance of faith trumping doubt, the most recognizable among them likely being James 1:5–6: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.”

Concerning the type of doubt that arises even before learning facts, Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Church’s First Presidency said, “Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.” [10] This admonition indicates that there is an ultimate source of truth, and when our doubts loom large it is better to doubt those doubts instead of doubting God. The Doctrinal Mastery: Core Document , a part of the S&I curriculum introduced in the summer of 2016, states that “God . . . is the source of all truth. . . . He has not yet revealed all truth.” [11] Thus, doubt should be curbed at the point when we do not have all the evidence or answers we seek. Such is the case in the scientific method: a tested hypothesis leads to a theory, and confirmed theories lead to laws. Fortunately, neither hypotheses nor theories are abandoned for lack of proof or the existence of doubt concerning them.

Some within a religious community may be hesitant to apply critical thinking to their own religious beliefs, believing that doing so could weaken their faith. Psychologist Diane Halpern, however, suggests that critical thinking need not carry with it such negative connotations. “In critical thinking , the word critical is not meant to imply ‘finding fault,’ as it might be used in a pejorative way to describe someone who is always making negative comments. It is used instead in the sense of ‘critical’ that involves evaluation or judgement, ideally with the goal of providing useful and accurate feedback that serves to improve the thinking process.” [12] Applying critical thinking need not indicate a lack of faith by a believer—an important point to consider when applying critical thinking to religious education. Critically thinking Christian believers are adhering to the Savior’s commandment to “ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Matthew 7:7).

Religious believers may be concerned that other critical thinkers have reached an opinion different than theirs. This concern can be addressed by the way critical thinking is defined. Professor of philosophy Jennifer Mulnix writes that “critical thinking, as an intellectual virtue, is not directed at any specific moral ends.” [13] She further explains that critical thinkers do not have a set of beliefs that invariably lead to specific ends, suggesting that two critical thinkers who correctly apply the skills and attitudes of critical thinking to the same subject could hold opposing beliefs. Such critical thinking requires a sort of mental flexibility, a willingness to acknowledge that a person may not be in possession of all the facts. Including such flexibility when defining critical thinking does not disqualify its application to religious education. A religious person can hold beliefs and knowledge while remaining flexible, just as a mathematician holds firm beliefs and knowledge but is willing to accept more and consider alternatives in the light of additional information. In other words, being in possession of facts that a person is unwilling to relinquish does not mean that he or she is unwilling to accept additional facts.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks spoke about the idea of differing conclusions when addressing religious educators. “Because of our knowledge of [the] Plan and other truths that God has revealed, we start with different assumptions than those who do not share our knowledge. As a result, we reach different conclusions on many important subjects that others judge only in terms of their opinions about mortal life.” [14] Each person brings different life experience and knowledge, which they call upon to engage in critical thinking. While both are employing critical-thinking skills, they may be doing so with different facts and differing amounts of facts. All of the facts in consideration may be true, but because of the way those facts are understood, different conclusions are reached. Still, the thinking taking place can be correctly defined as critical.

Another belief included by some in a definition of critical thinking, though at odds with the edifying instruction presented in LDS religious education, is addressed by Rajeswari Mohan, who suggests that to teach using critical thinking would require “a re-understanding of the classroom.” [15] Generally, the understanding that currently exists of the classroom, both inside and outside of religious education, consists of creating an atmosphere of respect and trust, a safe place to learn and grow—something that Mohan calls “cosmopolitan instruction.” [16] In its place Mohan advocates that the classroom become “a site of contestation,” [17] which connotes controversy, argument, and divisiveness. Of course, it is possible to contest a belief, debate, and even disagree while still maintaining trust and respect, but such a teaching atmosphere is what Mohan considers cosmopolitan and, as such, it would require no re-understanding to accomplish it.

Elizabeth Ellsworth described her experience when attempting to employ the type of approach Mohan suggests in her own classroom. [18] In reflecting on the experience, she noted that it exacerbated disagreements between students rather than resolving or solving anything. She summarized what took place by saying, “Rational argument has operated in ways that set up as its opposite an irrational Other.” [19] Rather than having her class engage in discussion and learning, Ellsworth witnessed students who refused to talk because of the fear of retaliation or fear of embarrassment.

Such a situation does not align with D&C 42:14, “If ye receive not the Spirit ye shall not teach.” Additionally, this confrontational atmosphere in the learning environment seems to run counter to the doctrines taught by the Savior. Consider the words of Christ in 3 Nephi 11:29: “I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another.”

Many authors who offer definitions of critical thinking discuss how critical thinking leads to action; one author states, “Criticality requires that one be moved to do something.” [20] President Thomas S. Monson, while a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, said, “The goal of gospel teaching . . . is not to ‘pour information’ into the minds of class members . . . . The aim is to inspire the individual to think about, feel about, and then do something about living gospel principles.” [21] This application is the foundation of the teachings of Jesus Christ, the very purpose of his Atonement, to allow for individuals to change. This change does not solely consist of stopping some behavior but also includes starting new behaviors. Elder Neal A. Maxwell, for example, suggested that many of us could make more spiritual progress “in the realm of the sins of omission . . . than in any other place.” [22]

Critical Thinking Exaggerated

President Boyd K. Packer taught that “tolerance is a virtue, but like all virtues, when exaggerated, it transforms itself into a vice.” [23] This facet of critical thinking whereby critical thinking prompts action must be explained carefully, as it can be exaggerated and transformed into a vice. Mohan described this aspect of critical thinking that moves individuals to action outside of the classroom as having a “goal of transformative political action” aimed at challenging, interrupting, and undercutting “regimes of knowledge.” [24] Pedagogy of the Oppressed author and political activist Paulo Freire taught that this action brought about the “conquest” [25] of an oppressed class in a society over its oppressors. Some would argue that if it does not lead to this kind of contending, transformative action, critical thinking is incomplete. [26]

Transformative action taken by individuals to change themselves is necessary. Yet the idea that one can effect change within the Church, for individuals or the organization itself, by compulsion or coercion in a spirit of conquest can lead to “the heavens [withdrawing] themselves; the Spirit of the Lord [being] grieved” (D&C 121:37). Critical thinking defined to include this contention does not have a place in religious education within the Church.

A balanced definition of critical thinking that allows for faith in things which are hoped for and yet unseen (see Alma 32:21) may look something like this: Critical thinking consists of persistent, effortful, ponderous, and reflective thought devoted to concepts held and introduced through various ways, including experience, inquiry, and reflection. That person then analyzes, evaluates, and attempts to understand how those concepts coincide and interact with existing knowledge, ready to abandon or employ ideas based upon their truthfulness. This contemplation then leads the person to consistent and appropriate actions.

Because of the benefits of critical thinking, some have taken its application to an extreme, allowing it to undermine faith. Addressing a group of college students in 1996, President Gordon B. Hinckley said, “This is such a marvelous season of your lives. It is a time not only of positive thinking but sometimes of critical thinking. Let me urge you to not let your critical thinking override your faith.” [27]

Examples in Doctrine

Despite a potential to undermine faith when applied incorrectly, critical thinking holds too much promise to be abandoned. This is particularly the case for religious education in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Not only do questions and critical thought have an appropriate place in the Church, but as President Dieter F. Uchtdorf has pointed out, the Church would not exist without it. [28] He explains that the doctrinally loaded and foundational experience of the First Vision came as the result of Joseph Smith’s critical thought toward existing churches and a desire to know which he should join. Knowing for ourselves if the church that was restored through Joseph Smith’s efforts is truly the “only true and living church” (D&C 1:30) can be done only by following his lead and “ask[ing] of God” (James 1:5). “Asking questions,” President Uchtdorf said, “isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a precursor of growth.” [29]

This concept of critically thinking while still acting in faith is illustrated in Alma 32:27–43, when Alma teaches a group of nonbelievers who nonetheless want to know the truth. Table 1 compares Alma’s words with concepts of critical thinking.

Figure 1. Alma and Critical Thinking.

The necessity of exercising faith is a major component of all religion. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8–9). “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). “I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do” (1 Nephi 4:6). “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not” (D&C 6:36). The skeptical critic of religion could assert that these statements amount to blind faith or towing the line without a rational or logical reason to do so. Applying critical thinking to such assertions may disclose, ironically, that such approaches are no different than using rational thought.

In Educating Reason , author Harvey Siegel responds to a criticism sometimes waged against critical thinking called the indoctrination objection. His argument provides a means for reconciling faith with logic. In short he observed that critical thinkers have traditionally been opposed to indoctrination of any kind. Over time much has been applied to the perception of, and even the definition of, indoctrination, which now carries with it highly negative connotations of teaching content that is either not true or is taught in such a way that the learner is not provided a way to measure the truthfulness of what is being taught. Yet the fundamental definition of indoctrination is simply to teach.

The indoctrination objection is based on the idea that critical thinkers want to reject all indoctrination, but they cannot do so because critical thinking itself must be taught (indoctrinated). The definition he gives to indoctrination is when students “are led to hold beliefs in such a way that they are prevented from critically inquiring into their legitimacy and the power of the evidence offered in their support; if they hold beliefs in such a way that the beliefs are not open to rational evaluation or assessment.” [32] Siegel delicately defines an indoctrinated belief as “a belief [that] is held non-evidentially.” [33]

It must be acknowledged that children are not born valuing rational thought and evidence; those values must be taught, or indoctrinated. According to Siegel, “If an educational process enhances rationality, on this view, that process is justified.” [34] He later adds that such teaching is not only defensible, but necessary. “We are agreed that such belief-inculcation is desirable and justifiable, and that some of it might have the effect of enhancing the child’s rationality. Should we call it indoctrination? This seems partly, at least, a verbal quibble.” [35]

A teacher is justified in teaching students and a learner is justified in studying if doing so will eventually enhance rationality and if students are allowed to evaluate for themselves what is being taught.

There may even be a period when rationality is put on hold, or the lack of rationality perpetuated, temporarily for the sake of increasing critical thought in the end. This concept of proceeding with learning without first having an established rationale for doing so is the very concept of faith. Just as “faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things” (Alma 32:21), reasons may not always be understood at first, just as a rational understanding for accepting a teaching is not always given at first. The moment when a learner must accept a teaching without first having a sufficient reason for doing so is faith. Students who continue to engage in the learning process are acting in faith. If the things being taught are true, those things will eventually lead those students to increased rationality and expanded intellect. Such teaching should not detour the student from seeking his or her own personal confirmation. Teaching in a manner that discourages students from establishing their own roots deep into the ground is antithetical to both critical thinking and the purposes of LDS religious education.

Teaching in a way that encourages and invites students to think critically about doctrines reflects not only teaching practices encouraged in today’s religious education within the Church but also doctrines of the Church. The culture and doctrine of the Church seeks to avoid indoctrinating members in the negative or pejorative sense. On the Church’s official Newsroom website is an article explaining what constitutes the doctrines of the Church. Included in that list is this statement: “Individual members are encouraged to independently strive to receive their own spiritual confirmation of the truthfulness of Church doctrine. Moreover, the Church exhorts all people to approach the gospel not only intellectually but with the intellect and the spirit, a process in which reason and faith work together.” [36] More than solely a statement of doctrine on a newsroom website, this concept is bolstered by the words of canonized scripture: “Seek learning, even by study and also by faith” (D&C 88:118). “You have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me. But you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me” (D&C 9:7–8). And finally, from the admonition of Paul, who, after speaking of doctrines, counseled believers to “think on these things” (Philippians 4:8).

The Prophet Joseph Smith addressed the relationship between faith and intellect. “We consider,” he said, “that God has created man with a mind capable of instruction, and a faculty which may be enlarged in proportion to the heed and diligence given to the light communicated from heaven to the intellect; and that the nearer man approaches perfection, the clearer are his views.” [37] In other words, acting in faith, or giving heed and diligence to light communicated from heaven, can enlarge the intellectual faculty and clarify views. Diligence and heed are required in religious education, in which the content being taught is considered irrational by secular society. Amid ridicule by the irreligious, when the intellect is enlarged, the faithful recognize enhanced rationality and clearer views that are never realized by those who are ridiculing. This process continues until full rationality is achieved and the promise of God is fulfilled: “Nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known” (Luke 8:17). What a promise for a critical thinker!

Critical thinking has the potential to be a powerful tool for educators; that potential does not exclude its use by teachers within the Church. When used appropriately, critical thinking can help students more deeply understand and rely upon the teachings and Atonement of Jesus Christ. The testimony that comes as a result of critical thought can carry students through difficult times and serve as an anchor through crises of faith. As Elder M. Russell Ballard teaches,

Gone are the days when a student asked an honest question and a teacher responded, “Don’t worry about it!” Gone are the days when a student raised a sincere concern and a teacher bore his or her testimony as a response intended to avoid the issue. Gone are the days when students were protected from people who attacked the Church. Fortunately, the Lord provided this timely and timeless counsel to you teachers: “And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.” [38]

Critical thought does not consist of setting aside faith, but rather faith is using critical thought to come to know truth for oneself.

[1] Andrew Davis, “Defending Religious Pluralism for Religious Education,” Ethics and Education 3, no. 5 (November 2010): 190.

[2] Oduntan Jawoniyi, “Religious Education, Critical Thinking, Rational Autonomy, and the Child’s Right to an Open Future,” Religion and Education 39, no. 1 (January 2015): 34–53; and Michael D. Waggoner, “Religion, Education, and Critical Thinking,” Religion and Education 39, no. 3 (September 2012): 233–34.

[3] Waggoner, “Religion, Education, and Critical Thinking,” 233–34.

[4] Duck-Joo Kwak, “Re‐Conceptualizing Critical Thinking for Moral Education in Culturally Plural Societies,” Educational Philosophy and Theory 39, no. 4 (August 2007): 464.

[5] Jawoniyi, “Religious Education,” 46.

[6] Michael Scriven and Richard Paul, quoted in “Defining Critical Thinking,” Foundation for Critical Thinking, http:// www.criticalthinking.org/ pages/ defining-critical-thinking/ 766.

[7] Gospel Teaching and Learning Handbook: A Handbook for Teachers and Leaders in Seminaries and Institutes of Religion (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2012), 39.

[8] Tim John Moore, “Critical Thinking and Disciplinary Thinking: A Continuing Debate,” Higher Education Research & Development 30, no. 3 (June 2011): 261–74.

[9] Ali Mohammad Siahi Atabaki, Narges Keshtiaray, Mohammad Yarmohammadian, “Scrutiny of Critical Thinking Concept,” International Education Studies 8, no. 3 (February 2015): 100.

[10] Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “The Reflection in the Water” (CES fireside for young adults at Brigham Young University, 1 November 2009), https:// www.lds.org/ media-library/ video/ 2009-11-0050-the-reflection-in-the-water?lang=eng#d.

[11] Seminaries and Institutes of Religion, Doctrinal Mastery: Core Document (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2016), 2.

[12] Diane F. Halpern, “Teaching Critical Thinking for Transfer across Domains,” The American Psychologist 53, no. 4 (April 1998): 451.

[13] Jennifer Wilson Mulnix, “Thinking Critically About Critical Thinking,” Educational Philosophy and Theory 44, no. 5 (July 2012): 466.

[14] Dallin H. Oaks, “As He Thinketh in His Heart” (evening with a General Authority, 8 February 2013), https:// www.lds.org/ prophets-and-apostles/ unto-all-the-world/ as-he-thinketh-in-his-heart-?lang=eng.

[15] Rajeswari Mohan, “Dodging the Crossfire: Questions for Postcolonial Pedagogy,” College Literature 19/ 20, vol. 3/ 1 (October 1992–February 1993): 30.

[16] Mohan, “Dodging the Crossfire,” 30.

[17] Mohan, “Dodging the Crossfire,” 30.

[18] Elizabeth Ellsworth, “Why Doesn’t This Feel Empowering? Working through the Repressive Myths of Critical Pedagogy,” Harvard Educational Review 59, no. 3 (September 1989): 297–325.

[19] Ellsworth, “Why Doesn’t This Feel Empowering?,” 301.

[20] Nicholas C. Burbules and Rupert Berk, “Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy: Relations, Differences, and Limits,” in Critical Theories in Education , ed. Thomas S. Popkewitz and Lynn Fendler (New York: Routledge, 1999), 45–66.

[21] Thomas S. Monson, in Conference Report, October 1970, 107.

[22] Neal A. Maxwell, “The Precious Promise,” Ensign , April 2004, 45, https:// www.lds.org/ ensign/ 2004/ 04/ the-precious-promise?lang=eng.

[23] Boyd K. Packer, “These Things I Know,” Ensign , May 2013, 8, https:// www.lds.org/ ensign/ 2013/ 05/ these-things-i-know?lang=eng.

[24] Mohan, “Dodging the Crossfire,” 30.

[25] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed , trans. Myra Bergman Ramos (New York: Continuum International, 1970).

[26] Donaldo Macedo, introduction to Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed , 11–26.

[27] Gordon B. Hinckley, “Excerpts from Recent Addresses of President Gordon B. Hinckley,” Ensign , October 1996, https:// www.lds.org/ ensign/ 1996/ 10/ excerpts-from-recent-addresses-of-president-gordon-b-hinckley?lang=eng.

[28] Uchtdorf, “The Reflection in the Water.”

[29] Uchtdorf, “The Reflection in the Water.”

[30] Harvey Siegel, “Indoctrination Objection,” in Educating Reason: Rationality, Critical Thinking, and Education (New York: Routledge, 1988), 78–90.

[31] Halpern, “Teaching Critical Thinking for Transfer across Domains,” 451.

[32] Siegel, Educating Reason , 80.

[33] Siegel, Educating Reason , 80.

[34] Siegel, Educating Reason , 81.

[35] Siegel, Educating Reason , 82.

[36] “Approaching Mormon Doctrine,” 4 May 2007, http:// www.mormonnewsroom.org/ article/ approaching-mormon-doctrine.

[37] B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976), 2:8.

[38] M. Russell Ballard, “The Opportunities and Responsibilities of CES Teachers in the 21st Century” (address to CES religious educators, 26 February 2016), https:// www.lds.org/ broadcasts/ article/ evening-with-a-general-authority/ 2016/ 02/ the-opportunities-and-responsibilities-of-ces-teachers-in-the-21st-century?lang=eng&_r=1.

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Front Psychol

Development and status of moral education research: Visual analysis based on knowledge graph

Jingying chen.

1 School of Marxism, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China

2 College of Educational Science and Technology, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China

3 School of Management, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China

Chengliang Wang

4 Department of Education Information Technology, Faculty of Education, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

Associated Data

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Introduction

Moral education is an educational process of the continuation, construction, and transformation of moral and social norms, and is an important guarantee for the sustainable vitality of human morality.

With bibliometrics applied and VOSviewer and CiteSpace as tools, this paper systematically analyzes 497 articles published in the Social Sciences Citation Index of Web of Science core collection from 2000 to 2022 in the field of moral education research.

By quantifying specific performance information in the field of moral education in terms of authors, journals, organizations and countries, this paper identifies the highly productive authors and organizations, as well as core journals (i.e., the Journal of Moral Education ). A cluster analysis is used to show the knowledge structure, and an evolutionary analysis to present the macro-development trend of moral education.

In this paper, the comprehensive description of the research topics on moral education clarifies the development model and disciplinary prospect of the moral education research, and provides theoretical and practical support for the continuous development and application practice of the moral education research.

1. Introduction

Discussions of morality can be traced back to the ancient Greek period, when Aristotle noted in Nicomachean Ethics that virtue could be divided into intellectual virtue and virtue of character, and that the latter came about as a result of habit, which was people's pursuit of beauty and kindness (Ameriks and Clarke, 2000 ). During the more than two thousand years since then, countless scholars and philosophers have been inspired by Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and have made in-depth interpretations and explanations of morality and moral phenomena (Kristjánsson, 2006 ). Under the theoretical framework of Aristotelian virtue ethics, this paper attempts to classify and review the development of moral education in K−12 and higher educational systems.

