Goal 1: Informed Decision-Making

The first, and most important, goal for higher education is to prepare students for informed decision-making throughout their lives. In a world where claims are bombarding us every minute, and we are faced with decisions about medicine, mortgages, school budgets, zoning, and yes, political candidates, the greatest set of skills and habits of mind that we can cultivate in our students is the ability to sort through those claims and make reasonable decisions. This is goal one of our strategic plan.

Some might suggest that informed decision-making is what we mean by critical thinking. Perhaps, but this term has been so tortured by both secondary and higher education that it has come to mean everything and nothing at all. Others might suggest that preparation for informed decision-making is what we often describe as preparation for life-long learning, but this is also too broad to be meaningful. There is no way to not learn throughout your life, whether or not you participate in post-secondary education programs. No, I am thinking about a more focused kind of learning. For those who pursue any post-secondary education, that focus will be on the ability to evaluate information with tools that are grounded in relevant disciplinary epistemologies. In other words, our graduates should be able to make decisions that reflect knowledge of the variables that pertain and the tests of veracity that apply.

Let me clarify. To start with, what's wrong with critical thinking? Nothing really, except we have no common definition. When I use the term, I am really thinking about informal logic. I want students to be able to identify the issues under discussion, relying on debate terms like resolution, claim, proposition or thesis. I want to help them look for supporting evidence and examine its relevance and consider its credibility. I want them to discover contradictions and fallacies (ad hominem, straw man, etc.). In short, I think of critical thinking as a kind of diagram of arguments, much like a grammarian might diagram sentences. The result of this diagramming process is meant to help us determine whether or not to accept a resolution (argument, claim), help us make decisions related to said resolution. The techniques of logic are incredibly helpful for seeing where an argument may go wrong. It will help us rule out some claims and allow others to stand. On its own, however, it is not sufficient for informed decision-making. It is missing essential tools for evaluating evidence.

Yet, others use the term critical thinking to mean something more like a close examination of texts and contexts. Thus, my colleagues in history might invite students to explore connections between events and consider explanations reflected in historical documents. This is incredibly important work and should be part of everyone's education. Reading history encourages students to engage with known facts as represented in historical documents and explore the agreed upon and disputed interpretations of events therein. Of particular value is seeing how those interpretations have changed over time. This helps our students understand that truth evolves with new information and new understandings about how the world should be organized. Historical analysis provides meaningful evidence and ideas to any argument. On its own, though, it is not sufficient for informed decision-making. It lacks a clear path to ruling out a perspective.

Similarly, my colleagues in arts disciplines use the term critical thinking to mean something more like critique. This version of critical thinking is not at all about logic, but it does reflect knowledge of aesthetic forms, and the decisions artists make to create their work. Understanding genre and technique helps us cultivate our understanding of works or art and open a path to discussion of its effect or value. But, perhaps, even more important is that it helps us to figure out how we feel as we interact with a work of art. Most of what we call art is designed to evoke emotions. Our emotional responses tell us about ourselves, and about the worldviews and cultures we inhabit. Art allows us to examine cultural values in a way that weaves together the heart and mind, provoking insight in ways that evaluating words and numbers don't often achieve. Art can help us clarify the heart of an argument and make us feel its importance. Understanding art is essential to growing our understanding of the contexts in which we live. Art, emotion, and culture are woven into every argument, even when they are invisible to us. Understanding how art works is essential for informed decision-making. But it does not stand on its own. It has no path to determining of truth or falsehood.

