What Are Critical Thinking Skills, and Why Are They Important?

We often use critical thinking skills without even realising them. When you decide which cereal to eat for breakfast, you're using critical thinking to determine the best option for you that day.

Critical thinking is like a muscle that can be exercised and built over time. It’s valuable in your personal and professional life and is a skill that can help propel your career to new heights. You'll be able to solve workplace issues, use trial and error to troubleshoot ideas, and more.

Delve deeper into what it is and get some examples to help you begin your journey to mastering this skill.

What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking is the ability to interpret, evaluate, and analyse available facts and information to form a judgement or decide if something is right or wrong.

More than just being curious about the world around you, critical thinkers make connections between logical ideas to see the bigger picture. Building your critical thinking skills means advocating your ideas and opinions, rationally presenting them, and making decisions for improvement.

Why is critical thinking important?

Critical thinking is helpful in many areas of your life, including your career. It makes you a well-rounded individual who has looked at all of their options and possible solutions before making a choice.

According to India Today, having critical thinking skills is essential because they [1]:

• Open the mind to numerous possibilities

• Can help you find new solutions

• Help you look at the world with a spirit of curiosity and openness to learning new things

Critical thinking skills are used every day in a myriad of ways. They apply in various situations, such as when a CEO approaches a group project or a nurse decides how to treat their patients.

Examples of common critical thinking skills

Critical thinking skills differ from individual to individual, and you can utilise them in various ways. Examples of common critical thinking skills include:

• Identification of biases: Identifying biases means recognising the unfair prejudice or influence that could exist in the situation at hand. Pointing out these biases helps remove them from the problem-solving process and allows you to see things differently.

• Research: Researching details and facts allows you to be prepared when presenting your information to people. You’ll know exactly what you’re talking about due to the time you’ve spent with the subject material, and you’ll be well-spoken and know what questions to ask to gain more knowledge. When researching, always use credible sources and factual information.

• Open-mindedness: Being open-minded when conversing or participating in a group activity is crucial to success. Dismissing someone else’s ideas before you’ve heard them will inhibit you from progressing to a solution and often create animosity. If you genuinely want to solve a problem, you need to be willing to hear everyone’s opinions and ideas if you want them to listen to yours.

• Analysis: Analysing your research will give you a better understanding of what you’ve heard and read. As a true critical thinker, you’ll want to seek out the truth and get to the source of issues. It’s important to avoid taking things at face value and always dig deeper.

• Problem-solving: Problem-solving is perhaps the most crucial skill critical thinkers possess. The ability to solve issues and bounce back from conflict helps you succeed, be a leader, and effect change. One way to properly solve problems is first to recognise a problem that needs solving. By determining the issue, you can then analyse it and develop several potential solutions.

How to develop critical thinking skills

You can develop critical thinking skills every day if you logically approach problems. The following offers a few ways to start your path to improvement:

1. Ask questions.

Be inquisitive about everything. Maintain a neutral perspective and develop a natural curiosity to ask questions that develop your understanding of the situation or task at hand. The more details, facts, and information you have, the better informed you will be when making decisions.

2. Practise active listening.

Utilise active listening techniques, which are founded in empathy, to really listen to what the other person is saying. Critical thinking, in part, is the cognitive process of reading the situation: the words coming out of their mouth, their body language, and their reactions to their own words. Then, you might paraphrase to clarify what they're saying so both of you agree you're on the same page.

3. Develop your logic and reasoning.

This is perhaps a more abstract task that requires practice and long-term development. However, think of a schoolteacher assessing the classroom to determine how to energise the lesson. Options include playing a game, watching a video, or challenging the students with a reward system. Using logic, you might decide that the reward system will take up too much time and is not an immediate fix. A video is not exactly relevant at this time, so the teacher decides to play a simple word association game.

Scenarios like this happen daily, so next time, you can be more aware of what will work and what won't. Over time, developing your logic and reasoning will strengthen your critical thinking skills.

Next steps

Critical thinking refers to the ability to interpret, evaluate, and analyse facts and information, using that analysis to make a decision or form a judgement. These are vital skills to develop and maintain in all areas of life. 

Continue learning tips and tricks for becoming a better critical thinker and problem solver through online courses from notable educational institutions on Coursera. Start with Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking from Duke University or Mindware: Critical Thinking for the Information Age from the University of Michigan.