Moral education is a grand concept that involves many disciplines (MacIntyre and Dunne, 2002 ; Kristjánsson, 2021 ). Generally, the essence of moral education is the process by which educators transform certain social thoughts and virtue ethics concepts into the individual thoughts and morals of educatees with certain educational means in social activities and exchanges (Solomon et al., 2001 ). Thus, moral education is mainly the process of moral social inheritance or transmission.

Different from disciplinary education, the value of moral education in practice has been controversial (Peters, 2015 ). Some scholars have questioned the necessity for schools to provide moral education (Stanley, 2003 , 2004 ; Motos, 2010 ); however, more scholars have agreed that schools should supply systematic moral education and have provided corresponding bases for doing so (Hoekema, 2010 ; Wong, 2020 ; Sison and Redín, 2022 ). These scholars have considered that schools have the responsibility and obligation to help students contribute to society in ways that are not limited to the value of social production but that also consider the prosocial value of promoting social goodness from the moral perspective (Hoekema, 2010 ). Meanwhile Sison and Redín ( 2022 ), based on MacIntyre's moral education principle, emphasized the importance of moral education in educational institutions, as an “intrinsic value of an educational institution that instills virtues … [schools should] provide ethical training on par with scientific-objective and technical training” (Sison and Redín, 2022 ; p. 13). Undoubtedly, these disputes have deepened the value and connotation of moral education and have established a close connection between moral education and other disciplines (e.g., business education), which efforts have increased the value placed upon moral education by scholars (Lee, 2022 ). At the same time, the in-depth thinking and scholarly refutation has vigorously promoted moral education studies, transforming the discussion from the necessity of moral education to its contents and purpose.

The battle has been long and arduous for moral education to play an important role in public schools. However, thanks to the efforts of scholars, moral education has become an indispensable part of school education (Leihy and Salazar, 2016 ). Nevertheless, disputes remain on how to implement moral education as well as on its connotation and value (Wong, 2020 ; Lee, 2022 ). The differences remain unclear in the moral educational issues in terms of cultural environments and social backgrounds, and systematic and comprehensive quantitative reviews and analyses are lacking in the moral education literature. Therefore, this paper aims to apply the method of a literature review to systematically organize and further analyze the research on moral education in K−12 and higher educational systems after a comparison and an identification, mainly focusing on the following points:

We conduct a systematic performance analysis of the research topics on moral education; know the authors, organizations, and countries with high productivity in the field of moral education; and thoroughly uncover the main journals and highly cited studies in this field.
We reveal the core issues and research status in the field of moral education through a cluster analysis and summarize the research results.
We provide theoretical and practical support for the subsequent academic research and practice of moral education using evolutionary and keyword-burst analyses to delineate the evolutionary trend of the field.

2. Literature review

Morality can be traced to the origin of human language. In exploring the origin of morality, Tappan ( 1997 ) proposed that morality, as a high-level psychological function, was mediated/regulated by the forms of words, language, and discourse. Per Tappan, as language is a remarkable social medium, the process of social communication and social relations inevitably produce moral function. Tappan also argues that because words, language, and discourse forms are essentially social and cultural phenomena, moral development has always been affected by the specific social, cultural, and historical background in which it occurs.

Morality, as a uniquely human higher mental function, has long been noticed by scholars. In ancient Greece, Socrates incorporated the study of moral ethics into the philosophical system and created his own “philosophy of ethics.” Aristotle further wrote Nicomachean Ethics , which describes the qualities of an ideal or perfect human being: courage, temperance, generosity and magnificence, and possessing a great soul (Ameriks and Clarke, 2000 ). Aristotle provided the most basic definition of virtue ethics, which is considered the systematic origin of virtue ethics (Ferrero and Sison, 2014 ). The morality research has been continuous as human civilized has evolved. For example, Aquinas in the Middle Ages and Machiavelli in the Renaissance built ethical discourse systems (McInerny, 1997 ; Bielskis, 2011 ). However, due to social and historical limitations, the past research on morality has mostly relied on experience, and scholars have mostly discussed morality from the theoretical or philosophical level. Not until the psychologist Wundt established the first psychology laboratory (in 1879) did scholars begin to use modern scientific research methods to discuss morality. Soon thereafter, the research on moral education reached a development peak.

Piaget ( 1932 ) put forward Piaget's Theory of Moral Development based on his observation on children's play, initiating the scientific and systematic research on moral education (Peters, 2015 ). Based on Piaget's research, as well as that of Dewey ( 1959 ) and others, Kohlberg ( 1969 , 1973 ) proposed a more valuable moral theory, namely, that of moral cognitive development, which was later revised and improved. The theory of moral cognitive development states that moral education is intended to help young people learn to justify moral claims correctly and rationally and to develop logical strategies to draw correct inferences from such claims when dealing with moral dilemmas (Kohlberg, 1981 ). Kohlberg's theory attracted great attention in sociology and psychology, and it aroused intense discussion (Mischel, 1971 ; Lickona, 1976 ). Kohlberg's theory was partially overturned in subsequent empirical studies (Kuhn, 1976 ). Nevertheless, as the first systematic and complete theory of moral cognitive development, Kohlberg's theory of moral cognitive development has made an indelible contribution in promoting people's cognition of morality and has successfully caused many scholars to focus on moral education.

The value of Kohlberg's theory of moral cognitive development rested not only in the theory but also in his research method, which provided a perspective for an in-depth understanding of the development of moral thinking. However, because the research design was not entirely rigorous, for example, the subjects used were all male (Aron, 1977 ), the theory also received some criticism and spawned further studies (Gilligan and Attanucci, 1988 ; Rest et al., 1997 ), causing the research on moral development to present a diversified development trend.

The criticism of Kohlberg's moral theory and its development were accompanied by the beginning of the theories of constructivism and humanism. Humanistic theory, in particular, positively affirmed humanity and considered that human nature is kind, rational, positive, and trustworthy. The theory proposes that moral education is required because human environment after birth has many bad factors that hinder the development of human nature's innate potential. However, the basis of moral education is rational, positive, and active humanity, a theory upon which many Chinese and Western scholars have reached an agreement (Slote, 2016 ).

Societal development and changing times have endowed the moral education research with new elements. In the 1980s, a systematic moral education curriculum system emerged in many region's schools (Cheung and Lee, 2010 ). However, the initial practice of moral education was a process of exploration, and the development process was accompanied by many frustrations. For example, in the late 20 th century, many scholars criticized the excessive emphasis placed on moral skills in the process of traditional moral education (Doyle, 1997 ; Lickona, 1999 ). These scholars put forward a new concept of character education to emphasize the specific content (a set of specific values) behind morality: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, honesty, justice, and fairness (Berreth and Berman, 1997 ; Fenstermacher, 2001 ).

Since the 21 st century, the frequent contact among different cultural groups has added a multicultural perspective to moral education. Some scholars have noted that the main goal of moral education is to achieve equality between different groups and allow them to maintain contact with the overall culture of society (Ranson, 2000 ). Therefore, moral education practitioners should teach students communication skills. Some scholars have also noted and emphasized that moral education should create channels for learners to understand society's diversity (Banks et al., 2001 ). That is, moral education should cultivate learners with a broad cultural vision and cultural inclusiveness (Santas, 2000 ). This suggestion means that the historical and cultural perspectives of different social groups should be included in the moral education curriculum (Kumashiro, 2000 ).

Meanwhile, as the concept of a postmodern society spreads, moral education development has transformed from a discipline that emphasizes the standardization and objectivity of rationality and science to one that pays attention to educational value, diversity, and context (Sarid, 2012 ). In this process, the moral education research method, contents, and objects have undergone profound changes. For example, the speculative reasoning research has gradually been replaced by the empirical situation research, and moral education has begun to emphasize the emotional commitment and developmental reflection made by individuals in the growth process (Wardekker, 2004 ). Civic and value education have been gradually incorporated into the category of moral education and have become an indispensable part of it (Schuitema et al., 2008 ). Finally, the research objects have gradually expanded from learners to practitioners of moral education and school administrators (Reiman and Dotger, 2008 ). Meanwhile, diversified education has put forward some new standards for moral education. For example, moral education should pay more attention to learners' personality factors than to disciplinary education, including social identity factors consisting of race, gender, and class and personality factors such as character and temperament (Schuitema et al., 2008 ). Therefore, the mission of moral education has gradually come to include social identity construction.

The discipline systematization of moral education is also an overall trend of the development of moral education (Zhang et al., 2022 ). Increasingly, scholars have begun to discuss subject-specialization for moral education and standardizing the curriculum design (Bleazby, 2020 ). In addition, the school ages and stages related to moral education have also been expanded. Some scholars have proposed that the cognition of moral education should not be limited to the moral training received at school, and moral education should become a part of the lifelong learning process (Higgins-D'Alessandro, 2011 ; Wong, 2020 ).

The rapid development of postmodern technology has expanded the new dimension of moral education, such as defining the moral norm in the environment of mass media and networking (Internet) and how to implement the corresponding moral education (Wanxue and Hanwei, 2004 ; Li et al., 2017 ; Chang et al., 2018 ). Technology is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the openness, anonymity, and interactivity of the Internet are challenging the traditional moral concept, especially the college students who are widely exposed to online we-media are faced with largescale moral anomia (Li et al., 2017 ; Shao and Wang, 2017 ). On the other hand, based on the application of human-computer interactions and virtual reality scenes, artificial intelligence can achieve a more realistic situational experience of moral education. Regarding the hidden concern that artificial intelligence might replace teachers in moral education, current scholars have a relatively consistent view that human teachers in moral education will be irreplaceable for a long time (Tan, 2020 ).

Summarizing the current research on moral education, its purpose in schools is to prepare students to participate in society (Schuitema et al., 2008 ), but this purpose is not isolated. Instead, it can be divided into two supportive aspects: firstly, its aim is to serve students' individual development to guide students to adulthood where they can produce their own social identity; secondly, moral education hopes to promote the rational, orderly development of society by cultivating students' prosocial behaviors, as viewed from the social development perspective. These two aspects of moral education reflect two perspectives on it (personal and social). In fact, these two perspectives complement each other and together constitute the profound connotation of moral education. These underlying connotations do not change dramatically over time, showing that morality is uniquely stable in the tide of diversification and modernization. However, the multiple dimensions of culture and the rapid development of technology continually call into question the implementation and practice of moral education. In response, we must deeply examine this era and learn the development course and the current discipline structure of moral education.

3. Methods and materials

3.1. research method.

To understand the research agenda of moral education systematically, objectively, and comprehensively from a global perspective, this paper adopted a bibliometrics approach for the analysis. Bibliometrics is a measurement method used to describe and analyze the dynamics and progress of a discipline or research field. Since 1969, when British scholar Pritchard put forward “bibliometrics,” as an independent discipline, it has become prominent in scientific quantitative research. Meanwhile, benefiting from the recent developments in computer science and technology, econometric analyses combined with visual analyses have become a new trend in this research field. Econometric analytical results can be displayed in simple and clear knowledge graphs, thus achieving the goal of “one picture is worth ten thousand words” (Merigó et al., 2015 ).

In this paper, CiteSpace 6.1.R3 (developed by Chen C. at Drexel University), VOSviewer 1.6.17 (developed by Van Eck and Waltman at the Center for Science and Technology Studies) and SCImago Graphica 1.0.24 (developed by Scimago Lab in Spain) were used to draw knowledge graphs. Each software package has its own advantages, and together they can play complementary roles. CiteSpace adopts the data standardization method based on set theory to measure the similarity of knowledge units. By drawing a Timezone view, CiteSpace can clearly outline the evolutionary process of research hot spots in the temporal dimension, thus presenting the development process and trend of this field (Wang et al., 2022 ). VOSviewer adopts the data-standardization method based on probability theory and provides a variety of visual presentations of keywords, co-organizations, co-authors, etc. With simple drawings and elaborate images, at present, it has increasingly attracted scholars' attention in the visualization field of bibliometrics (Pan et al., 2018 ). SCImago Graphica, on the other hand, can use table data in various formats exported from CiteSpace and VOSviewer for redrawing to supplement the mapping.

3.2. Initial literature search

In the initial literature search of this paper, the Web of Science core collection was mainly used. This was because many review studies have posited that the literature quality of the data source is crucial to the reliability and persuasiveness of the review study (Hwang and Tsai, 2011 ; Hsu et al., 2012 ). As a high-quality digital literature resource database, the Web of Science core collection has been accepted by many researchers (Ding and Yang, 2022 ). Within this collection, the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) is the most well-known journal index in the field of social sciences (Yadegaridehkordi et al., 2019 ). Taken together, these methods guarantee the quality of the literature used in this paper.

Literature retrieval is also an important link to ensure research quality. Since some scholars (Ferrero and Sison, 2014 ) have tried to review virtue ethics in business by means of quantitative reviews, this paper follows the model of Ferrero and Sison ( 2014 ) in the literature retrieval.

When setting the retrieval strategy, only the advanced retrieval function of Web of Science core collection is used in this paper. The input was the searchable TS = (“moral education” OR “moral instruction”), and Topics (TS) was used as the Field Tag to implement searchable matching in the title, abstract, and other informational elements of the literature. Such a search strategy can retrieve the literature related to moral education as comprehensively as possible. At the same time, to ensure sufficient data to analyze the development trend of the research topics on moral education, the selected literature search period was January 2000 to September 2022, and the literature types Article and Review were selected. The retrieval-based search resulted in 842 articles, the specific information for which is shown in Table 1 .

Summary of data source and selection.

3.3. Literature screening

The literature obtained was often mixed with some irrelevant results (e.g., literature taking moral education as a research background but analyzing other research contents). Therefore, to ensure that the literature included in the analysis was closely related to the relevant topics, software was required to remove and manually screen the literature included in the analysis after the initial literature search. Doing so prevents the analytical results from suffering due to data quality problems (Chen et al., 2022 ).

The “remove duplicate” function of CiteSpace software was used to discard two duplicates and proceed to the manual screening. To ensure a scientific and reliable screening process, this paper refers to the literature screening criteria proposed by Su et al. ( 2019 ). Before screening, the three team members consulted with moral education scholars to determine the inclusion and exclusion criteria. This standard was mainly to review the core research contents and themes, to identify the primary focuses in the research related to moral education in K−12 and higher education (such as the implementation path of moral education, the influence factors of the moral education effect, etc.), and to exclude some articles whose research subject was not moral education or whose research field was not within the scope of K−12 and higher education.

After determining the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the three team members independently reviewed each article according to the criteria. In the case of controversial articles, discussions and votes were held to decide whether to exclude them.

After this systematic screening process, 342 articles were deleted as they did not meet the requirements of this study, and 497 articles were ultimately retained for further analyses. VOSviewer was used to collect basic statistical information on the selected literature. These 497 articles originated from 426 organizations in 49 countries, had 759 authors, were published in 132 journals, and cited 16,815 references from 10,648 journals.

4. Performance analysis: Productivity and impact

4.1. publication time trend.

To understand a research field, it is necessary to first understand the most basic quantitative information, among which, the change in the annual publication number can best reflect the development trend of a research field. Figure 1 shows the temporal distribution of papers published in the moral education research. Overall, the publication number in this field is still increasing although fluctuating and not obvious. In 2000, the number of published articles reached 17, indicating that the moral education research has been active for a long time, rather than being a new topic. Additionally, in the past 5 years, the number of published articles was 20+, indicating that this topic has not declined gradually over time but has evolved continually as the classical scholars' thoughts and views are constantly reflected upon, reshaped and extended (Lewis, 2018 ; Hand, 2019 ), and the topic remains vital as an independent discipline.

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Time trend of the publications on moral education.

4.2. Authors

By analyzing the number of articles authors publish, we can learn the representative scholars and core research topics in the moral education research. This paper used Price's law to calculate the boundary between ordinary and core authors in this field:

where n max is the number of papers by the most productive authors in this field ( n max = 11 according to VOSviewer's statistical analysis), and m is the minimum number of papers by the core authors, which can be calculated as m ≈ 2.5. Therefore, authors with ≥3 papers were identified as the core authors in this field (Price, 1963 ), and there were 20 core authors. Table 2 presents the relevant information on the core authors in this field, including their names, the number of published articles, and the citation number per article.

Core authors in the moral education research field.

Table 2 shows that Han is the most productive author in this field. He has published 11 papers in the past 20 years. Han and his research team have mainly focused on moral exemplars in moral education (Han et al., 2022 ). The moral exemplars in teaching materials and voluntary service have been deeply studied (Han et al., 2017 , 2018b ). Moreover, Han is a pioneer in advocating technology-enabled moral education. Several of his studies have used Bayesian models to predict the relationship between moral foundations and the development of moral judgments (Han et al., 2018a ; Han and Dawson, 2022 ). Kristjánsson's scientific productivity in the field of moral education is second only to Han's. Kristjánsson is a classical scholar who paid great attention to Aristotle's thought. Many of Kristjánsson's studies have focused on the value of Aristotle's thought in contemporary moral education (Kristjánsson, 2014 , 2020 ), proposing that the wisdom of classical philosophers should not be ignored in contemporary moral education, and implementing a practical and critical inheritance of Aristotle's philosophical thought (Kristjánsson, 2013 ). Kristjánsson is also the editor-in-chief of the core journal, Journal of Moral Education , in this field (Kristjánsson, 2021 ).

4.3. Journals

Journals are the main carriers of literature. This paper performs statistical analyses of the journals that publish moral education research ( Table 3 shows the top-10 core journals in terms of published article volume). The results show that most of the research results in this field were published in the Journal of Moral Education (198, accounting for 39.76% of the total), while the second-ranked journal published only 34 research papers on moral education (approximately 6.83% of the total). Regarding the distribution of the published article volume, the Matthew effect was significant because moral education is highly focused and independent. In addition to the Journal of Moral Education , a journal closely related to moral education, other journals that focus on moral education are mostly related to educational philosophy (such as the Journal of Philosophy of Education, Educational Philosophy and Theory , and Studies in Philosophy and Education ). This finding shows the close relations among moral education, educational philosophy, and virtue ethics. In addition, from the perspective of the average citation frequency, Teaching and Teacher Education had a high citation frequency (31.67 times on average), indicating that teacher education is highly relevant to the moral education research (Xiaoman and Cilin, 2004 ).

Top 10 journals in the moral education research field.

4.4. Countries and organizations

An analysis of the countries in which the research was published can reveal the countries and research organizations with high productivity in this field. To have a clear understanding of the number of publications and cooperation situation between different countries, this paper used a chordal graph for elaboration. Chordal graphs are mainly composed of nodes and chords. Nodes represent the number of certain country's published articles and are arranged along the circumference and in a radial series. The node colors represents the cooperation intensity with other countries, and colors closer to red indicate greater more cooperation with other countries. An arc with a weight (and a width) connecting any two nodes is called a chord, which represents the between-country cooperation. The resulting chord graph of the intercountry number of publications and the cooperation network is shown in Figure 2 .

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Chord graph of inter-country number of papers and cooperation.

Figure 2 shows that the main countries with large publication numbers and intercountry cooperation in this field are the USA, the United Kingdom, China and the Netherlands. These four countries not only publish a large number of articles but also cooperate closely. They have close international academic exchanges and a high degree of internationalization in the moral education academic research. Table 4 gives more specific quantitative information for the top-10 countries in terms of publication number. Except for China, the remaining 9 countries are all developed countries, indicating that moral education is an issue that many scholars pay attention to only after a society develops to a certain degree and has a certain economic foundation.

Top 10 countries in the moral education research field.

A further analysis was made of the issuing organizations. Table 5 shows the top-10 organizations in terms of publication number and their related quantitative information. Among these organizations, most (up to 5) are from the United Kingdom, among which the University of Birmingham is the most productive organization, with 17 published articles, making it the primary academic force in the moral education research. Most of this organization's articles were published between 2014 and 2020 and focused on philosophical discussions of moral education, many of which tried to relate the thoughts of ancient Greek philosophers and use them as guidance to carry out moral practice (Carr, 2014 ; Jordan and Kristjánsson, 2017 ). Stanford University, located in the USA, has both a high publication and a high citation number (35 times on average), mainly due to Noddings ( 2010 ), Han et al. ( 2017 , 2018a , b , 2022 ), and Han and Dawson ( 2022 ).

