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i have several questions here: - how does one measure critical thinking in a survey? The article doesn't say so. - The humanities/liberal arts are supposed to

i have several questions here: - how does one measure critical thinking in a survey? The article doesn't say so. - The humanities/liberal arts are supposed to encourage critical thinking, how do the Humanities compare vs exact sciences/engineering in terms of critical thinking? - Do employers really value critical thinking, or does too much critical thinking inhibit your career prospects in an organisation?

pas 9y ago
This is the test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collegiate_Learning_Assessment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collegiate_Learning_Assessment There are a lot of studies about what is critical thinking, how to test and teach it: eg. http://windsor.scholarsportal.info/ojs/leddy/index.php/informal_logic/article/view/2254 http://windsor.scholarsportal.info/ojs/leddy/index.php/infor... Here's a PDF about the CLA itself: https://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUSE/SEAL/Reports_Papers/higher_ed_papers/The%20Collegiate%20Learning%20Assessment_Ford%20Policy%20Forum%20Monograph%202008.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUSE/SEAL/Reports_Papers/highe... > liberal arts ... Yes, good insight, it'd be good to have access to the data. > employers I think there are very different types of employers. Some need broad rationalist critical thinkers, some need focused specialized experts, and so on.
- MichaelMoser123 9y ago
  Thanks, I wonder about the nature of the jobs that have a requirement for critical thinking: these might be analysts, or managerial posts, how prevalent is this requirement?
  - pas 9y ago
    I think it's more dependent on the type of organization and sector. So if you are in a fast moving sector, you need agile self-aware people. They will think critically about the problems, uncover their basic assumptions, try to challenge them, and so on. It helps if you have open-ended, think outside the box, oh wait, we don't even have a box ... problems. But it doesn't help if you want to cook your books and your accountant start to ask inconvenient questions. I'd say product designers/managers are an interesting case, because coming up with a new product (or just new/different/fresh/interesting features for an existing product - for a new version) requires a lot of thinking, yet it requires a certain focus after the spec has been finalized, otherwise the product guy/gal will find itself in constant anxiety worrying about how the basic assumptions are shifting, how things need to be tweaked, and so on. And of course, the aforementioned is just a very narrow aspect of thinking, and a lot of non-strictly-cognitive psychology. But as our current state of society shows, critical thinking doesn't really have a super-duper-extra high and obvious utility reward. Otherwise it'd be more prevalent. Aaaand of course you'll get into a loop, trying to questions yourselves, your thoughts, trying to eliminate your biases, correct for others', estimate, forecast, predict, post-process. (And some people do it http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/12/31/2016-predictions-calibration-results/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/12/31/2016-predictions-calibr... , some don't.)
    - MichaelMoser123 9y ago
      Thank you for the answer.

pas 9y ago

This is the test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collegiate_Learning_Assessment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collegiate_Learning_Assessment There are a lot of studies about what is critical thinking, how to test and teach it: eg. http://windsor.scholarsportal.info/ojs/leddy/index.php/informal_logic/article/view/2254 http://windsor.scholarsportal.info/ojs/leddy/index.php/infor... Here's a PDF about the CLA itself: https://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUSE/SEAL/Reports_Papers/higher_ed_papers/The%20Collegiate%20Learning%20Assessment_Ford%20Policy%20Forum%20Monograph%202008.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUSE/SEAL/Reports_Papers/highe... > liberal arts ... Yes, good insight, it'd be good to have access to the data. > employers I think there are very different types of employers. Some need broad rationalist critical thinkers, some need focused specialized experts, and so on.

MichaelMoser123 9y ago
Thanks, I wonder about the nature of the jobs that have a requirement for critical thinking: these might be analysts, or managerial posts, how prevalent is this requirement?
- pas 9y ago
  I think it's more dependent on the type of organization and sector. So if you are in a fast moving sector, you need agile self-aware people. They will think critically about the problems, uncover their basic assumptions, try to challenge them, and so on. It helps if you have open-ended, think outside the box, oh wait, we don't even have a box ... problems. But it doesn't help if you want to cook your books and your accountant start to ask inconvenient questions. I'd say product designers/managers are an interesting case, because coming up with a new product (or just new/different/fresh/interesting features for an existing product - for a new version) requires a lot of thinking, yet it requires a certain focus after the spec has been finalized, otherwise the product guy/gal will find itself in constant anxiety worrying about how the basic assumptions are shifting, how things need to be tweaked, and so on. And of course, the aforementioned is just a very narrow aspect of thinking, and a lot of non-strictly-cognitive psychology. But as our current state of society shows, critical thinking doesn't really have a super-duper-extra high and obvious utility reward. Otherwise it'd be more prevalent. Aaaand of course you'll get into a loop, trying to questions yourselves, your thoughts, trying to eliminate your biases, correct for others', estimate, forecast, predict, post-process. (And some people do it http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/12/31/2016-predictions-calibration-results/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/12/31/2016-predictions-calibr... , some don't.)
  - MichaelMoser123 9y ago
    Thank you for the answer.