Can Critical Thinking Skills Be Taught?

Critical thinking is a term thrown around in nursing schools and hospitals all over the country. Nursing instructors say students need critical thinking skills to be successful nurses. On his Facebook fan page Sean Dent, and nurse practitioner, podcaster, and prolific blogger asked: “Can critical thinking skills be taught?“. Before I can answer that question the term “critical thinking” needs to be defined.

In doing a quick online search, I found a site called criticalthinking.org and the article “Defining Critical Thinking.” Here is a brief excerpt from that post:

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.

Dictionary.com defines “critical thinking” as:

noun
1. disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence

If you haven’t fallen asleep already reading those two definitions lets talk about my definition of critical thinking. Just like the definitions above, critical thinking is not an entity in itself, and in nursing is actually a cluster of 5 elements.

1. Knowledge
2. Common Sense
3. Synthesis
4. Caring
5. Action or Inaction

The knowledge element is where schools excel. In institutions of higher learning students heads are filled with knowledge. The learners are the evaluated on how well said knowledge is retained by formal examination. Simply absorbing information and regurgitating it back on a test does not measure critical thinking. Knowledge is simply one of the building blocks that makes up the foundation for the critical thinker.

Common sense is also a block in the foundation of the critical thinking structure, but unlike knowledge is more complicated. A person can acquire knowledge via traditional channels, but what about common sense? Common sense is a bit more complex because it doesn’t require book smarts per se. Common sense is something most people agree on what a prudent person would do or not do given a set of conditions.

Merriam-Websters Dictionary defines common sense as:

Sound and prudent judgement based on a simple perception of the situation or facts

Most people agree that running out into a busy street is not a good idea. Any adult who does it is devoid of common sense. One hundred percent of the time any action that follows the words, “Hold my beer and watch this” is demonstrated  by a person devoid of common sense.

Synthesis is taking facts, combining them with common sense, and generating hypotheses. It is through these hypotheses one ponders the consequences of each possible action to be taken. Every action has a positive or negative outcome, as well as a risk to benefit ratio. The synthesis process is where experience kicks in because though experience a person has lived action/consequence scenarios and can accept reject a hypotheses based on successes and failures. During the synthesis process is where collaboration with your coworkers can be very helpful. Everyone has a point of view, and a colleague may see a solution that up to now you are blind to for one reason or another.

In nursing we deal with patients, and more specifically other human beings and therefore you need to care. By caring I mean you must give a shit. If a nurse doesn’t give a shit than every thing up to now means nothing.

Lastly, critical thinking results in action or inaction. What should you do? Sometimes a condition is abnormal but we do nothing and watch for further deterioration. Other times we need to intervene immediately and agressively. The decision is derived from the preceding elements that make up my definition of critical thinking.

After pondering all of this, my answer to Sean’s question, “Can critical thinking skills be taught”, my answer is no. The reason I say this is because on of the blocks that forms the foundation of critical thinking is common sense and common sense is something you have or you don’t. It is possible to be an A student from a prestigous university and be devoid of common sense. Therefore the ability for critical thinking is in you or it isn’t. If a student has the capacity for critical thinking, then critical thinking skills can be developed and refined. Much like matter, one can not create critical thinking from thin air.