Top 10 organizations in the moral education research field.

4.5. Articles

Highly cited articles can often reveal the key issues and core points of differentiation and analysis in a research field. The highly cited articles in the moral education are shown in Table 6 . The most frequently cited study from 2000 to 2022 was Villenas ( 2001 ), a qualitative study on family moral education that analyzed the key role of mothers in family moral education from the perspective of feminism and antiracism through interviews with many Latino mothers. The second most frequently cited was a speculative study by Halstead ( 2004 ), which systematically analyzed moral education in Islam from its basic philosophical issues. A review of the highly cited articles further reveals that moral education is a very broad topic. These highly cited articles cover many aspects of moral education, such as teacher (Sanger and Osguthorpe, 2011 ), ethics (Woods, 2005 ), and value education (Thornberg, 2008 ). Other scholars have systematically discussed how moral education balances the threats and sense of alienation created by technological development (Persson and Savulescu, 2013 ). Moral education is thus not only related to the words and deeds of each individual but also closely related to social groups. Meanwhile, to present the articles in the moral education research more comprehensively and three-dimensionally, this paper identified the remaining 90 among the 100 articles with the highest citation frequency from 2000-2022 (see Appendix 1 for details).

Most cited articles between 2000 and 2022.

5. Keywords analysis: Cluster, evolution, and burst

5.1. keyword co-occurrence analysis.

Keywords condense an article's core and essence. Research hot spots in a certain field can be found through keyword co-occurrence analyses, so keywords have been widely used to reveal the knowledge structure of the research field (Chen and Xiao, 2016 ). In this paper, VOSviewer was used to visualize high-frequency keywords and display those with frequencies > 5. The results are shown in Figure 3 . In the keyword co-occurrence knowledge graph, the node sizes reflect the keyword frequency: larger nodes indicate that the keywords appeared more frequently. The node colors represent different clusters, namely, the research topics. The lines between the nodes represent the strength of association: thicker lines indicate that the keywords appear more frequently together in the same article.

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Co-occurrence of keywords.

As can be seen from Figure 3 , the moral education research has three main clusters. To learn the research details of the focus within each cluster, the following 3 clusters are analyzed individually.

In the blue cluster, the research studies moral education from the psychological perspective. Many studies have focused on the effect of moral exemplars (Han et al., 2017 , 2018b ). Studies have also examined how the psychological levels are associated with moral development, including self-preservation (Dahlbeck, 2017 ), self-doubt (Verducci, 2014 ), and self-cultivation or self-shaping. Such studies explain the value of morality and moral education from the perspective of psychology. Other psychological studies have measured the motivational strength of moral behavior by the scientific measurement method (Bock et al., 2021 ). Some studies have also analyzed the kind of moral education that should be given from the perspectives of belief and religion (Lin and Lu, 2020 ). In addition, virtue ethics is a focal point covered by this cluster and has attracted much attention in the field of moral education. Virtue ethics has been deeply discussed by many scholars; for example, advocates of virtue ethics have launched a heated debate on whether a shared public moral education system is possible (Katayama, 2003 ).

Research in the green cluster focuses on the more specific critical thinking and practical research on moral education. As a discipline derived from educational philosophy, many studies on moral education still follow the discourses and speculative research methods used in the philosophical research (Nakazawa, 2018 ), for example, by comparing the thinking and practical models of scholars such as Kant, Aristotle and Mill and by discussing their contributions to moral education (Surprenant, 2010 ). Cross-cultural comparative analyses and speculative studies are also an important component of this cluster and have become an important model for the creation of new thoughts on moral education. Some scholars, after learning the shortcomings of Western educational philosophers' thoughts, began to promote the Oriental Confucian view of moral education (Sin, 2022 ). Some scholars have tried to explain whether the effect of moral education was internally or externally driven by comparing the thoughts of famous thinkers in the field of moral education between China and the West (Slote, 2016 ). In addition to the speculative research, which is more profound, many comparative empirical studies in this cluster have focused on moral practice (Chi-Hou, 2004 ; Cheung and Lee, 2010 ; Ronkainen et al., 2021 ). For example, Asif et al. ( 2020 ) compared the differences in the training objectives of moral education between Chinese and Pakistani teachers by combining qualitative and quantitative research methods. The teachers in Pakistan considered the sovereignty of sacred laws, loyalty to the country's constitution, and a sense of service to society as the ultimate goals of a moral education. Meanwhile, the Chinese teachers promoted a political ideology that stressed collectivism in a socialist approach, with family and social values being the most relevant. As moral education is a research topic involving social culture, historical background, and temporal characteristics, discussions on its object and implementation method are quite complicated. The research in the green cluster tries to reveal the complex relationships from more abstract ideological discussions and a more concrete empirical analysis to delineate the big picture of the moral education research.

The research in the red cluster mainly studies civic education, which is a very important subtopic in moral education. Although some scholars have proposed that moral education should be distinguished from civic education (Cantero, 2008 ), many scholars have reached a consensus on this issue at present. Civic education is believed to be a research topic under the general concept of moral education (Schuitema et al., 2008 ). This status is because the essence of moral education on the social level is to promote the orderly and rational development of society by cultivating students' prosocial behaviors. Therefore, all democratic societies should pay attention to citizen socialization, that is, for everyone in a democratic society to know their citizenship status. Moral education plays an important role in this process (Althof and Berkowitz, 2006 ). Obviously, the social meaning of moral education is highly consistent with civic education. However, the use of civic education to replace moral education is not comprehensive, and some scholars have noted problems in talking about moral education only from the social level. In a democratic society, it is necessary to constantly weigh the balance between the advantages and disadvantages of public rights and private rights, requiring teachers engaged in the work of moral education teach social expectations for qualified citizens on the one hand, and citizens develop the self-awareness and moral awareness, on the other hand (Bernal Guerrero et al., 2019 ).

The cluster analysis of moral education shows that the main research schools at present are moral psychology, moral education philosophy, and civic education. However, a careful examination of the moral bases followed by these schools shows that they cannot be separated from Aristotle's framework of moral virtues. The moral psychology schools are mostly based on the virtue theory of positive psychology (Seroczynski, 2015 ). The moral education philosophy schools are also based on the derivation of Aristotelian concepts such as morality and virtue (Surprenant, 2010 ). Civic education regards the establishment of certain sociopolitical mechanisms as a prerequisite for maintaining moral education (Carr, 2006 ; Kristjánsson, 2014 ), which also coincides with some ideas discussed by Aristotle. Therefore, a consistent tradition and inspiration in the moral-related and moral education research for many years has been the inspiration taken from the ancient philosopher Aristotle's thought. It acts much like a towering tree: many research schools have undergone steady development and growth but remain firmly rooted in the thought foundation of ancient philosophers.

This cluster analysis of moral education also shows that it is a complex multidimensional and interdisciplinary topic, involving pedagogy, psychology, sociology, philosophy, and other fields (Chi-Kin Lee et al., 2021 ). People from different disciplines have different opinions on moral education (Alvey, 2001 ). Each disciplinary perspective provides an indispensable piece of the jigsaw puzzle that is the overall picture of moral education. In addition, the cluster research demonstrates a typical characteristic of the moral education research—the emphasis placed on theoretical research and analysis—which is due to the subject's particularity. Until the present, mainly educational philosophers have made profound analyses of moral education, and educational philosophers have often chosen to develop the field of moral education by argumentation (Lewis, 2018 ). Regarding the discipline's development, the emergence and initial development of any discipline depends on high-quality argumentation to realize the conceptualization and categorization of the discipline's terms, and the same is true of moral education. These wonderful arguments are difficult to reflect in this paper in terms of a simple and concise conclusion, but they are the objects worthy of appreciation. Therefore, the cluster analysis presents only the overall style of moral education, and the brilliant internal testimony and argumentation among scholars requires readers to examine the classical literature carefully. Moreover, the cluster research also finds that under the influence of positivism, all kinds of empirical studies in moral education have increased in recent years, and the use of qualitative and quantitative analytical technology has enriched the research model of this issue. Undoubtedly, the introduction of the empirical paradigm endows this topic with scientific nature, extends the scope of the moral education research, and expands the value of moral education as a separate discipline.

5.2. Keyword evolutionary analysis

Keyword co-occurrence analyses can reveal the hot spots and focal points of research fields, thus showing the structural characteristics of moral education issues and the development process of the research field. In this paper, CiteSpace was used to conduct an evolutionary analysis and delineate the view of keyword time zones (see Figure 4 ). In Figure 4 , each background bar in the time zone diagram represents a year, the keyword size represents the keyword frequency, and the line represents the keyword co-occurrence relationship.

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Time zone diagram of evolution of keywords in moral education research (keywords with frequency >5).

Figure 4 shows that the high-frequency keywords essentially appeared before 2010, and only 4 keywords with frequencies > 5 appeared after 2015. This result indicates that the concept development of moral education has entered a relatively stable stage in recent years, and the discipline structure tends to be perfect. Therefore, the evolutionary analysis should focus on the development of and change in keywords from 2000 to 2010.

At the beginning of the 21 st century, the subdomain of moral education, including topics such as its teachers and mission (Fallona, 2000 ; Wardekker, 2001 ; Husu and Tirri, 2003 ), was widely studied. In addition, some research topics, such as democracy and citizenship, were more specific and reflected scholars' expectations about moral education's goals, including understanding and recognizing obligations and responsibilities in a democratic society, seeking equality in human rights, and understanding the connotation of citizenship (Brabeck and Rogers, 2000 ). The keywords “children” and “adolescent” reveal the main groups with which moral education was concerned at that time (Kuther and Higgins-D'Alessandro, 2000 ). This focus is different from the view that “moral education is an integral part of lifelong education,” held by some scholars in recent years (Wong, 2020 ). This difference shows that the generalization in moral education's object has been a major trend in the past 20 years. At the same time, moral education in the early 21 st century was more about the value and benefit of the individual educatee (Wardekker, 2001 ). Some studies paid attention to the value of moral education in improving adolescent self-esteem (Covell and Howe, 2001 ). However, the research at that time paid less attention to the larger social benefit of moral education. To some extent, this absence affected the construction of moral education's goal, making it slightly one-sided and narrow.

Meanwhile, the wide opportunities for moral education in schools at all levels has triggered scholars' systematic research on moral education at the instructional design level (Jie and Desheng, 2004 ). During this period, the curriculum and teaching theory system have been constructed belonging exclusively to moral education (Tai Wei and Lee Chin, 2004 ). At this time, the curriculum orientation of moral education was based on the pursuit of personal wellbeing and citizens' moral qualities (Lee and Ho, 2005 ). Many studies have attempted to guide the development of the moral education curriculum based on previous theoretical studies (Jie and Desheng, 2004 ; Richmond and Cummings, 2004 ). The reform of the moral education curriculum has become a new hot spot, as reflected in “curriculum” and other keywords in Figure 4 . At this time, under the guidance of Chinese government policies, Chinese scholars' research has become the forefront of curriculum theory in moral education, and has put forward much practical guidance for the curriculum system design of moral education (Chi-Hou, 2004 ; Wansheng and Wujie, 2004 ; Lee and Ho, 2005 ; Cheung, 2007 ).

Between 2008 and 2012, moral, value, character, and civic/citizenship education have significantly and increasingly diverged, becoming emerging hot spots for scholars (Gilead, 2011 ). Civic education particularly compensates for the drawbacks of the past moral education that focused too much on individual values, and it emphasizes the social benefits of individual identification with citizenship (Schuitema et al., 2008 ). In contrast, value education, in its emphasis on the construction of learners' values, together with moral education, involves the specific connotation of moral education at the individual level (Marshall et al., 2011 ; Pantić and Wubbels, 2012 ). As moral education continues to differentiate, concrete research has begun to increase, since the detailed issues require the support of the micro-empirical research. Although the abstract and philosophical speculation and argument remained the mainstream research trend, they were no longer in a monopolistic position.

The empirical paradigm and hybrid research methods widely used in discipline education and higher education have also been used by the moral education researchers (Dahlin, 2010 ). This fact has become a turning point that cannot be ignored in the process of promoting moral education's development.

Overall, moral education since 2012 has essentially continued its past development trend, with few typical signs of discipline development and evolution. Although the outbreak of COVID-19 has reshaped the model of contemporary education, it seems to have had little impact on moral education at the academic research level. Until now, no scholars have systematically discussed the impact of COVID-19 on moral education. This is a blank area that the current research on moral education needs to pay attention to, because there is no doubt that the great changes in society will bring multidimensional challenge to moral education and promote its deeper reflection and development.

Moreover, the current development and evolutionary situation of moral education have also attracted scholarly attention. Krettenauer ( 2021 ) noted that in the social sciences and related fields, the morality research increased exponentially in the past 15 to 20 years, but the moral education research had not seen a corresponding upsurge. However, unfortunately, Krettenauer ( 2021 ) also failed to reveal the mechanism behind the phenomenon, and therefore failed to make constructive suggestions to resolve it. Perhaps this is also a specific research direction under the larger topic of moral education that still has present research value and requires further scholarly exploration.

5.3. Keyword-burst analysis

Keyword emergence and transformation can partially reflect the hot spot changes in the research field. Although the moral education development in the past decade has not produced many emerging elements, the change and transition of research hot spots still occurred in a specific period. Therefore, this paper utilizes the CiteSpace function of Burst detection to detect the top-10 keyword bursts (as shown in Figure 5 ) to systematically show the changes in this research topic.

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Top 10 keywords with the strongest citation bursts.

Figure 5 shows that, at the beginning of the 21 3 century, few research hot spots had high intensity, and the research focus was mainly on teacher education. This subtopic is explained in detail in the Keyword Evolutionary Analysis (see Subsection 5.2). Beginning in 2016, the field's research hot spots in the field of moral education frequently changed, and Figure 5 shows that many keyword bursts with profound connotations emerged from 2016 to 2019. For example, from 2017 to 2019, many scholars began to pay attention to the role of moral exemplars in moral education (Hamilton and LaVoi, 2017 ; Han et al., 2017 , 2018b ; Engelen et al., 2018 ; Nielsen, 2019 ; Tachibana, 2019 ). Character education and virtue also became the research hot spots of moral education between 2018 and 2022 (Bernal Guerrero et al., 2019 ; Chi-Kin Lee et al., 2021 ). These keywords formed a new trend that promoted the development of moral education in a deeper and more detailed direction. Research on moral education and virtue is often closely related to virtue ethics and character development, inspired by Aristotle. Therefore, the emergence of these hot spots reflects scholarly interest in the origin of morality study. Hence, Darnell et al. ( 2019 ) suggested the necessity to take seriously the increasing interest in Aristotle-inspired virtue ethics and character development within the social sciences.

In addition, phronesis is an ancient concept developed by Aristotle, and much of its discussion takes place in the sixth volume of his work, Nicomachean Ethics . Its intuitive meaning is practical wisdom, but understanding its meaning first requires a deep understanding of Aristotle's philosophy. Aristotle believed that human beings had both rational and irrational sides, and to have phronesis required adjusting or tailoring the irrational side of human beings to make them more rational (Darnell et al., 2019 ; Osman, 2019 ). Thus, phronesis should be distinguished from mere clever-ness. Darnell et al. ( 2019 ) noted that Aristotle's description of phronesis implied elements of the category of natural virtues such as honesty, kindness, consideration, and compassion and was similar to the neo-Kohlbergian concept of “moral judgment”, that is, the ability to weigh or adjudicate the relative priority of virtues in complex, problematic situations.

The keyword-burst analysis identified a significant revival of Aristotle's philosophy of moral education. This result confirms the present value of classical moral philosophy, in sharp contrast with the decline of Kohlberg's moral education paradigm (Kristjánsson, 2017 ). This contrast is a problem worth the pondering of all moral education scholars. In the past two decades of the moral education research, few research paradigms have been introduced that appear universal and in line with the needs of the times. The philosophical discussions of and theoretical research on moral education have fallen into a strange circle, as Kristjánsson wrote in a 2021 editorial. Apparently, no major, new academic trends have emerged—like Athena from the forehead of Zeus—in the past 3 years. Despite this fact, Kristjánsson ( 2021 ) remained hopeful about the future, waiting for the owl of Minerva to take her flight at dusk.

6. Conclusions, limitations, and future research implications

6.1. conclusions.

Based on a careful review of and reflection upon the research field of moral education, this paper reorganizes the theoretical connotation of moral education under the framework of virtue ethics. The reasoning follows the value judgment of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics that virtue is a kind of good quality based on acts and habits, and that it is distinguished from intellectual virtue (Ameriks and Clarke, 2000 ). Therefore, moral education uses various forms and systematic teaching designs (such as the establishment of moral models) to help form, cultivate, and maintain this kind of good quality through certain practices and guidance.

The evolution of any research field, including moral education, is a dynamic development process. Therefore, it is necessary to recognize, explain and analyze it from a dynamic perspective to understand the reasons for its evolution. Through a keyword performance analysis and a relevant keyword visual analysis, the following conclusions are obtained in this paper:

This paper systematically analyzes the scientific productivity of authors, organizations, and countries. The highly productive authors include Han and Kristjánsson, and the highly productive organizations include the University of Birmingham and Stanford University. This paper also shows the top-four countries with the largest published article volume and with close cooperation in this field (i.e., USA, United Kingdom, China, and the Netherlands), and summarizes and comments on their research focuses.
This paper also pays attention to the core journals (e.g., Journal of Moral Education etc.) and highly cited articles in the field. Additionally, it examines the scope of moral education at the academic level through the discipline categories to which the core journals belong and the key elements of the differentiation and analysis of highly cited articles. Finally, it analyzes the discipline categories related to moral education.
Through a cluster analysis, this paper outlines the macro-disciplinary structure of the moral education research topics, identifies the schools represented by the three clusters and their specific subject concerns, and presents different prospects for moral education as an interdisciplinary topic in various disciplines.
An evolutionary analysis presents the development trend of moral education over the past 20+ years. Combined with the keyword-burst analysis, this paper finds that the discipline structure has tended to be stable in the past 10 years. The classical philosophical trend represented by Aristotle has reemerged as a hot topic in the study of moral education in recent years, but the decline of some classic research paradigms has caused the discipline's development to enter a slow period.

A comprehensive review of moral education can reveal the problems existing in the current development and the direction that scholars in this field should actively explore. Firstly, the biggest gap in the current moral education research is the lack of a systematic paradigm to guide the discipline's development and to standardize its construction of a system, which is consistent with Kristjánsson ( 2021 ) viewpoints. At present, moral education is in urgent need of a disciplinary paradigm that stands on a solid theoretical basis and can keep pace with the times. A reasonable paradigm is also key to solving the problem of the slow development and evolution of moral education that was criticized by Krettenauer ( 2021 ). Secondly, more education continues to have some unsolved cross-century problems, such as the question raised by MacIntyre: whether it is possible to build a common public moral education system in the current pluralistic society (MacIntyre, 1999 ). Such questions have not been unanimously recognized by the academic community after more than 20 years and are not rare (Kristjánsson, 2017 ). Lastly, the overall review of moral education reveals that the discipline system of moral education spans positive psychology, ethics, education, and other disciplines. However, the current research all falls under a certain discourse system that analyzes moral phenomena and problems. Meanwhile, few scholars are trying to break through the disciplinary barriers of moral education or are looking for consistency among the research elements involved in the different disciplines of moral education. Future studies could try to build the multi-disciplinary thematic imagery behind moral education and construct a discourse system of universal significance for it.