Then there are my colleagues in sciences and social sciences who will describe hypothesis testing as critical thinking. Hypothesis testing is an important process for evaluating evidence. It allows us to rule in or rule out an answer, so it comes closer to my understanding of critical thinking (logical reasoning) than some of the other areas that use this term. Hypothesis testing offers a method of inquiry that requires an evaluation of observable phenomena and requires an interpretation of results that is, indeed, focused on a notion of what is true or false. Yet, without a rich understanding of quantitative inquiry and probability, the results of hypothesis testing are of limited value. The result of most hypothesis testing is not yes or no, but mostly yes or not enough yes to know what it means. Without the complementary knowledge provided by statistics (at the very least), it will be difficult to come to an informed decision. Scientific method must be accompanied by quantitative reasoning. Scientific inquiry is incredibly important to informed decision-making. When we understand results, we understand next the steps in architecture, medicine, or the impact of a social policy. But this, too, is not sufficient. It is a great path to some facts as we know them now, but it is devoid of yet another important component of decision-making: ethics.

Underneath or alongside all of these examples, there is a need to consider the ethical implications of any question we hope to answer. Even if we understand the structure of an argument (logical reasoning), the events that have led up to the question (historical reasoning), the emotional/social/cultural (aesthetic reasoning) ideas that are reflected and created by the question, and the probability that the evidence presented is true (scientific and quantitative reasoning), we cannot decide how to respond if we have not considered the impact of our decision based in some moral code. Informed decision-making does not rely solely on techniques the demonstrate understanding of the ways questions are approached in a group of disciplines (humanities, social sciences, sciences). It necessarily includes some understanding of right and wrong, or at least better or worse outcomes.

This brings me back to the traditional home of critical thinking - philosophy. If we look at the questions asked in philosophy, we see that there is a clear weaving together of the tools of logical analysis with questions of right and wrong, good and evil, even costs and benefits. In many philosophy departments, religion is also an important part of the curriculum. Great religious texts help to ensure that we are considering the many understandings of right/wrong, good/evil, and yes, even costs and benefits. If we never explore our moral foundations, science is too authoritarian, art is too whimsical, history is too narrow, and logic is just a good debate strategy with no concern for a right result. Without a rich exploration of the range of arguments about right/wrong, good or evil, costs and benefits, we also fall prey to enthymemes and slogans that do not reflect a whole. That whole is where we can fully understand the implications of the decisions we need to make. We must root the entire educational enterprise in the descriptions of our values that philosophy and religion represent.

So, it is fine if you want to use the term critical thinking as a catch all for evaluative thinking represented in multiple ways of knowing. But I would like to suggest that it is better to think about what we do as laying the foundations for informed decision-making. We have to be sure that our graduates develop the skills of evaluating arguments of all kinds: aesthetic, logical, historical, scientific, quantitative. These skills will help them see the frameworks of their knowledge, the paths to creating new knowledge, and the boundaries to what they know so far. These skills will, in fact, help them in any career they choose and will support their ability to become capable doctors, lawyers, editors, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, coaches, and referees. But these skills must be situated in a rich understanding of ethical reasoning. This is essential for building an informed citizenry capable of evaluating policies and candidates of all kinds. That evaluation is not just about the relative truth of policies proposed: It is about the impact of policies on our friends, neighbors, and the world in which we hope to live.

So, goal one of this strategic plan is an argument for general education. It is an old idea, but a good one. It doesn't matter if we are offering two- or four-year degrees, the range of epistemologies that make up most general education programs are the foundation for supporting informed decision-making. We all have the outines of this in our curriculum, but I don't think that our students are getting the full benefit of these outlines. I am also uncertain about whether we recognize the connections between the courses offered and the larger goal of creating informed citizens. This is where the work needs to begin. We must re-harness the power of our general education curriculum and focus directly on the cultivation of informed decision-making.

In the next few posts, I will explore specific parts of our general education curriculum that need attention. The good news is we have what we need to make what we do stronger and more impactful. We don't need any new tools or to learn new disciplines. We just need to focus our efforts on connecting the tools and texts of our disciplines to this larger decision-making goal. We need to help our students see how these tools go together. Then they will be read to navigate the information (true or false or somewhere in between) and the ethical implications of their actions in meaningful ways. This is our duty and our role. This is why higher education is America's Strategic Plan.