What is a Critical thinker?
Raymond S. Nickerson (1987), an authority on critical thinking, characterized a good critical thinker in terms of knowledge, abilities, attitudes, and habitual ways of behaving. Here are some of the characteristics of such a thinker. * Uses evidence skillfully and impartially * Organizes thoughts and articulates them concisely and coherently * Suspends judgment in the absence of sufficient evidence to support a decision * Understands the difference between reasoning and rationalizing * Attempts to anticipate the probable consequences of alternative actions * Understands the idea of degrees of belief * Sees similarities and analogies that are not superficially apparent * Can learn independently and has an abiding interest in doing so * Applies problem-solving techniques in domains other than those in which learned * Can structure informally represented problems in such a way that formal techniques, such as mathematics, can be used to solve them * Can strip a verbal argument of irrelevan