6.2. Limitations and future research

This paper has some limitations because of some objective factors. Firstly, the bibliometric analytical software has high data standards and specifications. Therefore, to ensure the quality and integrity of the collected data, only journal articles from the SSCI of the Web of Science core collection were selected, and indexes such as the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), Conference Proceedings Citation Index–Social Sciences & Humanities (CPCI-SSH) and Conference Proceedings Citation Index–Science (CPCI-S) were excluded to avoid excessive noise, which inevitably leads to the problem that the analytical data are not comprehensive. Secondly, quantitative analyses require data analyses and interpretation, which requires researchers to have a deep and comprehensive understanding of this field. Although we make efforts to overcome the adverse influence caused by personal subjective factors, some subjective color inevitably remains. To overcome these limitations, in a future study, we will expand the scope of the literature filtering, learn more widely the trends and hot topics of the moral education research, actively contact the field's scholars, and acquire objective and cutting-edge insights in the field. These efforts will greatly reduce the adverse impacts of personal subjectivity on the research and analyses.

As society dynamically evolves, technological changes will place new requirements on moral education, making it an enduring issue. This paper summarizes the main research themes of moral education research topics through systematic scientific research methods while reviewing the problems and current situation in this issue's development process. In addition, based on the research analysis, this paper puts forward some academic questions worthy of further analysis, such as why the rapid development of the moral research has failed to promote its prosperity and how to break through the strange circle of the fuzzy moral education research paradigm. Limited by its length, this paper also contains some content that has not yet been proven, including that the research methods commonly used in the field of moral education are neither classified nor quantified. Future research efforts should be made to extract quantitative information that is more comprehensive and to obtain conclusions that are more precise, which will provide interpretations that are more valuable on the development of the moral education research.

Data availability statement

Author contributions.

Conceptualization and writing—original draft preparation: JC and YL. Methodology: YL, JD, and CW. Software: CW and JD. Writing—review and editing: JC and JD. Visualization: YL and CW. Supervision, project administration, and funding acquisition: JC. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude to the reviewers and editor for their valuable suggestions, to College of Educational Science and Technology, Zhejiang University of Technology for the cultivation.

This research was funded by the Philosophy and Social Science Planning Project Fund Project of Zhejiang Province (Grant No. 17GXSZ19YB) and Teaching Reform Project of Zhejiang University of Technology (Grant No. JG2022064).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1079955/full#supplementary-material

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Societal Controversies, Critical Thinking, and Moral Education

Noddings, N., and Brooks, L. (2017). Teaching Controversial Issues: The Case for Critical Thinking and Moral Commitment in the Classroom. New York, London: Teachers College Press. ISBN 9780807774885, Pages: 192, Price: 34.95$ (Paperback)

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Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is a widely accepted educational goal. Its definition is contested, but the competing definitions can be understood as differing conceptions of the same basic concept: careful thinking directed to a goal. Conceptions differ with respect to the scope of such thinking, the type of goal, the criteria and norms for thinking carefully, and the thinking components on which they focus. Its adoption as an educational goal has been recommended on the basis of respect for students’ autonomy and preparing students for success in life and for democratic citizenship. “Critical thinkers” have the dispositions and abilities that lead them to think critically when appropriate. The abilities can be identified directly; the dispositions indirectly, by considering what factors contribute to or impede exercise of the abilities. Standardized tests have been developed to assess the degree to which a person possesses such dispositions and abilities. Educational intervention has been shown experimentally to improve them, particularly when it includes dialogue, anchored instruction, and mentoring. Controversies have arisen over the generalizability of critical thinking across domains, over alleged bias in critical thinking theories and instruction, and over the relationship of critical thinking to other types of thinking.

2.1 Dewey’s Three Main Examples

2.2 dewey’s other examples, 2.3 further examples, 2.4 non-examples, 3. the definition of critical thinking, 4. its value, 5. the process of thinking critically, 6. components of the process, 7. contributory dispositions and abilities, 8.1 initiating dispositions, 8.2 internal dispositions, 9. critical thinking abilities, 10. required knowledge, 11. educational methods, 12.1 the generalizability of critical thinking, 12.2 bias in critical thinking theory and pedagogy, 12.3 relationship of critical thinking to other types of thinking, other internet resources, related entries.

Use of the term ‘critical thinking’ to describe an educational goal goes back to the American philosopher John Dewey (1910), who more commonly called it ‘reflective thinking’. He defined it as

active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends. (Dewey 1910: 6; 1933: 9)

and identified a habit of such consideration with a scientific attitude of mind. His lengthy quotations of Francis Bacon, John Locke, and John Stuart Mill indicate that he was not the first person to propose development of a scientific attitude of mind as an educational goal.

In the 1930s, many of the schools that participated in the Eight-Year Study of the Progressive Education Association (Aikin 1942) adopted critical thinking as an educational goal, for whose achievement the study’s Evaluation Staff developed tests (Smith, Tyler, & Evaluation Staff 1942). Glaser (1941) showed experimentally that it was possible to improve the critical thinking of high school students. Bloom’s influential taxonomy of cognitive educational objectives (Bloom et al. 1956) incorporated critical thinking abilities. Ennis (1962) proposed 12 aspects of critical thinking as a basis for research on the teaching and evaluation of critical thinking ability.

Since 1980, an annual international conference in California on critical thinking and educational reform has attracted tens of thousands of educators from all levels of education and from many parts of the world. Also since 1980, the state university system in California has required all undergraduate students to take a critical thinking course. Since 1983, the Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking has sponsored sessions in conjunction with the divisional meetings of the American Philosophical Association (APA). In 1987, the APA’s Committee on Pre-College Philosophy commissioned a consensus statement on critical thinking for purposes of educational assessment and instruction (Facione 1990a). Researchers have developed standardized tests of critical thinking abilities and dispositions; for details, see the Supplement on Assessment . Educational jurisdictions around the world now include critical thinking in guidelines for curriculum and assessment.

For details on this history, see the Supplement on History .

2. Examples and Non-Examples

Before considering the definition of critical thinking, it will be helpful to have in mind some examples of critical thinking, as well as some examples of kinds of thinking that would apparently not count as critical thinking.

Dewey (1910: 68–71; 1933: 91–94) takes as paradigms of reflective thinking three class papers of students in which they describe their thinking. The examples range from the everyday to the scientific.

Transit : “The other day, when I was down town on 16th Street, a clock caught my eye. I saw that the hands pointed to 12:20. This suggested that I had an engagement at 124th Street, at one o’clock. I reasoned that as it had taken me an hour to come down on a surface car, I should probably be twenty minutes late if I returned the same way. I might save twenty minutes by a subway express. But was there a station near? If not, I might lose more than twenty minutes in looking for one. Then I thought of the elevated, and I saw there was such a line within two blocks. But where was the station? If it were several blocks above or below the street I was on, I should lose time instead of gaining it. My mind went back to the subway express as quicker than the elevated; furthermore, I remembered that it went nearer than the elevated to the part of 124th Street I wished to reach, so that time would be saved at the end of the journey. I concluded in favor of the subway, and reached my destination by one o’clock.” (Dewey 1910: 68–69; 1933: 91–92)

Ferryboat : “Projecting nearly horizontally from the upper deck of the ferryboat on which I daily cross the river is a long white pole, having a gilded ball at its tip. It suggested a flagpole when I first saw it; its color, shape, and gilded ball agreed with this idea, and these reasons seemed to justify me in this belief. But soon difficulties presented themselves. The pole was nearly horizontal, an unusual position for a flagpole; in the next place, there was no pulley, ring, or cord by which to attach a flag; finally, there were elsewhere on the boat two vertical staffs from which flags were occasionally flown. It seemed probable that the pole was not there for flag-flying.

“I then tried to imagine all possible purposes of the pole, and to consider for which of these it was best suited: (a) Possibly it was an ornament. But as all the ferryboats and even the tugboats carried poles, this hypothesis was rejected. (b) Possibly it was the terminal of a wireless telegraph. But the same considerations made this improbable. Besides, the more natural place for such a terminal would be the highest part of the boat, on top of the pilot house. (c) Its purpose might be to point out the direction in which the boat is moving.

“In support of this conclusion, I discovered that the pole was lower than the pilot house, so that the steersman could easily see it. Moreover, the tip was enough higher than the base, so that, from the pilot’s position, it must appear to project far out in front of the boat. Moreover, the pilot being near the front of the boat, he would need some such guide as to its direction. Tugboats would also need poles for such a purpose. This hypothesis was so much more probable than the others that I accepted it. I formed the conclusion that the pole was set up for the purpose of showing the pilot the direction in which the boat pointed, to enable him to steer correctly.” (Dewey 1910: 69–70; 1933: 92–93)

Bubbles : “In washing tumblers in hot soapsuds and placing them mouth downward on a plate, bubbles appeared on the outside of the mouth of the tumblers and then went inside. Why? The presence of bubbles suggests air, which I note must come from inside the tumbler. I see that the soapy water on the plate prevents escape of the air save as it may be caught in bubbles. But why should air leave the tumbler? There was no substance entering to force it out. It must have expanded. It expands by increase of heat, or by decrease of pressure, or both. Could the air have become heated after the tumbler was taken from the hot suds? Clearly not the air that was already entangled in the water. If heated air was the cause, cold air must have entered in transferring the tumblers from the suds to the plate. I test to see if this supposition is true by taking several more tumblers out. Some I shake so as to make sure of entrapping cold air in them. Some I take out holding mouth downward in order to prevent cold air from entering. Bubbles appear on the outside of every one of the former and on none of the latter. I must be right in my inference. Air from the outside must have been expanded by the heat of the tumbler, which explains the appearance of the bubbles on the outside. But why do they then go inside? Cold contracts. The tumbler cooled and also the air inside it. Tension was removed, and hence bubbles appeared inside. To be sure of this, I test by placing a cup of ice on the tumbler while the bubbles are still forming outside. They soon reverse” (Dewey 1910: 70–71; 1933: 93–94).

Dewey (1910, 1933) sprinkles his book with other examples of critical thinking. We will refer to the following.

Weather : A man on a walk notices that it has suddenly become cool, thinks that it is probably going to rain, looks up and sees a dark cloud obscuring the sun, and quickens his steps (1910: 6–10; 1933: 9–13).

Disorder : A man finds his rooms on his return to them in disorder with his belongings thrown about, thinks at first of burglary as an explanation, then thinks of mischievous children as being an alternative explanation, then looks to see whether valuables are missing, and discovers that they are (1910: 82–83; 1933: 166–168).

Typhoid : A physician diagnosing a patient whose conspicuous symptoms suggest typhoid avoids drawing a conclusion until more data are gathered by questioning the patient and by making tests (1910: 85–86; 1933: 170).

Blur : A moving blur catches our eye in the distance, we ask ourselves whether it is a cloud of whirling dust or a tree moving its branches or a man signaling to us, we think of other traits that should be found on each of those possibilities, and we look and see if those traits are found (1910: 102, 108; 1933: 121, 133).

Suction pump : In thinking about the suction pump, the scientist first notes that it will draw water only to a maximum height of 33 feet at sea level and to a lesser maximum height at higher elevations, selects for attention the differing atmospheric pressure at these elevations, sets up experiments in which the air is removed from a vessel containing water (when suction no longer works) and in which the weight of air at various levels is calculated, compares the results of reasoning about the height to which a given weight of air will allow a suction pump to raise water with the observed maximum height at different elevations, and finally assimilates the suction pump to such apparently different phenomena as the siphon and the rising of a balloon (1910: 150–153; 1933: 195–198).

Diamond : A passenger in a car driving in a diamond lane reserved for vehicles with at least one passenger notices that the diamond marks on the pavement are far apart in some places and close together in others. Why? The driver suggests that the reason may be that the diamond marks are not needed where there is a solid double line separating the diamond lane from the adjoining lane, but are needed when there is a dotted single line permitting crossing into the diamond lane. Further observation confirms that the diamonds are close together when a dotted line separates the diamond lane from its neighbour, but otherwise far apart.

Rash : A woman suddenly develops a very itchy red rash on her throat and upper chest. She recently noticed a mark on the back of her right hand, but was not sure whether the mark was a rash or a scrape. She lies down in bed and thinks about what might be causing the rash and what to do about it. About two weeks before, she began taking blood pressure medication that contained a sulfa drug, and the pharmacist had warned her, in view of a previous allergic reaction to a medication containing a sulfa drug, to be on the alert for an allergic reaction; however, she had been taking the medication for two weeks with no such effect. The day before, she began using a new cream on her neck and upper chest; against the new cream as the cause was mark on the back of her hand, which had not been exposed to the cream. She began taking probiotics about a month before. She also recently started new eye drops, but she supposed that manufacturers of eye drops would be careful not to include allergy-causing components in the medication. The rash might be a heat rash, since she recently was sweating profusely from her upper body. Since she is about to go away on a short vacation, where she would not have access to her usual physician, she decides to keep taking the probiotics and using the new eye drops but to discontinue the blood pressure medication and to switch back to the old cream for her neck and upper chest. She forms a plan to consult her regular physician on her return about the blood pressure medication.

Candidate : Although Dewey included no examples of thinking directed at appraising the arguments of others, such thinking has come to be considered a kind of critical thinking. We find an example of such thinking in the performance task on the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA+), which its sponsoring organization describes as

a performance-based assessment that provides a measure of an institution’s contribution to the development of critical-thinking and written communication skills of its students. (Council for Aid to Education 2017)

A sample task posted on its website requires the test-taker to write a report for public distribution evaluating a fictional candidate’s policy proposals and their supporting arguments, using supplied background documents, with a recommendation on whether to endorse the candidate.

Immediate acceptance of an idea that suggests itself as a solution to a problem (e.g., a possible explanation of an event or phenomenon, an action that seems likely to produce a desired result) is “uncritical thinking, the minimum of reflection” (Dewey 1910: 13). On-going suspension of judgment in the light of doubt about a possible solution is not critical thinking (Dewey 1910: 108). Critique driven by a dogmatically held political or religious ideology is not critical thinking; thus Paulo Freire (1968 [1970]) is using the term (e.g., at 1970: 71, 81, 100, 146) in a more politically freighted sense that includes not only reflection but also revolutionary action against oppression. Derivation of a conclusion from given data using an algorithm is not critical thinking.

What is critical thinking? There are many definitions. Ennis (2016) lists 14 philosophically oriented scholarly definitions and three dictionary definitions. Following Rawls (1971), who distinguished his conception of justice from a utilitarian conception but regarded them as rival conceptions of the same concept, Ennis maintains that the 17 definitions are different conceptions of the same concept. Rawls articulated the shared concept of justice as

a characteristic set of principles for assigning basic rights and duties and for determining… the proper distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation. (Rawls 1971: 5)

Bailin et al. (1999b) claim that, if one considers what sorts of thinking an educator would take not to be critical thinking and what sorts to be critical thinking, one can conclude that educators typically understand critical thinking to have at least three features.

It is done for the purpose of making up one’s mind about what to believe or do.
The person engaging in the thinking is trying to fulfill standards of adequacy and accuracy appropriate to the thinking.
The thinking fulfills the relevant standards to some threshold level.

One could sum up the core concept that involves these three features by saying that critical thinking is careful goal-directed thinking. This core concept seems to apply to all the examples of critical thinking described in the previous section. As for the non-examples, their exclusion depends on construing careful thinking as excluding jumping immediately to conclusions, suspending judgment no matter how strong the evidence, reasoning from an unquestioned ideological or religious perspective, and routinely using an algorithm to answer a question.

If the core of critical thinking is careful goal-directed thinking, conceptions of it can vary according to its presumed scope, its presumed goal, one’s criteria and threshold for being careful, and the thinking component on which one focuses. As to its scope, some conceptions (e.g., Dewey 1910, 1933) restrict it to constructive thinking on the basis of one’s own observations and experiments, others (e.g., Ennis 1962; Fisher & Scriven 1997; Johnson 1992) to appraisal of the products of such thinking. Ennis (1991) and Bailin et al. (1999b) take it to cover both construction and appraisal. As to its goal, some conceptions restrict it to forming a judgment (Dewey 1910, 1933; Lipman 1987; Facione 1990a). Others allow for actions as well as beliefs as the end point of a process of critical thinking (Ennis 1991; Bailin et al. 1999b). As to the criteria and threshold for being careful, definitions vary in the term used to indicate that critical thinking satisfies certain norms: “intellectually disciplined” (Scriven & Paul 1987), “reasonable” (Ennis 1991), “skillful” (Lipman 1987), “skilled” (Fisher & Scriven 1997), “careful” (Bailin & Battersby 2009). Some definitions specify these norms, referring variously to “consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends” (Dewey 1910, 1933); “the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning” (Glaser 1941); “conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication” (Scriven & Paul 1987); the requirement that “it is sensitive to context, relies on criteria, and is self-correcting” (Lipman 1987); “evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations” (Facione 1990a); and “plus-minus considerations of the product in terms of appropriate standards (or criteria)” (Johnson 1992). Stanovich and Stanovich (2010) propose to ground the concept of critical thinking in the concept of rationality, which they understand as combining epistemic rationality (fitting one’s beliefs to the world) and instrumental rationality (optimizing goal fulfillment); a critical thinker, in their view, is someone with “a propensity to override suboptimal responses from the autonomous mind” (2010: 227). These variant specifications of norms for critical thinking are not necessarily incompatible with one another, and in any case presuppose the core notion of thinking carefully. As to the thinking component singled out, some definitions focus on suspension of judgment during the thinking (Dewey 1910; McPeck 1981), others on inquiry while judgment is suspended (Bailin & Battersby 2009, 2021), others on the resulting judgment (Facione 1990a), and still others on responsiveness to reasons (Siegel 1988). Kuhn (2019) takes critical thinking to be more a dialogic practice of advancing and responding to arguments than an individual ability.

In educational contexts, a definition of critical thinking is a “programmatic definition” (Scheffler 1960: 19). It expresses a practical program for achieving an educational goal. For this purpose, a one-sentence formulaic definition is much less useful than articulation of a critical thinking process, with criteria and standards for the kinds of thinking that the process may involve. The real educational goal is recognition, adoption and implementation by students of those criteria and standards. That adoption and implementation in turn consists in acquiring the knowledge, abilities and dispositions of a critical thinker.

Conceptions of critical thinking generally do not include moral integrity as part of the concept. Dewey, for example, took critical thinking to be the ultimate intellectual goal of education, but distinguished it from the development of social cooperation among school children, which he took to be the central moral goal. Ennis (1996, 2011) added to his previous list of critical thinking dispositions a group of dispositions to care about the dignity and worth of every person, which he described as a “correlative” (1996) disposition without which critical thinking would be less valuable and perhaps harmful. An educational program that aimed at developing critical thinking but not the correlative disposition to care about the dignity and worth of every person, he asserted, “would be deficient and perhaps dangerous” (Ennis 1996: 172).

Dewey thought that education for reflective thinking would be of value to both the individual and society; recognition in educational practice of the kinship to the scientific attitude of children’s native curiosity, fertile imagination and love of experimental inquiry “would make for individual happiness and the reduction of social waste” (Dewey 1910: iii). Schools participating in the Eight-Year Study took development of the habit of reflective thinking and skill in solving problems as a means to leading young people to understand, appreciate and live the democratic way of life characteristic of the United States (Aikin 1942: 17–18, 81). Harvey Siegel (1988: 55–61) has offered four considerations in support of adopting critical thinking as an educational ideal. (1) Respect for persons requires that schools and teachers honour students’ demands for reasons and explanations, deal with students honestly, and recognize the need to confront students’ independent judgment; these requirements concern the manner in which teachers treat students. (2) Education has the task of preparing children to be successful adults, a task that requires development of their self-sufficiency. (3) Education should initiate children into the rational traditions in such fields as history, science and mathematics. (4) Education should prepare children to become democratic citizens, which requires reasoned procedures and critical talents and attitudes. To supplement these considerations, Siegel (1988: 62–90) responds to two objections: the ideology objection that adoption of any educational ideal requires a prior ideological commitment and the indoctrination objection that cultivation of critical thinking cannot escape being a form of indoctrination.

Despite the diversity of our 11 examples, one can recognize a common pattern. Dewey analyzed it as consisting of five phases:

suggestions , in which the mind leaps forward to a possible solution;
an intellectualization of the difficulty or perplexity into a problem to be solved, a question for which the answer must be sought;
the use of one suggestion after another as a leading idea, or hypothesis , to initiate and guide observation and other operations in collection of factual material;
the mental elaboration of the idea or supposition as an idea or supposition ( reasoning , in the sense on which reasoning is a part, not the whole, of inference); and
testing the hypothesis by overt or imaginative action. (Dewey 1933: 106–107; italics in original)

The process of reflective thinking consisting of these phases would be preceded by a perplexed, troubled or confused situation and followed by a cleared-up, unified, resolved situation (Dewey 1933: 106). The term ‘phases’ replaced the term ‘steps’ (Dewey 1910: 72), thus removing the earlier suggestion of an invariant sequence. Variants of the above analysis appeared in (Dewey 1916: 177) and (Dewey 1938: 101–119).

The variant formulations indicate the difficulty of giving a single logical analysis of such a varied process. The process of critical thinking may have a spiral pattern, with the problem being redefined in the light of obstacles to solving it as originally formulated. For example, the person in Transit might have concluded that getting to the appointment at the scheduled time was impossible and have reformulated the problem as that of rescheduling the appointment for a mutually convenient time. Further, defining a problem does not always follow after or lead immediately to an idea of a suggested solution. Nor should it do so, as Dewey himself recognized in describing the physician in Typhoid as avoiding any strong preference for this or that conclusion before getting further information (Dewey 1910: 85; 1933: 170). People with a hypothesis in mind, even one to which they have a very weak commitment, have a so-called “confirmation bias” (Nickerson 1998): they are likely to pay attention to evidence that confirms the hypothesis and to ignore evidence that counts against it or for some competing hypothesis. Detectives, intelligence agencies, and investigators of airplane accidents are well advised to gather relevant evidence systematically and to postpone even tentative adoption of an explanatory hypothesis until the collected evidence rules out with the appropriate degree of certainty all but one explanation. Dewey’s analysis of the critical thinking process can be faulted as well for requiring acceptance or rejection of a possible solution to a defined problem, with no allowance for deciding in the light of the available evidence to suspend judgment. Further, given the great variety of kinds of problems for which reflection is appropriate, there is likely to be variation in its component events. Perhaps the best way to conceptualize the critical thinking process is as a checklist whose component events can occur in a variety of orders, selectively, and more than once. These component events might include (1) noticing a difficulty, (2) defining the problem, (3) dividing the problem into manageable sub-problems, (4) formulating a variety of possible solutions to the problem or sub-problem, (5) determining what evidence is relevant to deciding among possible solutions to the problem or sub-problem, (6) devising a plan of systematic observation or experiment that will uncover the relevant evidence, (7) carrying out the plan of systematic observation or experimentation, (8) noting the results of the systematic observation or experiment, (9) gathering relevant testimony and information from others, (10) judging the credibility of testimony and information gathered from others, (11) drawing conclusions from gathered evidence and accepted testimony, and (12) accepting a solution that the evidence adequately supports (cf. Hitchcock 2017: 485).

Checklist conceptions of the process of critical thinking are open to the objection that they are too mechanical and procedural to fit the multi-dimensional and emotionally charged issues for which critical thinking is urgently needed (Paul 1984). For such issues, a more dialectical process is advocated, in which competing relevant world views are identified, their implications explored, and some sort of creative synthesis attempted.

If one considers the critical thinking process illustrated by the 11 examples, one can identify distinct kinds of mental acts and mental states that form part of it. To distinguish, label and briefly characterize these components is a useful preliminary to identifying abilities, skills, dispositions, attitudes, habits and the like that contribute causally to thinking critically. Identifying such abilities and habits is in turn a useful preliminary to setting educational goals. Setting the goals is in its turn a useful preliminary to designing strategies for helping learners to achieve the goals and to designing ways of measuring the extent to which learners have done so. Such measures provide both feedback to learners on their achievement and a basis for experimental research on the effectiveness of various strategies for educating people to think critically. Let us begin, then, by distinguishing the kinds of mental acts and mental events that can occur in a critical thinking process.

Observing : One notices something in one’s immediate environment (sudden cooling of temperature in Weather , bubbles forming outside a glass and then going inside in Bubbles , a moving blur in the distance in Blur , a rash in Rash ). Or one notes the results of an experiment or systematic observation (valuables missing in Disorder , no suction without air pressure in Suction pump )
Feeling : One feels puzzled or uncertain about something (how to get to an appointment on time in Transit , why the diamonds vary in spacing in Diamond ). One wants to resolve this perplexity. One feels satisfaction once one has worked out an answer (to take the subway express in Transit , diamonds closer when needed as a warning in Diamond ).
Wondering : One formulates a question to be addressed (why bubbles form outside a tumbler taken from hot water in Bubbles , how suction pumps work in Suction pump , what caused the rash in Rash ).
Imagining : One thinks of possible answers (bus or subway or elevated in Transit , flagpole or ornament or wireless communication aid or direction indicator in Ferryboat , allergic reaction or heat rash in Rash ).
Inferring : One works out what would be the case if a possible answer were assumed (valuables missing if there has been a burglary in Disorder , earlier start to the rash if it is an allergic reaction to a sulfa drug in Rash ). Or one draws a conclusion once sufficient relevant evidence is gathered (take the subway in Transit , burglary in Disorder , discontinue blood pressure medication and new cream in Rash ).
Knowledge : One uses stored knowledge of the subject-matter to generate possible answers or to infer what would be expected on the assumption of a particular answer (knowledge of a city’s public transit system in Transit , of the requirements for a flagpole in Ferryboat , of Boyle’s law in Bubbles , of allergic reactions in Rash ).
Experimenting : One designs and carries out an experiment or a systematic observation to find out whether the results deduced from a possible answer will occur (looking at the location of the flagpole in relation to the pilot’s position in Ferryboat , putting an ice cube on top of a tumbler taken from hot water in Bubbles , measuring the height to which a suction pump will draw water at different elevations in Suction pump , noticing the spacing of diamonds when movement to or from a diamond lane is allowed in Diamond ).
Consulting : One finds a source of information, gets the information from the source, and makes a judgment on whether to accept it. None of our 11 examples include searching for sources of information. In this respect they are unrepresentative, since most people nowadays have almost instant access to information relevant to answering any question, including many of those illustrated by the examples. However, Candidate includes the activities of extracting information from sources and evaluating its credibility.
Identifying and analyzing arguments : One notices an argument and works out its structure and content as a preliminary to evaluating its strength. This activity is central to Candidate . It is an important part of a critical thinking process in which one surveys arguments for various positions on an issue.
Judging : One makes a judgment on the basis of accumulated evidence and reasoning, such as the judgment in Ferryboat that the purpose of the pole is to provide direction to the pilot.
Deciding : One makes a decision on what to do or on what policy to adopt, as in the decision in Transit to take the subway.

By definition, a person who does something voluntarily is both willing and able to do that thing at that time. Both the willingness and the ability contribute causally to the person’s action, in the sense that the voluntary action would not occur if either (or both) of these were lacking. For example, suppose that one is standing with one’s arms at one’s sides and one voluntarily lifts one’s right arm to an extended horizontal position. One would not do so if one were unable to lift one’s arm, if for example one’s right side was paralyzed as the result of a stroke. Nor would one do so if one were unwilling to lift one’s arm, if for example one were participating in a street demonstration at which a white supremacist was urging the crowd to lift their right arm in a Nazi salute and one were unwilling to express support in this way for the racist Nazi ideology. The same analysis applies to a voluntary mental process of thinking critically. It requires both willingness and ability to think critically, including willingness and ability to perform each of the mental acts that compose the process and to coordinate those acts in a sequence that is directed at resolving the initiating perplexity.

Consider willingness first. We can identify causal contributors to willingness to think critically by considering factors that would cause a person who was able to think critically about an issue nevertheless not to do so (Hamby 2014). For each factor, the opposite condition thus contributes causally to willingness to think critically on a particular occasion. For example, people who habitually jump to conclusions without considering alternatives will not think critically about issues that arise, even if they have the required abilities. The contrary condition of willingness to suspend judgment is thus a causal contributor to thinking critically.

Now consider ability. In contrast to the ability to move one’s arm, which can be completely absent because a stroke has left the arm paralyzed, the ability to think critically is a developed ability, whose absence is not a complete absence of ability to think but absence of ability to think well. We can identify the ability to think well directly, in terms of the norms and standards for good thinking. In general, to be able do well the thinking activities that can be components of a critical thinking process, one needs to know the concepts and principles that characterize their good performance, to recognize in particular cases that the concepts and principles apply, and to apply them. The knowledge, recognition and application may be procedural rather than declarative. It may be domain-specific rather than widely applicable, and in either case may need subject-matter knowledge, sometimes of a deep kind.

Reflections of the sort illustrated by the previous two paragraphs have led scholars to identify the knowledge, abilities and dispositions of a “critical thinker”, i.e., someone who thinks critically whenever it is appropriate to do so. We turn now to these three types of causal contributors to thinking critically. We start with dispositions, since arguably these are the most powerful contributors to being a critical thinker, can be fostered at an early stage of a child’s development, and are susceptible to general improvement (Glaser 1941: 175)

8. Critical Thinking Dispositions

Educational researchers use the term ‘dispositions’ broadly for the habits of mind and attitudes that contribute causally to being a critical thinker. Some writers (e.g., Paul & Elder 2006; Hamby 2014; Bailin & Battersby 2016a) propose to use the term ‘virtues’ for this dimension of a critical thinker. The virtues in question, although they are virtues of character, concern the person’s ways of thinking rather than the person’s ways of behaving towards others. They are not moral virtues but intellectual virtues, of the sort articulated by Zagzebski (1996) and discussed by Turri, Alfano, and Greco (2017).

On a realistic conception, thinking dispositions or intellectual virtues are real properties of thinkers. They are general tendencies, propensities, or inclinations to think in particular ways in particular circumstances, and can be genuinely explanatory (Siegel 1999). Sceptics argue that there is no evidence for a specific mental basis for the habits of mind that contribute to thinking critically, and that it is pedagogically misleading to posit such a basis (Bailin et al. 1999a). Whatever their status, critical thinking dispositions need motivation for their initial formation in a child—motivation that may be external or internal. As children develop, the force of habit will gradually become important in sustaining the disposition (Nieto & Valenzuela 2012). Mere force of habit, however, is unlikely to sustain critical thinking dispositions. Critical thinkers must value and enjoy using their knowledge and abilities to think things through for themselves. They must be committed to, and lovers of, inquiry.

A person may have a critical thinking disposition with respect to only some kinds of issues. For example, one could be open-minded about scientific issues but not about religious issues. Similarly, one could be confident in one’s ability to reason about the theological implications of the existence of evil in the world but not in one’s ability to reason about the best design for a guided ballistic missile.

Facione (1990a: 25) divides “affective dispositions” of critical thinking into approaches to life and living in general and approaches to specific issues, questions or problems. Adapting this distinction, one can usefully divide critical thinking dispositions into initiating dispositions (those that contribute causally to starting to think critically about an issue) and internal dispositions (those that contribute causally to doing a good job of thinking critically once one has started). The two categories are not mutually exclusive. For example, open-mindedness, in the sense of willingness to consider alternative points of view to one’s own, is both an initiating and an internal disposition.

Using the strategy of considering factors that would block people with the ability to think critically from doing so, we can identify as initiating dispositions for thinking critically attentiveness, a habit of inquiry, self-confidence, courage, open-mindedness, willingness to suspend judgment, trust in reason, wanting evidence for one’s beliefs, and seeking the truth. We consider briefly what each of these dispositions amounts to, in each case citing sources that acknowledge them.

Attentiveness : One will not think critically if one fails to recognize an issue that needs to be thought through. For example, the pedestrian in Weather would not have looked up if he had not noticed that the air was suddenly cooler. To be a critical thinker, then, one needs to be habitually attentive to one’s surroundings, noticing not only what one senses but also sources of perplexity in messages received and in one’s own beliefs and attitudes (Facione 1990a: 25; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001).
Habit of inquiry : Inquiry is effortful, and one needs an internal push to engage in it. For example, the student in Bubbles could easily have stopped at idle wondering about the cause of the bubbles rather than reasoning to a hypothesis, then designing and executing an experiment to test it. Thus willingness to think critically needs mental energy and initiative. What can supply that energy? Love of inquiry, or perhaps just a habit of inquiry. Hamby (2015) has argued that willingness to inquire is the central critical thinking virtue, one that encompasses all the others. It is recognized as a critical thinking disposition by Dewey (1910: 29; 1933: 35), Glaser (1941: 5), Ennis (1987: 12; 1991: 8), Facione (1990a: 25), Bailin et al. (1999b: 294), Halpern (1998: 452), and Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo (2001).
Self-confidence : Lack of confidence in one’s abilities can block critical thinking. For example, if the woman in Rash lacked confidence in her ability to figure things out for herself, she might just have assumed that the rash on her chest was the allergic reaction to her medication against which the pharmacist had warned her. Thus willingness to think critically requires confidence in one’s ability to inquire (Facione 1990a: 25; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001).
Courage : Fear of thinking for oneself can stop one from doing it. Thus willingness to think critically requires intellectual courage (Paul & Elder 2006: 16).
Open-mindedness : A dogmatic attitude will impede thinking critically. For example, a person who adheres rigidly to a “pro-choice” position on the issue of the legal status of induced abortion is likely to be unwilling to consider seriously the issue of when in its development an unborn child acquires a moral right to life. Thus willingness to think critically requires open-mindedness, in the sense of a willingness to examine questions to which one already accepts an answer but which further evidence or reasoning might cause one to answer differently (Dewey 1933; Facione 1990a; Ennis 1991; Bailin et al. 1999b; Halpern 1998, Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001). Paul (1981) emphasizes open-mindedness about alternative world-views, and recommends a dialectical approach to integrating such views as central to what he calls “strong sense” critical thinking. In three studies, Haran, Ritov, & Mellers (2013) found that actively open-minded thinking, including “the tendency to weigh new evidence against a favored belief, to spend sufficient time on a problem before giving up, and to consider carefully the opinions of others in forming one’s own”, led study participants to acquire information and thus to make accurate estimations.
Willingness to suspend judgment : Premature closure on an initial solution will block critical thinking. Thus willingness to think critically requires a willingness to suspend judgment while alternatives are explored (Facione 1990a; Ennis 1991; Halpern 1998).
Trust in reason : Since distrust in the processes of reasoned inquiry will dissuade one from engaging in it, trust in them is an initiating critical thinking disposition (Facione 1990a, 25; Bailin et al. 1999b: 294; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001; Paul & Elder 2006). In reaction to an allegedly exclusive emphasis on reason in critical thinking theory and pedagogy, Thayer-Bacon (2000) argues that intuition, imagination, and emotion have important roles to play in an adequate conception of critical thinking that she calls “constructive thinking”. From her point of view, critical thinking requires trust not only in reason but also in intuition, imagination, and emotion.
Seeking the truth : If one does not care about the truth but is content to stick with one’s initial bias on an issue, then one will not think critically about it. Seeking the truth is thus an initiating critical thinking disposition (Bailin et al. 1999b: 294; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001). A disposition to seek the truth is implicit in more specific critical thinking dispositions, such as trying to be well-informed, considering seriously points of view other than one’s own, looking for alternatives, suspending judgment when the evidence is insufficient, and adopting a position when the evidence supporting it is sufficient.

Some of the initiating dispositions, such as open-mindedness and willingness to suspend judgment, are also internal critical thinking dispositions, in the sense of mental habits or attitudes that contribute causally to doing a good job of critical thinking once one starts the process. But there are many other internal critical thinking dispositions. Some of them are parasitic on one’s conception of good thinking. For example, it is constitutive of good thinking about an issue to formulate the issue clearly and to maintain focus on it. For this purpose, one needs not only the corresponding ability but also the corresponding disposition. Ennis (1991: 8) describes it as the disposition “to determine and maintain focus on the conclusion or question”, Facione (1990a: 25) as “clarity in stating the question or concern”. Other internal dispositions are motivators to continue or adjust the critical thinking process, such as willingness to persist in a complex task and willingness to abandon nonproductive strategies in an attempt to self-correct (Halpern 1998: 452). For a list of identified internal critical thinking dispositions, see the Supplement on Internal Critical Thinking Dispositions .

Some theorists postulate skills, i.e., acquired abilities, as operative in critical thinking. It is not obvious, however, that a good mental act is the exercise of a generic acquired skill. Inferring an expected time of arrival, as in Transit , has some generic components but also uses non-generic subject-matter knowledge. Bailin et al. (1999a) argue against viewing critical thinking skills as generic and discrete, on the ground that skilled performance at a critical thinking task cannot be separated from knowledge of concepts and from domain-specific principles of good thinking. Talk of skills, they concede, is unproblematic if it means merely that a person with critical thinking skills is capable of intelligent performance.

Despite such scepticism, theorists of critical thinking have listed as general contributors to critical thinking what they variously call abilities (Glaser 1941; Ennis 1962, 1991), skills (Facione 1990a; Halpern 1998) or competencies (Fisher & Scriven 1997). Amalgamating these lists would produce a confusing and chaotic cornucopia of more than 50 possible educational objectives, with only partial overlap among them. It makes sense instead to try to understand the reasons for the multiplicity and diversity, and to make a selection according to one’s own reasons for singling out abilities to be developed in a critical thinking curriculum. Two reasons for diversity among lists of critical thinking abilities are the underlying conception of critical thinking and the envisaged educational level. Appraisal-only conceptions, for example, involve a different suite of abilities than constructive-only conceptions. Some lists, such as those in (Glaser 1941), are put forward as educational objectives for secondary school students, whereas others are proposed as objectives for college students (e.g., Facione 1990a).

The abilities described in the remaining paragraphs of this section emerge from reflection on the general abilities needed to do well the thinking activities identified in section 6 as components of the critical thinking process described in section 5 . The derivation of each collection of abilities is accompanied by citation of sources that list such abilities and of standardized tests that claim to test them.

Observational abilities : Careful and accurate observation sometimes requires specialist expertise and practice, as in the case of observing birds and observing accident scenes. However, there are general abilities of noticing what one’s senses are picking up from one’s environment and of being able to articulate clearly and accurately to oneself and others what one has observed. It helps in exercising them to be able to recognize and take into account factors that make one’s observation less trustworthy, such as prior framing of the situation, inadequate time, deficient senses, poor observation conditions, and the like. It helps as well to be skilled at taking steps to make one’s observation more trustworthy, such as moving closer to get a better look, measuring something three times and taking the average, and checking what one thinks one is observing with someone else who is in a good position to observe it. It also helps to be skilled at recognizing respects in which one’s report of one’s observation involves inference rather than direct observation, so that one can then consider whether the inference is justified. These abilities come into play as well when one thinks about whether and with what degree of confidence to accept an observation report, for example in the study of history or in a criminal investigation or in assessing news reports. Observational abilities show up in some lists of critical thinking abilities (Ennis 1962: 90; Facione 1990a: 16; Ennis 1991: 9). There are items testing a person’s ability to judge the credibility of observation reports in the Cornell Critical Thinking Tests, Levels X and Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005). Norris and King (1983, 1985, 1990a, 1990b) is a test of ability to appraise observation reports.

Emotional abilities : The emotions that drive a critical thinking process are perplexity or puzzlement, a wish to resolve it, and satisfaction at achieving the desired resolution. Children experience these emotions at an early age, without being trained to do so. Education that takes critical thinking as a goal needs only to channel these emotions and to make sure not to stifle them. Collaborative critical thinking benefits from ability to recognize one’s own and others’ emotional commitments and reactions.

Questioning abilities : A critical thinking process needs transformation of an inchoate sense of perplexity into a clear question. Formulating a question well requires not building in questionable assumptions, not prejudging the issue, and using language that in context is unambiguous and precise enough (Ennis 1962: 97; 1991: 9).

Imaginative abilities : Thinking directed at finding the correct causal explanation of a general phenomenon or particular event requires an ability to imagine possible explanations. Thinking about what policy or plan of action to adopt requires generation of options and consideration of possible consequences of each option. Domain knowledge is required for such creative activity, but a general ability to imagine alternatives is helpful and can be nurtured so as to become easier, quicker, more extensive, and deeper (Dewey 1910: 34–39; 1933: 40–47). Facione (1990a) and Halpern (1998) include the ability to imagine alternatives as a critical thinking ability.

Inferential abilities : The ability to draw conclusions from given information, and to recognize with what degree of certainty one’s own or others’ conclusions follow, is universally recognized as a general critical thinking ability. All 11 examples in section 2 of this article include inferences, some from hypotheses or options (as in Transit , Ferryboat and Disorder ), others from something observed (as in Weather and Rash ). None of these inferences is formally valid. Rather, they are licensed by general, sometimes qualified substantive rules of inference (Toulmin 1958) that rest on domain knowledge—that a bus trip takes about the same time in each direction, that the terminal of a wireless telegraph would be located on the highest possible place, that sudden cooling is often followed by rain, that an allergic reaction to a sulfa drug generally shows up soon after one starts taking it. It is a matter of controversy to what extent the specialized ability to deduce conclusions from premisses using formal rules of inference is needed for critical thinking. Dewey (1933) locates logical forms in setting out the products of reflection rather than in the process of reflection. Ennis (1981a), on the other hand, maintains that a liberally-educated person should have the following abilities: to translate natural-language statements into statements using the standard logical operators, to use appropriately the language of necessary and sufficient conditions, to deal with argument forms and arguments containing symbols, to determine whether in virtue of an argument’s form its conclusion follows necessarily from its premisses, to reason with logically complex propositions, and to apply the rules and procedures of deductive logic. Inferential abilities are recognized as critical thinking abilities by Glaser (1941: 6), Facione (1990a: 9), Ennis (1991: 9), Fisher & Scriven (1997: 99, 111), and Halpern (1998: 452). Items testing inferential abilities constitute two of the five subtests of the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (Watson & Glaser 1980a, 1980b, 1994), two of the four sections in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level X (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005), three of the seven sections in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005), 11 of the 34 items on Forms A and B of the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (Facione 1990b, 1992), and a high but variable proportion of the 25 selected-response questions in the Collegiate Learning Assessment (Council for Aid to Education 2017).

Experimenting abilities : Knowing how to design and execute an experiment is important not just in scientific research but also in everyday life, as in Rash . Dewey devoted a whole chapter of his How We Think (1910: 145–156; 1933: 190–202) to the superiority of experimentation over observation in advancing knowledge. Experimenting abilities come into play at one remove in appraising reports of scientific studies. Skill in designing and executing experiments includes the acknowledged abilities to appraise evidence (Glaser 1941: 6), to carry out experiments and to apply appropriate statistical inference techniques (Facione 1990a: 9), to judge inductions to an explanatory hypothesis (Ennis 1991: 9), and to recognize the need for an adequately large sample size (Halpern 1998). The Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005) includes four items (out of 52) on experimental design. The Collegiate Learning Assessment (Council for Aid to Education 2017) makes room for appraisal of study design in both its performance task and its selected-response questions.

Consulting abilities : Skill at consulting sources of information comes into play when one seeks information to help resolve a problem, as in Candidate . Ability to find and appraise information includes ability to gather and marshal pertinent information (Glaser 1941: 6), to judge whether a statement made by an alleged authority is acceptable (Ennis 1962: 84), to plan a search for desired information (Facione 1990a: 9), and to judge the credibility of a source (Ennis 1991: 9). Ability to judge the credibility of statements is tested by 24 items (out of 76) in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level X (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005) and by four items (out of 52) in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005). The College Learning Assessment’s performance task requires evaluation of whether information in documents is credible or unreliable (Council for Aid to Education 2017).

Argument analysis abilities : The ability to identify and analyze arguments contributes to the process of surveying arguments on an issue in order to form one’s own reasoned judgment, as in Candidate . The ability to detect and analyze arguments is recognized as a critical thinking skill by Facione (1990a: 7–8), Ennis (1991: 9) and Halpern (1998). Five items (out of 34) on the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (Facione 1990b, 1992) test skill at argument analysis. The College Learning Assessment (Council for Aid to Education 2017) incorporates argument analysis in its selected-response tests of critical reading and evaluation and of critiquing an argument.

Judging skills and deciding skills : Skill at judging and deciding is skill at recognizing what judgment or decision the available evidence and argument supports, and with what degree of confidence. It is thus a component of the inferential skills already discussed.

Lists and tests of critical thinking abilities often include two more abilities: identifying assumptions and constructing and evaluating definitions.

In addition to dispositions and abilities, critical thinking needs knowledge: of critical thinking concepts, of critical thinking principles, and of the subject-matter of the thinking.

We can derive a short list of concepts whose understanding contributes to critical thinking from the critical thinking abilities described in the preceding section. Observational abilities require an understanding of the difference between observation and inference. Questioning abilities require an understanding of the concepts of ambiguity and vagueness. Inferential abilities require an understanding of the difference between conclusive and defeasible inference (traditionally, between deduction and induction), as well as of the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions. Experimenting abilities require an understanding of the concepts of hypothesis, null hypothesis, assumption and prediction, as well as of the concept of statistical significance and of its difference from importance. They also require an understanding of the difference between an experiment and an observational study, and in particular of the difference between a randomized controlled trial, a prospective correlational study and a retrospective (case-control) study. Argument analysis abilities require an understanding of the concepts of argument, premiss, assumption, conclusion and counter-consideration. Additional critical thinking concepts are proposed by Bailin et al. (1999b: 293), Fisher & Scriven (1997: 105–106), Black (2012), and Blair (2021).

According to Glaser (1941: 25), ability to think critically requires knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning. If we review the list of abilities in the preceding section, however, we can see that some of them can be acquired and exercised merely through practice, possibly guided in an educational setting, followed by feedback. Searching intelligently for a causal explanation of some phenomenon or event requires that one consider a full range of possible causal contributors, but it seems more important that one implements this principle in one’s practice than that one is able to articulate it. What is important is “operational knowledge” of the standards and principles of good thinking (Bailin et al. 1999b: 291–293). But the development of such critical thinking abilities as designing an experiment or constructing an operational definition can benefit from learning their underlying theory. Further, explicit knowledge of quirks of human thinking seems useful as a cautionary guide. Human memory is not just fallible about details, as people learn from their own experiences of misremembering, but is so malleable that a detailed, clear and vivid recollection of an event can be a total fabrication (Loftus 2017). People seek or interpret evidence in ways that are partial to their existing beliefs and expectations, often unconscious of their “confirmation bias” (Nickerson 1998). Not only are people subject to this and other cognitive biases (Kahneman 2011), of which they are typically unaware, but it may be counter-productive for one to make oneself aware of them and try consciously to counteract them or to counteract social biases such as racial or sexual stereotypes (Kenyon & Beaulac 2014). It is helpful to be aware of these facts and of the superior effectiveness of blocking the operation of biases—for example, by making an immediate record of one’s observations, refraining from forming a preliminary explanatory hypothesis, blind refereeing, double-blind randomized trials, and blind grading of students’ work. It is also helpful to be aware of the prevalence of “noise” (unwanted unsystematic variability of judgments), of how to detect noise (through a noise audit), and of how to reduce noise: make accuracy the goal, think statistically, break a process of arriving at a judgment into independent tasks, resist premature intuitions, in a group get independent judgments first, favour comparative judgments and scales (Kahneman, Sibony, & Sunstein 2021). It is helpful as well to be aware of the concept of “bounded rationality” in decision-making and of the related distinction between “satisficing” and optimizing (Simon 1956; Gigerenzer 2001).

Critical thinking about an issue requires substantive knowledge of the domain to which the issue belongs. Critical thinking abilities are not a magic elixir that can be applied to any issue whatever by somebody who has no knowledge of the facts relevant to exploring that issue. For example, the student in Bubbles needed to know that gases do not penetrate solid objects like a glass, that air expands when heated, that the volume of an enclosed gas varies directly with its temperature and inversely with its pressure, and that hot objects will spontaneously cool down to the ambient temperature of their surroundings unless kept hot by insulation or a source of heat. Critical thinkers thus need a rich fund of subject-matter knowledge relevant to the variety of situations they encounter. This fact is recognized in the inclusion among critical thinking dispositions of a concern to become and remain generally well informed.

Experimental educational interventions, with control groups, have shown that education can improve critical thinking skills and dispositions, as measured by standardized tests. For information about these tests, see the Supplement on Assessment .

What educational methods are most effective at developing the dispositions, abilities and knowledge of a critical thinker? In a comprehensive meta-analysis of experimental and quasi-experimental studies of strategies for teaching students to think critically, Abrami et al. (2015) found that dialogue, anchored instruction, and mentoring each increased the effectiveness of the educational intervention, and that they were most effective when combined. They also found that in these studies a combination of separate instruction in critical thinking with subject-matter instruction in which students are encouraged to think critically was more effective than either by itself. However, the difference was not statistically significant; that is, it might have arisen by chance.

Most of these studies lack the longitudinal follow-up required to determine whether the observed differential improvements in critical thinking abilities or dispositions continue over time, for example until high school or college graduation. For details on studies of methods of developing critical thinking skills and dispositions, see the Supplement on Educational Methods .

12. Controversies

Scholars have denied the generalizability of critical thinking abilities across subject domains, have alleged bias in critical thinking theory and pedagogy, and have investigated the relationship of critical thinking to other kinds of thinking.

McPeck (1981) attacked the thinking skills movement of the 1970s, including the critical thinking movement. He argued that there are no general thinking skills, since thinking is always thinking about some subject-matter. It is futile, he claimed, for schools and colleges to teach thinking as if it were a separate subject. Rather, teachers should lead their pupils to become autonomous thinkers by teaching school subjects in a way that brings out their cognitive structure and that encourages and rewards discussion and argument. As some of his critics (e.g., Paul 1985; Siegel 1985) pointed out, McPeck’s central argument needs elaboration, since it has obvious counter-examples in writing and speaking, for which (up to a certain level of complexity) there are teachable general abilities even though they are always about some subject-matter. To make his argument convincing, McPeck needs to explain how thinking differs from writing and speaking in a way that does not permit useful abstraction of its components from the subject-matters with which it deals. He has not done so. Nevertheless, his position that the dispositions and abilities of a critical thinker are best developed in the context of subject-matter instruction is shared by many theorists of critical thinking, including Dewey (1910, 1933), Glaser (1941), Passmore (1980), Weinstein (1990), Bailin et al. (1999b), and Willingham (2019).

McPeck’s challenge prompted reflection on the extent to which critical thinking is subject-specific. McPeck argued for a strong subject-specificity thesis, according to which it is a conceptual truth that all critical thinking abilities are specific to a subject. (He did not however extend his subject-specificity thesis to critical thinking dispositions. In particular, he took the disposition to suspend judgment in situations of cognitive dissonance to be a general disposition.) Conceptual subject-specificity is subject to obvious counter-examples, such as the general ability to recognize confusion of necessary and sufficient conditions. A more modest thesis, also endorsed by McPeck, is epistemological subject-specificity, according to which the norms of good thinking vary from one field to another. Epistemological subject-specificity clearly holds to a certain extent; for example, the principles in accordance with which one solves a differential equation are quite different from the principles in accordance with which one determines whether a painting is a genuine Picasso. But the thesis suffers, as Ennis (1989) points out, from vagueness of the concept of a field or subject and from the obvious existence of inter-field principles, however broadly the concept of a field is construed. For example, the principles of hypothetico-deductive reasoning hold for all the varied fields in which such reasoning occurs. A third kind of subject-specificity is empirical subject-specificity, according to which as a matter of empirically observable fact a person with the abilities and dispositions of a critical thinker in one area of investigation will not necessarily have them in another area of investigation.

The thesis of empirical subject-specificity raises the general problem of transfer. If critical thinking abilities and dispositions have to be developed independently in each school subject, how are they of any use in dealing with the problems of everyday life and the political and social issues of contemporary society, most of which do not fit into the framework of a traditional school subject? Proponents of empirical subject-specificity tend to argue that transfer is more likely to occur if there is critical thinking instruction in a variety of domains, with explicit attention to dispositions and abilities that cut across domains. But evidence for this claim is scanty. There is a need for well-designed empirical studies that investigate the conditions that make transfer more likely.

It is common ground in debates about the generality or subject-specificity of critical thinking dispositions and abilities that critical thinking about any topic requires background knowledge about the topic. For example, the most sophisticated understanding of the principles of hypothetico-deductive reasoning is of no help unless accompanied by some knowledge of what might be plausible explanations of some phenomenon under investigation.

Critics have objected to bias in the theory, pedagogy and practice of critical thinking. Commentators (e.g., Alston 1995; Ennis 1998) have noted that anyone who takes a position has a bias in the neutral sense of being inclined in one direction rather than others. The critics, however, are objecting to bias in the pejorative sense of an unjustified favoring of certain ways of knowing over others, frequently alleging that the unjustly favoured ways are those of a dominant sex or culture (Bailin 1995). These ways favour:

reinforcement of egocentric and sociocentric biases over dialectical engagement with opposing world-views (Paul 1981, 1984; Warren 1998)
distancing from the object of inquiry over closeness to it (Martin 1992; Thayer-Bacon 1992)
indifference to the situation of others over care for them (Martin 1992)
orientation to thought over orientation to action (Martin 1992)
being reasonable over caring to understand people’s ideas (Thayer-Bacon 1993)
being neutral and objective over being embodied and situated (Thayer-Bacon 1995a)
doubting over believing (Thayer-Bacon 1995b)
reason over emotion, imagination and intuition (Thayer-Bacon 2000)
solitary thinking over collaborative thinking (Thayer-Bacon 2000)
written and spoken assignments over other forms of expression (Alston 2001)
attention to written and spoken communications over attention to human problems (Alston 2001)
winning debates in the public sphere over making and understanding meaning (Alston 2001)

A common thread in this smorgasbord of accusations is dissatisfaction with focusing on the logical analysis and evaluation of reasoning and arguments. While these authors acknowledge that such analysis and evaluation is part of critical thinking and should be part of its conceptualization and pedagogy, they insist that it is only a part. Paul (1981), for example, bemoans the tendency of atomistic teaching of methods of analyzing and evaluating arguments to turn students into more able sophists, adept at finding fault with positions and arguments with which they disagree but even more entrenched in the egocentric and sociocentric biases with which they began. Martin (1992) and Thayer-Bacon (1992) cite with approval the self-reported intimacy with their subject-matter of leading researchers in biology and medicine, an intimacy that conflicts with the distancing allegedly recommended in standard conceptions and pedagogy of critical thinking. Thayer-Bacon (2000) contrasts the embodied and socially embedded learning of her elementary school students in a Montessori school, who used their imagination, intuition and emotions as well as their reason, with conceptions of critical thinking as

thinking that is used to critique arguments, offer justifications, and make judgments about what are the good reasons, or the right answers. (Thayer-Bacon 2000: 127–128)

Alston (2001) reports that her students in a women’s studies class were able to see the flaws in the Cinderella myth that pervades much romantic fiction but in their own romantic relationships still acted as if all failures were the woman’s fault and still accepted the notions of love at first sight and living happily ever after. Students, she writes, should

be able to connect their intellectual critique to a more affective, somatic, and ethical account of making risky choices that have sexist, racist, classist, familial, sexual, or other consequences for themselves and those both near and far… critical thinking that reads arguments, texts, or practices merely on the surface without connections to feeling/desiring/doing or action lacks an ethical depth that should infuse the difference between mere cognitive activity and something we want to call critical thinking. (Alston 2001: 34)

Some critics portray such biases as unfair to women. Thayer-Bacon (1992), for example, has charged modern critical thinking theory with being sexist, on the ground that it separates the self from the object and causes one to lose touch with one’s inner voice, and thus stigmatizes women, who (she asserts) link self to object and listen to their inner voice. Her charge does not imply that women as a group are on average less able than men to analyze and evaluate arguments. Facione (1990c) found no difference by sex in performance on his California Critical Thinking Skills Test. Kuhn (1991: 280–281) found no difference by sex in either the disposition or the competence to engage in argumentative thinking.

The critics propose a variety of remedies for the biases that they allege. In general, they do not propose to eliminate or downplay critical thinking as an educational goal. Rather, they propose to conceptualize critical thinking differently and to change its pedagogy accordingly. Their pedagogical proposals arise logically from their objections. They can be summarized as follows:

Focus on argument networks with dialectical exchanges reflecting contesting points of view rather than on atomic arguments, so as to develop “strong sense” critical thinking that transcends egocentric and sociocentric biases (Paul 1981, 1984).
Foster closeness to the subject-matter and feeling connected to others in order to inform a humane democracy (Martin 1992).
Develop “constructive thinking” as a social activity in a community of physically embodied and socially embedded inquirers with personal voices who value not only reason but also imagination, intuition and emotion (Thayer-Bacon 2000).
In developing critical thinking in school subjects, treat as important neither skills nor dispositions but opening worlds of meaning (Alston 2001).
Attend to the development of critical thinking dispositions as well as skills, and adopt the “critical pedagogy” practised and advocated by Freire (1968 [1970]) and hooks (1994) (Dalgleish, Girard, & Davies 2017).

A common thread in these proposals is treatment of critical thinking as a social, interactive, personally engaged activity like that of a quilting bee or a barn-raising (Thayer-Bacon 2000) rather than as an individual, solitary, distanced activity symbolized by Rodin’s The Thinker . One can get a vivid description of education with the former type of goal from the writings of bell hooks (1994, 2010). Critical thinking for her is open-minded dialectical exchange across opposing standpoints and from multiple perspectives, a conception similar to Paul’s “strong sense” critical thinking (Paul 1981). She abandons the structure of domination in the traditional classroom. In an introductory course on black women writers, for example, she assigns students to write an autobiographical paragraph about an early racial memory, then to read it aloud as the others listen, thus affirming the uniqueness and value of each voice and creating a communal awareness of the diversity of the group’s experiences (hooks 1994: 84). Her “engaged pedagogy” is thus similar to the “freedom under guidance” implemented in John Dewey’s Laboratory School of Chicago in the late 1890s and early 1900s. It incorporates the dialogue, anchored instruction, and mentoring that Abrami (2015) found to be most effective in improving critical thinking skills and dispositions.

What is the relationship of critical thinking to problem solving, decision-making, higher-order thinking, creative thinking, and other recognized types of thinking? One’s answer to this question obviously depends on how one defines the terms used in the question. If critical thinking is conceived broadly to cover any careful thinking about any topic for any purpose, then problem solving and decision making will be kinds of critical thinking, if they are done carefully. Historically, ‘critical thinking’ and ‘problem solving’ were two names for the same thing. If critical thinking is conceived more narrowly as consisting solely of appraisal of intellectual products, then it will be disjoint with problem solving and decision making, which are constructive.

Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives used the phrase “intellectual abilities and skills” for what had been labeled “critical thinking” by some, “reflective thinking” by Dewey and others, and “problem solving” by still others (Bloom et al. 1956: 38). Thus, the so-called “higher-order thinking skills” at the taxonomy’s top levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation are just critical thinking skills, although they do not come with general criteria for their assessment (Ennis 1981b). The revised version of Bloom’s taxonomy (Anderson et al. 2001) likewise treats critical thinking as cutting across those types of cognitive process that involve more than remembering (Anderson et al. 2001: 269–270). For details, see the Supplement on History .

As to creative thinking, it overlaps with critical thinking (Bailin 1987, 1988). Thinking about the explanation of some phenomenon or event, as in Ferryboat , requires creative imagination in constructing plausible explanatory hypotheses. Likewise, thinking about a policy question, as in Candidate , requires creativity in coming up with options. Conversely, creativity in any field needs to be balanced by critical appraisal of the draft painting or novel or mathematical theory.

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Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054

Moral Education and Critical Thinking are Vital in a Digital Age

Laura D'Olimpio

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Laura D'Olimpio is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame Australia. She is the author of Media and Moral Education: A Philosophy of Critical Engagement . You can listen to her discuss "Facts and trust in a post-truth world" on The Philosopher's Zone on RN.

Much is made of the fact we live in a post-truth society and that, despite our instant access to more information than ever previously, we still seek out the stories that reinforce our existing beliefs, biases and opinions.

In a time of social media and Web 2.0, what role does the interactive online realm play in challenging or furthering fake news, truthiness and alternative facts?

The Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2016 was post-truth : an adjective defined as "relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief."

While this phenomenon isn't new, social media certainly amplifies the voices of the charismatic, regardless of whether such people are appropriately described as experts.

In light of our fast-paced, virtually enhanced world of news, information and opinions, the tools of critical spectatorship are necessary if we wish to discern and promote that which is factual and true.

As we connect with more ideas, images and other people than ever before, we must be educated to engage critically as well as empathetically - online as well as face-to-face. Applying a philosophical lens, we need to consider how to mitigate the negative effects of new technology, and support the democratizing potential of Web 2.0.

The virtual realm is no longer a world separate to or distinct from reality. Interactive technology has infiltrated most aspects of our daily lives. Smart devices, apps and social media platforms augment communication with others across the globe, help us order goods and services quickly and effectively, enable us to seek out and add to information. Most people are not just users of the World Wide Web, but are also content creators: every tweet, status update, picture or meme, adds to the store of data available for online access.

In fact, following the hypothesis of Andy Clark and David Chalmers , our smart devices might even be said to be extensions of our minds. We use our smartphone as a kind of prosthesis of the memory and often feel as though a part of us is missing when we leave it behind or lose it. Rather than memorising important information, like telephone numbers or dates, these details are retained in technological formats.

Humans seek out information and desire connection. We are curious and social, and will use whatever tools at our disposal to serve these purposes. Yet we must also consider the tools themselves and their inbuilt limitations. The restriction of characters on a tweet or message will shape how we express ourselves and what may be conveyed. The emoticons or emojis available to us will dictate how we articulate emotions in particular instances. At the same time, humans adapt and evolve and the dynamic nature of the virtual space will continue to change and expand.

Yet, as the interactive virtual space increasingly dominates our lived experience, the respect and reverence for expertise, knowledge and intellect seems to be diminishing. It is easier than ever before to type a few words into a search engine and find something that reinforces one's existing beliefs, biases and assumptions. The supposedly helpful algorithms embedded in the software then ensure that one is redirected to places previously visited or sites that offer a similar perspective. Our online friends are likely to hold the same views and values as we do, and the overall sense is that the truth has been uncovered and is supported with evidence, regardless of whatever other information is available for discovery.

Meanwhile, educational and governmental spaces are also suffering the loss of funding and the removal of expertise, knowledge and wisdom at the behest of economic interests. As the digital turn effects teaching, we increasingly feel educational spaces as uncanny - the spectral university or the virtual classroom is empty and alters traditional forms of connection and communication. The ease of access for all is countered by the mediated nature of receiving information and the distracted student as client. The learner has become a consumer and an information-gatherer, rather than the seeker of wisdom.

As people gather information and alternative facts that make them feel secure, much like the rich collect money and houses, the threat of populism is visible in the backlash against traditional media outlets or political candidates. With the rise of citizen journalists and "slacktivism," ideas and images spread more quickly than ever previously thanks to modern communications technology. There is room for the message of hope and love to "go viral" as well as messages of fear and hate. I wonder if the space for the public intellectual can grow and assist to fill the gap in the collective epistemological database?

When it comes to fact-checking and myth-busting, critical thinkers are likely to seek out truth. Ideology can blind people to the benefits of self-correction as ego-protection kicks in and an emotional need to preserve one's worldview takes precedence over justified true belief. As John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky argued in The Debunking Handbook , one must be very careful when fact-checking as the process can serve to reinforce the myth rather than dispel it in the minds of believers (or deniers, as the case may be).

In order to combat such blatant belief in "alternative facts" and restore faith in expertise, we need a global approach. The online world offers us this possibility. Yet, that which is posted, liked and shared, must first be considered, compassionate and accurate. There is thus an important role for educators and philosophers to play in both educational spaces and online.

These days the public space is global by virtue of the technologies we have at our disposal. This brings with it positive possibilities as well as challenges. Teaching people of all ages how to engage with one another respectfully when they disagree is of vital importance. Public intellectuals likewise should be providing good examples of how this might be done. In this context, the role of educators has a renewed importance: helping people learn critical thinking, display caring dispositions and practice collaboration.

If such skills can be developed, these people will have the best chance of becoming critical, caring, reasonable citizens capable of engaging ethically and democratically with others - both face-to-face and online.

Laura D'Olimpio is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame Australia. She is the author of Media and Moral Education: A Philosophy of Critical Engagement .

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Plato’s Republic: Critical Thinking, Moral Education, and Citizenship

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Plato’s Republic: Critical Thinking, Moral Education, and Citizenship Kindle Edition

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The beginning of an intellectual journey.

Wisdom, Plato’s Republic, Critical Thinking, Moral Education, Citizenship, Philosophy, justice

Shaping Minds through Plato's Wisdom

In "Plato’s Republic: Critical Thinking, Moral Education, and Citizenship," penned by Jon Henry Avery, Ph.D., you're invited on a profound exploration of Plato’s timeless wisdom. The author's dedication to this revolutionary topic shines through in this voyage, which is more than just an analysis of a classic philosophical text.

This literary work is more than just a book about an old philosophical tome; it's a journey to the heart of critical thinking, moral education, and the defining characteristics of good citizenship in today's multiethnic democratic society. Dr. Avery presents Plato's foundational principles of justice, education, and virtuous government with unwavering clarity and precision, expertly blending them into the fabric of the 21st century.

But this is more than simply academic curiosity; it's a stirring rallying cry, a sobering reminder that in the modern world, the constant quest for knowledge and justice is more important than ever. A monument to the power of philosophy to change the fundamental fabric of society, Plato's Republic has not been consigned to the dustbin of history.

The words in this book are only the beginning of an intellectual journey that will challenge your capacity for analytical thought. It's an eye-opening reminder that pursuing knowledge and justice is more important than accumulating riches and power.

In a society that often loses sight of the importance of reason, knowledge, and justice, Jon Henry Avery's "Plato's Republic" is a beacon of hope.

From Educator to Author

Experience the stimulating world of Plato's Republic through the insightful lens of renowned educator Dr. Jon Henry Avery. This enlightening work is the culmination of Dr. Avery's enduring fascination with this immutable text, which began during his undergraduate years with a profound experience. Dr. Avery, a renowned professor who has taught the Republic to students in the core curriculum, gives not just an in-depth knowledge of the text but also a fresh viewpoint informed by his years in the academy.

The continuous change in higher education is greatly aided by his work as secretary/treasurer of the American Association for the Advancement of Core Curriculum. His dedication to standard pedagogical practices and topics in the field of philosophy makes this book more than merely a theoretical exercise. Learn more about the author who is fighting to keep democracy's core values alive and to encourage critical thinking in today's STEM-driven world.

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Serious play: Training for critical thinking in EMS

In the low- stakes environment of play, theory meets practice, allowing students to cultivate adaptable analytical and interpersonal skills.

Photo/City of Tacoma

By Judyth Brown, EMT, M.S.Ed

Not long ago, an instructor complained that our EMS students were “having too much fun.” I wasn’t sure what that meant, so my first thought was to check our data. The class in question had a good record on our rigorous unit tests and they were all on track with their required reading. Since they were doing the work, I was left with a contradictory picture of engaged students, excelling in assessments – and a dissatisfied instructor. This needed a closer look.

Five years ago, our project flipped the EMS training classroom . Students’ lectures moved online and we revamped our class time with an eye toward improving entry-level competence. The new classroom activities promote the application of lecture topics while building good intellectual skills. While they may appear playful, these activities are carefully built to hone clinical and professional skills. Our goal is to train practitioners who could walk the walk, not just pass the test.

So, this instructor’s remark had weight. While the statement was a personal observation, it sparked a question: How do we prove that having fun isn’t just frivolous entertainment? Serious play trains the bedrock skills of good clinical practice, it’s a hidden gem for cultivating critical thinking.

Traditional EMS classrooms use simulation and lecture to train and refine skills. They offer structured learning, controlled environments and measurable skills practice in simulated real-world settings. Simulation provides an excellent opportunity for students to practice critical thinking, and traditional lecture conveys information. But these techniques often fall short when it comes to developing critical intellectual skills. Playful learning addresses these limitations in training for critical thinking skills like adaptability and decision-making.

As any athlete knows, serious play is already part of our learning vocabulary. Think of active playful learning as building mental muscle. Imagine simulations as the regular pre-programmed workouts, the situational learning tools that train practical skills we expect to need. If that’s the case, then learning games are the open gym, where students can experiment, adjust their approach, even try a new routine. Here, they develop the well-informed mental agility needed to thrive in the field. As games need participation from all players, they can enhance classroom management, bringing reluctant students into active learning. Ultimately, that active, invested mindset fosters retention and deeper understanding of information. Sweeten the instructional benefits with an environment that allows students to step past the risks of being wrong and the underperforming learner may find an opportunity to shine.

Watch: Serious play

How gamification, play influence learning.

As healthcare providers, our work is notoriously variable. We need mental agility to analyze, evaluate and adapt our actions in response to a patient’s evolving presentation. Good diagnosis relies on imagination and deduction, but we don’t have many opportunities for students to safely refine gut feelings and test a theory. We turn to serious play to train for this dynamic reality, building the intellectual agility we need in the field.

And the research bears this out. One study states findings suggest “it is possible to improve learning outcomes in health professions education by using gamification , especially when employing game attributes that improve learning behaviors and attitudes towards learning” [1].

A study on playfulness and workplace productivity finds “playfulness relates to a set of psychological traits, including cognitive spontaneity and creativity … playfulness related positively to work outcomes, including task evaluations, perceptions, involvement and performance, and provided more predictive efficacy than other psychological constructs” [2]. By its nature, game-based learning leads to greater student interaction and higher retention.

Playful learning provides a low-stakes crucible for experimentation. Through serious play, students are free to improvise, solve problems, test mental models and refine decision-making skills. Unlike simulations and scenarios with their implied real-world pressures, playful learning allows for dynamic exploration, experimentation, hypothesis building and feedback without negative consequences. Serious play builds the kind of adaptable thinking we need in emergency care.

In the low-stakes environment of play, theory meets practice, allowing students to cultivate adaptable analytical and interpersonal skills. In an active learning environment, it’s not about having “too much fun,” it’s about the right kind of fun – the kind that fuels engagement, creates community and fosters critical thinking, preparing our students to thrive in the real world. Play transforms lifeless facts into a fully realized human experience.

Lectures and simulations will always have a place. But adding instructional games builds a learning environment that cultivates clinical skill for all learners. Look at learning activities as an opportunity for students to:

● Collaborate and communicate. Learning activities require teamwork and negotiation, building essential communication and interpersonal skills.

● Embrace uncertainty. Play offers unpredictable situations, helping students develop adaptability.

● Develop mental models. Play is inherently engaging, fostering a desire to explore and master new ideas, extrapolate outcomes and project plans.

When students engage in playful learning, don’t mistake it for laziness or frivolous self-indulgence. Serious play offers an opportunity to experiment and build the clinical skills complimenting the technical expertise, qualifying our students as entry-level competent. And if they have fun in the process, well who’s to say that’s a bad thing.

About the author

Judyth Brown has 15 years of experience as an EMT. She holds an M.S.Ed in Instructional Design working with HMH Jersey Shore Medical Center. In 2017, she helped flip the classroom for the EMS training project creating over 200 activities that support real world skills. She has presented at NAEMSE, EMS Pro, EMS World Expo, Vital Signs Academy and National Conference on EMS.

1. Alves LC, Rodrigues TC. 2018. Gamification in emergency medical services training: A systematic review. BMC Medical Education, 18(1), 39.

2. Glynn MA. Webster J. 1992. The adult playfulness scale: An initial assessment. Psychological Reports, 71(1), 83-103. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1992.71.1.83 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pr0.1992.71.1.83

3. Hwang Y, Lee JK, Lee MJ. 2020. Gamification in emergency medical services training: A systematic review. Prehospital and Disaster Medicine, 35(4), 521-533. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8041684/

4. Van Gaalen AEJ, Brouwer J, Schönrock-Adema J, Bouwkamp-Timmer T, et al. Gamification of health professions education: a systematic review. Adv Health Sci Educ Theory Pract. 2021 May;26(2):683-711. doi: 10.1007/s10459-020-10000-3. Epub 2020 Oct 31. PMID:33128662; PMCID: PMC8041684. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8041684/

Democracy, Higher Education, and the Road Ahead: A Conversation with Danielle Allen

Join Danielle Allen a s she examines the connection between higher education and democracy. In this session, Professor Allen will explore how higher education serves as a cornerstone for democracy, examining its role in fostering informed citizenship, cultivating critical thinking skills, and promoting civic engagement.

Join Danielle Allen , James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University and Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, a s she examines the connection between higher education and democracy. In this session, Professor Allen will explore how higher education serves as a cornerstone for democracy, examining its role in fostering informed citizenship, cultivating critical thinking skills, and promoting civic engagement.

Please complete this registration form to confirm your attendance. You will be emailed the Zoom link before the event. This event is only open to members of the Harvard/Radcliffe community. Questions? Contact the Harvard Alumni Association at [email protected] or 617-495-1920.

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Honing critical thinking skills in the classroom

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Open access
Published: 26 March 2024

The effect of “typical case discussion and scenario simulation” on the critical thinking of midwifery students: Evidence from China

Yuji Wang 1 na1 ,
Yijuan Peng 1 na1 &
Yan Huang 1

BMC Medical Education volume 24 , Article number: 340 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

143 Accesses

Metrics details

Assessment ability lies at the core of midwives’ capacity to judge and treat clinical problems effectively. Influenced by the traditional teaching method of “teacher-led and content-based”, that teachers involve imparting a large amount of knowledge to students and students lack active thinking and active practice, the clinical assessment ability of midwifery students in China is mostly at a medium or low level. Improving clinical assessment ability of midwifery students, especially critical thinking, is highly important in practical midwifery education. Therefore, we implemented a new teaching program, “typical case discussion and scenario simulation”, in the Midwifery Health Assessment course. Guided by typical cases, students were organized to actively participate in typical case discussions and to promote active thinking and were encouraged to practice actively through scenario simulation. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the effect of this strategy on the critical thinking ability of midwifery students.

A total of 104 midwifery students in grades 16–19 at the West China School of Nursing, Sichuan University, were included as participants through convenience sampling. All the students completed the Midwifery Health Assessment course in the third year of university. Students in grades 16 and 17 were assigned to the control group, which received routine teaching in the Midwifery Health Assessment, while students in grades 18 and 19 were assigned to the experimental group, for which the “typical case discussion and scenario simulation” teaching mode was employed. The Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory-Chinese Version (CTDI-CV) and Midwifery Health Assessment Course Satisfaction Questionnaire were administered after the intervention.

After the intervention, the critical thinking ability of the experimental group was greater than that of the control group (284.81 ± 27.98 and 300.94 ± 31.67, p = 0.008). Furthermore, the experimental group exhibited higher scores on the four dimensions of Open-Mindedness (40.56 ± 5.60 and 43.59 ± 4.90, p = 0.005), Analyticity (42.83 ± 5.17 and 45.42 ± 5.72, p = 0.020), Systematicity (38.79 ± 4.70 and 41.88 ± 6.11, p = 0.006), and Critical Thinking Self-Confidence (41.35 ± 5.92 and 43.83 ± 5.89, p = 0.039) than did the control group. The course satisfaction exhibited by the experimental group was greater than that exhibited by the control group (84.81 ± 8.49 and 90.19 ± 8.41, p = 0.002).

The “typical case discussion and scenario simulation” class mode can improve the critical thinking ability of midwifery students and enhance their curriculum satisfaction. This approach carries a certain degree of promotional significance in medical education.

Typical case discussion and scenario simulation can improve midwifery students’ critical thinking ability.

Typical case discussion and scenario simulation can enhance students’ learning interest and guide students to learn independently.

Midwifery students were satisfied with the new teaching mode.

Peer Review reports

Maternal and neonatal health are important indicators to measure of the level of development of a country’s economy, culture and health care. The positive impact of quality midwifery education on maternal and newborn health is acknowledged in the publication framework for action strengthening quality midwifery education issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) [ 1 ]. Extensive evidence has shown that skilled midwifery care is crucial for reducing preventable maternal and neonatal mortality [ 2 , 3 , 4 ]. Clinical practice features high requirements for the clinical thinking ability of midwives, which refers to the process by which medical personnel analyze and integrate data with professional medical knowledge in the context of diagnosis and treatment as well as discover and solve problems through logical reasoning [ 5 ]. Critical thinking is a thoughtful process that is purposeful, disciplined, and self-directed and that aims to improve decisions and subsequent actions [ 6 ]. In 1986, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing formulated the “Higher Education Standards for Nursing Specialty”, which emphasize the fact that critical thinking is the primary core competence that nursing graduates should possess [ 7 ]. Many studies have shown that critical thinking can help nurses detect, analyze and solve problems creatively in clinical work and is a key factor in their ability to make correct clinical decisions [ 8 , 9 , 10 ].

However, the traditional teaching method used for midwifery students in China is “teacher-led and content-based”, and it involves efficiently and conveniently imparting a large amount of knowledge to students over a short period. Students have long failed to engage in active thinking and active practice, and the cultivation of critical thinking has long been ignored [ 5 ]. As a result, the critical thinking ability of midwifery students in China is mostly at a medium or low level [ 5 ]. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a new teaching mode to improve the critical thinking ability of midwifery students.

In 2014, Professor Xuexin Zhang of Fudan University, Shanghai, China, proposed a novel teaching method: the divided class mode. The basic idea of this approach is to divide the class time into two parts. The teachers explain the theoretical knowledge in the first lesson, and the students discuss that knowledge in the second lesson. This approach emphasizes the guiding role of teachers and encourages and empowers students to take responsibility for their studies [ 11 ]. Research has shown that the divided class mode can improve students’ enthusiasm and initiative as well as teaching effectiveness [ 12 ].

The problem-originated clinical medical curriculum mode of teaching was first established at McMaster University in Canada in 1965. This model is based on typical clinical cases and a problem-oriented heuristic teaching model [ 13 ]. The process of teaching used in this approach is guided by typical cases with the goal of helping students combine theoretical knowledge and practical skills. This approach can enhance the enthusiasm and initiative of students by establishing an active learning atmosphere. Students are encouraged to discuss and analyze typical cases to promote their ability to digest and absorb theoretical knowledge. Research has shown that the problem-originated clinical medical curriculum teaching mode can enhance students’ confidence and improve their autonomous learning and exploration ability. Scenario simulation teaching can provide students with real scenarios, allowing them to practice and apply their knowledge in a safe environment [ 14 ], which can effectively improve their knowledge and clinical skills and enhance their self-confidence [ 15 , 16 ].

Based on the teaching concept of divided classes, our research team established a new teaching model of “typical case discussion and scenario simulation”. Half of the class time is allocated for students to discuss typical cases and carry out scenario simulations to promote their active thinking and active practice. The Midwifery Health Assessment is the final professional core course that midwifery students must take in our school before clinical practice. All students must complete the course in Grade 3. Teaching this course is important for cultivating the critical thinking and clinical assessment ability of midwifery students. Therefore, our team adopted the new teaching mode of "typical case discussion and scenario simulation" in the teaching of this course. This study explored the teaching mode’s ability to improve the critical thinking ability of midwifery students.

Study design

The study employed a semiexperimental design.

Participants

A convenience sample of 104 third-year midwifery students who were enrolled in the Midwifery Health Assessment course volunteered to participate in this research at a large public university in Sichuan Province from February 2019 to June 2022 (grades 16 to 19). All the students completed the course in the third year of university. Students in grades 16 and 17 were assigned to the control group, which received the traditional teaching mode. Students in grades 18 and 19 were assigned to the experimental group, in which context the “typical case discussion and scenario simulation” class mode was used. The exclusion criteria for midwifery students were as follows: (1) dropped out of school during the study, (2) took continuous leave from school for more than two weeks, or (3) were unable to complete the questionnaire. The elimination criterion for midwifery students was that all the items were answered in the same way. No significant differences in students’ scores in their previous professional courses (Midwifery) were observed between the two groups. Textbooks, teachers, and teaching hours were the same for both groups.

Development of the “typical case discussion and scenario simulation” class mode

This study is based on the implementation of the new century higher education teaching reform project at Sichuan University. With the support of Sichuan University, we first established a “typical case discussion and scenario simulation” class mode team. The author of this paper was the head of the teaching reform project and served as a consultant, and the first author is responsible for supervising the implementation of the project. Second, the teaching team discussed and developed a standard process for the “typical case discussion and scenario simulation” class mode. Third, the entire team received intensive training in the standard process for the “typical case discussion and scenario simulation” class mode.

Implementation of the “typical case discussion and scenario simulation” class mode

Phase i (before class).

Before class, in accordance with the requirements for evaluating different periods of pregnancy, the teacher conceptualized typical cases and then discussed those cases with the teaching team and made any necessary modifications. After the completion of the discussion, the modified cases were released to the students through the class group. To ensure students’ interest, they were guided through the task of discovering and solving relevant problems using an autonomous learning approach.

Phase II (the first week)

Typical case discussion period. The Midwifery Health Assessment course was taught by 5 teachers and covered 5 health assessment periods, namely, the pregnancy preparation, pregnancy, delivery, puerperium and neonatal periods. The health assessment course focused on each period over 2 consecutive teaching weeks, and 2 lessons were taught per week. The first week focused on the discussion of typical cases. In the first lesson, teachers introduced typical cases, taught key knowledge or difficult evaluation content pertaining to the different periods, and explored the relevant knowledge framework. In the second lesson, teachers organized group discussions, case analyses and intergroup communications for the typical cases. They were also responsible for coordinating and encouraging students to participate actively in the discussion. After the discussion, teachers and students reviewed the definitions, treatments and evaluation points associated with the typical cases. The teachers also encouraged students to internalize knowledge by engaging in a process of summary and reflection to achieve the purpose of combining theory with practice.

Phase III (the second week)

Scenario simulation practice period. The second week focused on the scenario simulation practice period. In the first lesson, teachers reviewed the focus of assessment during the different periods and answered students’ questions. In the second lesson, students performed typical case assessment simulations in subgroups. After the simulation, the teachers commented on and summarized the students’ simulation evaluation and reviewed the evaluation points of typical cases to improve the students’ evaluation ability.

The organizational structure and implementation of the “typical case discussion and scenario simulation” class mode showed in Fig. 1 .

“Typical case discussion and scenario simulation” teaching mode diagram

A demographic questionnaire designed for this purpose was used to collect relevant information from participants, including age, gender, single-child status, family location, experience with typical case discussion or scenario simulation and scores in previous professional courses (Midwifery).

The Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory-Chinese Version (CTDI-CV) was developed by Peng et al. to evaluate the critical thinking ability of midwifery students [ 17 ]. The scale contains 70 items across a total of seven dimensions, namely, open-mindedness, truth-seeking, analytical ability, systematic ability, self-confidence in critical thinking, thirst for knowledge, and cognitive maturity. Each dimension is associated with 10 items, and each item is scored on a 6-point Likert scale, with 1 indicating “extremely agree” and 6 representing “extremely disagree”. The scale includes 30 positive items, which receive scores ranging from “extremely agree” to “extremely disagree” on a scale of 6 to 1, and 40 negative items, which receive scores ranging from “extremely agree” to “extremely disagree” on a scale of 1 to 6. A total score less than 210 indicates negative critical thinking ability, scores between 211 and 279 indicate an unclear meaning, scores of 280 or higher indicate positive critical thinking ability, and scores of 350 or higher indicate strong performance. The score range of each trait is 10–60 points; a score of 30 points or fewer indicates negative trait performance, scores between 31 and 39 points indicate that the trait meaning is incorrect, scores of 40 points or higher indicate positive trait performance, and scores of 50 points or higher indicate extremely positive trait performance. The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the scale was 0.90, thus indicating good content validity and structure. The higher an individual’s score on this measure is, the better that individual’s critical thinking ability.

The evaluation of teaching results was based on a questionnaire used to assess undergraduate course satisfaction, and the researchers deleted and modified items in the questionnaire to suit the context of the “typical case discussion and scenario simulation” teaching mode. Two rounds of discussion were held within the study group to form the final version of the Midwifery Health Assessment satisfaction questionnaire. The questionnaire evaluates the effect of teaching in terms of three dimensions, namely, curriculum content, curriculum teaching and curriculum evaluation. The questionnaire contains 21 items, each of which is scored on a 5-point Likert scale, with 1 indicating “extremely disagree” and 5 representing “extremely agree”. The higher the score is, the better the teaching effect.

Data collection and statistical analysis

We input the survey data into the “Wenjuanxing” platform ( https://www.wjx.cn/ ), which specializes in questionnaire services. At the beginning of the study, an electronic questionnaire was distributed to the students in the control group via student WeChat and QQ groups for data collection. After the intervention, an electronic questionnaire was distributed to the students in the experimental group for data collection in the final class of the Midwifery Health Assessment course. All the data were collected by the first author (Yuji Wang). When students had questions about the survey items, the first author (Yuji Wang) immediately explained the items in detail. To ensure the integrity of the questionnaire, the platform required all the items to be answered before submission.

Statistical Package for Social Sciences Version 26.0 (SPSS 26.0) software was used for data analysis. The Shapiro‒Wilk test was used to test the normality of the data. The measurement data are expressed as the mean ± standard deviation (X ± S), and an independent sample t test was used for comparisons among groups with a normal distribution. The data presented as the number of cases (%), and the chi-square test was performed. A P value < 0.05 indicated that a difference was statistically significant.

Ethical considerations

The study was funded by the New Century Teaching Reform Project of Sichuan University and passed the relevant ethical review. Oral informed consent was obtained from all individual participants in the study.

Characteristics of the participants

A total of 104 third-year midwifery students were enrolled from February 2019 to June 2022, and 98.1% (102/144) of these students completed the survey. Two invalid questionnaires that featured the same answers for each item were eliminated. A total of 100 participants were ultimately included in the analysis. Among the participants, 48 students were assigned to the control group, and 52 students were assigned to the experimental group. The age of the students ranged from 19 to 22 years, and the mean age of the control group was 20.50 years (SD = 0.61). The mean age of the experimental group was 20.63 years (SD = 0.65). Of the 100 students who participated in the study, the majority (96.0%) were women. No significant differences were observed between the intervention and control groups in terms of students’ demographic information (i.e., age, gender, status as an only child, or family location), experience with scenario simulation or typical case discussion and scores in previous Midwifery courses (Table 1 ).

Examining the differences in critical thinking ability between the two groups

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of the new teaching mode of “typical case discussion and scenario simulation” on improving the critical thinking ability of midwifery students. Independent sample t tests were used to examine the differences in critical thinking ability between the two groups (Table 2 ). The results showed that the total critical thinking scores obtained by the experimental group were greater than those obtained by the control group (284.81 ± 27.98 and 300.94 ± 31.67, p = 0.008). The differences in four dimensions (Open-Mindedness (40.56 ± 5.60 and 43.59 ± 4.90, p = 0.005), Analyticity (42.83 ± 5.17 and 45.42 ± 5.72, p = 0.020), Systematicity (38.79 ± 4.70 and 41.88 ± 6.11, p = 0.006), and Critical Thinking Self-Confidence (41.35 ± 5.92 and 43.83 ± 5.89, p = 0.039)) were statistically significant.

Examining the differences in curriculum satisfaction between the two groups

To evaluate the effect of the new teaching mode of “the typical case discussion and scenario simulation” on the course satisfaction of midwifery students. Independent sample t tests were used to examine the differences in course satisfaction between the two groups (Table 3 ). The results showed that the curriculum satisfaction of the experimental group was greater than that of the control group (84.81 ± 8.49 and 90.19 ± 8.41, p = 0.002). Independent sample t tests were used to examine the differences in the three dimensions of curriculum satisfaction between the two groups (Table 3 ). The results showed that the average scores of the intervention group on the three dimensions were significantly greater than those of the control group (curricular content: 20.83 ± 1.96 and 22.17 ± 2.23, p = 0.002; curriculum teaching: 34.16 ± 3.89 and 36.59 ± 3.66, p = 0.002; curriculum evaluation: 29.81 ± 3.27 and 31.42 ± 3.19, p = 0.015).

Midwifery is practical and intensive work. To ensure maternal and child safety, midwives must make decisions and take action quickly. Therefore, midwives should have both critical thinking ability and clinical decision-making ability [ 18 ]. In addition, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Accreditation Council (ANMAC) regulates the educational requirements for the programs required for registration as a midwife. According to these standards, education providers must incorporate learning activities into curricula to encourage the development and application of critical thinking and reflective practice [ 19 ]. Therefore, the challenge of cultivating the critical thinking ability of midwifery students is an urgent problem that must be solved. However, influenced by the traditional teaching method of “teacher-led and content-based”, the critical thinking ability of midwifery students in China is mostly at a medium or low level. In order to improve the critical thinking ability of midwifery students. Our research team has established a new teaching model, the “typical case discussion and scenario simulation” class model. And applied to the midwifery core curriculum Midwifery Health Assessment. This study aimed to investigate the implementation of a novel systematic and structured teaching model for midwifery students and to provide evidence regarding how to improve the critical thinking ability of midwives.

The results showed that the total CTDI-CV score obtained for the experimental group was greater than that obtained for the control group. These findings indicate that the “typical case discussion and scenario simulation” class mode had a positive effect on the cultivation of students’ critical thinking ability, a conclusion which is similar to the findings of Holdsworth et al. [ 20 ], Lapkin et al. [ 21 ] and Demirören M et al. [ 22 ]. We indicate the following reasons that may explain these results.The core aim of the typical case discussion teaching mode is to raise questions based on typical clinical cases and to provide heuristic teaching to students [ 23 ]. This approach emphasizes asking questions based on specific clinical cases, which enables students to engage in targeted learning. Moreover, scenario simulation allows students to attain certain inner experiences and emotions and actively participate in curriculum practice, which can enhance their ability to remember and understand knowledge [ 24 ]. Through the divided class mode, half of the class time was divided into the students. This method emphasizes the guiding role of teachers and encourages and empowers students to assume learning responsibilities. In addition, students can think, communicate and discuss actively [ 22 , 23 ]. Furthermore, this approach created opportunities for students to analyze and consider problems independently and give students sufficient time to internalize and absorb knowledge and deepen their understanding of relevant knowledge, which can increase their confidence in their ability to address such problems and improve their critical thinking ability [ 12 , 25 , 26 ].

In addition, the results showed that except for Truth-Seeking and Systematicity, the other five dimensions were all positive. These findings are similar to the results reported by Atakro et al.. and Sun et al. [ 27 , 28 ]. Through the intervention, the Systematicity scores became positive, suggesting that the new teaching mode can help students deal with problems in an organized and purposeful way. However, Truth-Seeking still did not become positive; this notion focuses on intellectual honesty, i.e., the disposition to be courageous when asking questions and to be honest and objective in the pursuit of knowledge even when the topics under investigation do not support one’s self-interest [ 29 ]. Studies have shown that this factor is related to the traditional teaching mode used [ 30 ]. The traditional teaching mode focuses on knowledge infusion, helps students remember the greatest possible amount of knowledge in a short time, and does not focus on guiding students to seek knowledge with sincerity and objectivity. Therefore, in future educational practice, we should focus on cultivating students’ ability to seek truth and engage in systematization.

Student evaluative feedback is an important way to test the effectiveness teaching mode. Therefore, understanding students’ evaluations of the effects of classroom teaching is key to promoting teaching reform and improving teaching quality. Therefore, we distributed a satisfaction questionnaire pertaining to the midwifery health assessment curriculum, which was based on the “typical case discussion and scenario simulation” class mode, with the goal of investigating curriculum satisfaction in terms of three dimensions (curriculum content, curriculum teaching and curriculum evaluation). The results showed that the satisfaction scores for each dimension increased significantly. This finding suggests that the new teaching method can enrich the teaching content, diversify the teaching mode and improve students’ curriculum evaluations.

In summary, the “typical case discussion and scenario simulation” class mode focuses on typical cases as its main content. Students’ understanding of this content is deepened through group discussion and scenario simulation. The subjectivity of students in curriculum learning should be accounted for. Students can be encouraged to detect, analyze and solve problems with the goal of improving their critical thinking ability. Moreover, this approach can also enhance curriculum satisfaction. It is recommended that these tools should be used continuously in future curriculum teaching.

This study has several limitations. First, the representativeness of the sample may be limited since the participants were recruited from specific universities in China. Second, we used historical controls, which are less effective than simultaneous controlled trials. Third, online self-report surveys are susceptible to response biases, although we included quality control measurements in the process of data collection. Fourth, we did not use the same critical thinking instrument, CTDI-CV, to investigate the critical thinking of the students in the experimental group or the control group before intervention but used professional course grades from the Midwifery for substitution comparison. This may not be a sufficient substitute. However, these comparisons could be helpful since those grades included some sort of evaluation of critical thinking. In light of these limitations, future multicenter simultaneous controlled studies should be conducted. Nonetheless, this study also has several strengths. First, no adjustment of teachers or change in learning materials occurred since the start of the midwifery health assessment, thus ensuring that the experimental and control groups featured the same teaching materials, teachers and teaching hours. In addition, to ensure the quality of the research, the first author of this paper participated in the entirety of the course teaching.

The “typical case discussion and scenario simulation” class mode can improve the critical thinking of midwifery students, which is helpful for ensuring maternal and child safety. Students are highly satisfied with the new teaching mode, and this approach has a certain degree of promotional significance. However, this approach also entails higher requirements for both teachers and students.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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The study was supported by Sichuan University’s New Century Education and Teaching Reform Project (SCU9316).

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Yuji Wang and Yijuan Peng are co-first authors.

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Department of Nursing, West China Second University Hospital, Sichuan University/West China School of Nursing, Sichuan University/Key Laboratory of Birth Defects and Related Diseases of Women and Children (Sichuan University), No. 20 Third Section, Renmin South Road, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, 610041, China

Yuji Wang, Yijuan Peng & Yan Huang

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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Yuji Wang, Yijuan Peng and Yan Huang. The first draft of the manuscript were written by Yuji Wang and Yijuan Peng, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript.

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This study was supported by Sichuan University. And it was approved by the Ethics Review Committee of West China School of Nursing, Sichuan University. As it is a teaching research with no harm to samples, we only obtained oral informed consents from the participants including teachers and midwifery students and it was approved by the Ethics Review Committee of West China School of Nursing, Sichuan University(approval number 2021220). We comfirm that all methods were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations in Ethics Approval and Consent to participate in Declarations.

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Wang, Y., Peng, Y. & Huang, Y. The effect of “typical case discussion and scenario simulation” on the critical thinking of midwifery students: Evidence from China. BMC Med Educ 24 , 340 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05127-5

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Aurora Beacon-News | Problem-solving, critical thinking on display…

Aurora Beacon-News

Aurora beacon-news | problem-solving, critical thinking on display at robotics event at aurora municipal airport.

Students from 9 to 16 years old participated in the Elite Robotics Camp in Aurora which included a competition Friday at the Aurora Municipal Airport in Sugar Grove. (David Sharos / For The Beacon-News)

Robots and the kids that built and operated them took center stage all day Friday at the Aurora Municipal Airport in Sugar Grove as 17 students 9 to 16 years old squared off in a competition during the first-ever Elite Robotics Camp, hosted by the U.S. Engineering League and the Wong Center for Education.

The Friday showcase was the culmination of a week-long camp program that included four days of workshops held at the Hampton Inn in Aurora.

A press release issued by the robotics camp said the 17 students involved spent time with a variety of national champions from multiple countries under Anthony Hsu of OFDL Robotics Lab Taiwan, “one of the world’s most accomplished coaches.”

Susan Mackafey, publicist for the Robotics group, said the event in Aurora came about as a result of the competitions that the Wong group hosts worldwide. William Wong, the founder of the Wong Center for Education, is the national organizer for the World Robot Olympiad, according to a press release.

“There were some students from Ukraine and Kazakhstan wondering if there would be any other kind of competitions as they wanted to hone their skills with one of the experts,” she said. “Will Wong ran with it, and has arranged the camp and the competition going on this Friday.”

Two of the camp members from Ukraine – Margo Proutorbva and Sofia Sova – were sponsored by the Wong Center for Education.

“It’s been an emotional trip for them,” Mackafey said, given the war going on in their homeland. “A lot of the kids are looking to train and do this as their careers and they love to compete. There are various levels of this competition that take place on a global scale.”

Local students were on hand as well, some of whom are being sponsored by the Wong Foundation, sources said.

Wong, of Naperville, was supervising Friday at the airport facility and said he started a robotics program with kids back in 2008.

“STEM has become a lot of the focus,” Wong said. “Even before I started, STEM was a big word. Engineering coding has always been there. It’s just how can we have kids do more of it. What’s happened is there are education companies like LEGO and other companies that have built robots that allow us to teach kids robotics in an easy fashion and we can create real world challenges off those robots so they literally are engineering, building and creating, designing and working with teams to have robots do tasks.”

Other than the collaborative learning, Wong said the biggest takeaways of the program “are problem-solving, figuring out how to make things work, a lot of trial-and-error, analysis and critical thinking.”

“There is teamwork, but the biggest is perseverance and working through the problems,” he said. “If the robot doesn’t work the first time or the second time or the 100th time, they are truly going through the engineering process – building, design and the whole cycle.”

Sofia Sova, left, and Margo Protorbva came from Ukraine to participate in a robotics camp in Aurora that culminated with a competition Friday at the Aurora Municipal Airport in Sugar Grove. (David Sharos / For The Beacon-News)

Margo Proutorbva, 14, spoke about robotics and said through an interpreter she got interested in them two years ago.

“I’ve learned to assemble them,” she said. “The most difficult part of this has been when you assemble a robot with someone else – it’s way easier when you do it on your own. My robot can grab different objects, follow lines and turn in different ways.”

David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.

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America succeeds partners with edmentum to teach durable skills, the digital education company edmentum will add curriculum materials from the nonprofit america succeeds to its career and technical education courses to help students build “soft skills” like critical thinking and creativity..

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To do so, I will engage with the concept of moral education, point out different ways in which reasoning skills play an essential role in it, and support these considerations by appealing to further empirical studies. ... Surkes M, Tamim R, Zhang D (2008) Instructional interventions affecting critical thinking skills and dispositions: a stage 1 ...
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Assessment ability lies at the core of midwives' capacity to judge and treat clinical problems effectively. Influenced by the traditional teaching method of "teacher-led and content-based", that teachers involve imparting a large amount of knowledge to students and students lack active thinking and active practice, the clinical assessment ability of midwifery students in China is mostly ...
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Religious Educator Vol. 18 No. 3 · 2017

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Development and status of moral education research: Visual analysis based on knowledge graph

Chengliang Wang

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1. Introduction

2. Literature review

3. Methods and materials

3.2. Initial literature search

3.3. Literature screening

4. Performance analysis: Productivity and impact

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5. Keywords analysis: Cluster, evolution, and burst

5.2. Keyword evolutionary analysis

5.3. Keyword-burst analysis

6. Conclusions, limitations, and future research implications

6.2. Limitations and future research

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