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But Brandon Busteed, executive director of Gallup's higher education division, which also conducts research related to graduates and careers, said these sorts o

But Brandon Busteed, executive director of Gallup's higher education division, which also conducts research related to graduates and careers, said these sorts of definitions can vary For instance, Gallup has found that generally an employer believes that "critical thinking" is coming up with new, original thought. But in an academic sense, it can mean more picking apart ideas in depth, he said. Given that their definition of "critical thinking" (which is incorrect,) differs from the academic one, employers are probably responding on a completely different wavelength. That throws this whole survey into question.

nitwit005 9y ago
It's fairly normal for terms to have different academic and non-academic usage. There is a reason so many surveys define terms.
- homonculus1 9y ago
  Critical thinking isn't some kind of academic jargon. It literally means applying criticism to the subject of thought.
  - nitwit005 9y ago
    And? It's normal for words to drift in meaning over time. You have to deal with the reality of language, not "how it's supposed to be".
    - lr4444lr 9y ago
      I agree with you in the general sense, but the employers (whoever they are) are simply wrong by any reasonable standard of language to equate critical thinking with original thinking. For example, the skill of top lawyers is inseparably wed to critical thinking. They need to parse arguments and pore over monotonous tomes of legislation, regulatory paperwork, contracts, and case law to find areas of weakness or inconsistency to exploit/tighten up. They do this through slow, methodical analysis, consultation with other experts, and then have to distill and apply the essence of these points into language defendable against industry peers who are working for the other side. This work requires deeply critical thinking, but has nothing to do with "new, original thought".
      - nitwit005 9y ago
        I can agree with you all I want, but it doesn't change anything. They will still believe it means whatever they think it means. Awful used to mean awe inspiring, which is clearly what it says, but now means terrible. I'm sure people pointed out that meaning was wrong at the time.
    - dvtv75 9y ago
      Yet communicating in a clear, consistent, and accurate fashion is crucial. Many years ago, I worked in a photographic store. We developed film and printed photos, primarily. One of the women took in a film for development, wrote the customer's surname in the name box, then wrote "Matt" over the name. It's fortunate that we would hand out the top slip so we would match the packet numbers, because when the customer came back into the shop we couldn't find her package. We did find one for a Matt Sullivan (or whatever the surname was). It turned out she was quite annoyed with us for not printing it in matte as they asked, so we reprinted it at no charge and she got to keep both sets. The staff member argued that she had written matte ("See? It says Matt right there." "That's the name, not the paper type. The paper type has an -e at the end.") on it, it's just that language changes and we had to accept and adapt to it. Didn't matter what her argument was, though, because she screwed up and it cost the business money.
    - Kluny 9y ago
      Yeah, but that's still not what critical thinking means.
eikenberry 9y ago
I agree and can't imagine how they asked the employers the definition of critical thinking and got that response. The answer is so ridiculously wrong it that they must have asked a loaded question to get such a response.
flukus 9y ago
"new, original thought" to the employers probably just means that they can deal with a problem that doesn't fit into the general workflow or one that they haven't been specifically trained to do. As an example, the payment system at my pub went down a few weeks ago and the staff where clueless on what to do, the accepted short term solution (at my insistence) to write down who bought what (we all have accounts) so they can be put into the system later. This is a simple, trivial example, but in jobs like that it makes you manager material.
- Kluny 9y ago
  That's creative thinking, but not critical thinking.
  - flukus 9y ago
    The solution might be creative (in this case it might be more memory of how things used to work than creativity), but first you have to isolate the issue, theorize on how long it will be out and what the consequences of that are and determine if you should do something or just wait. Then you have to weigh several solutions which could include nothing or multiple solutions for different cases. There are many critical thinking steps involved and some very incomplete data to base them on.

nitwit005 9y ago

It's fairly normal for terms to have different academic and non-academic usage. There is a reason so many surveys define terms.

homonculus1 9y ago
Critical thinking isn't some kind of academic jargon. It literally means applying criticism to the subject of thought.
- nitwit005 9y ago
  And? It's normal for words to drift in meaning over time. You have to deal with the reality of language, not "how it's supposed to be".
  - lr4444lr 9y ago
    I agree with you in the general sense, but the employers (whoever they are) are simply wrong by any reasonable standard of language to equate critical thinking with original thinking. For example, the skill of top lawyers is inseparably wed to critical thinking. They need to parse arguments and pore over monotonous tomes of legislation, regulatory paperwork, contracts, and case law to find areas of weakness or inconsistency to exploit/tighten up. They do this through slow, methodical analysis, consultation with other experts, and then have to distill and apply the essence of these points into language defendable against industry peers who are working for the other side. This work requires deeply critical thinking, but has nothing to do with "new, original thought".
    - nitwit005 9y ago
      I can agree with you all I want, but it doesn't change anything. They will still believe it means whatever they think it means. Awful used to mean awe inspiring, which is clearly what it says, but now means terrible. I'm sure people pointed out that meaning was wrong at the time.
  - dvtv75 9y ago
    Yet communicating in a clear, consistent, and accurate fashion is crucial. Many years ago, I worked in a photographic store. We developed film and printed photos, primarily. One of the women took in a film for development, wrote the customer's surname in the name box, then wrote "Matt" over the name. It's fortunate that we would hand out the top slip so we would match the packet numbers, because when the customer came back into the shop we couldn't find her package. We did find one for a Matt Sullivan (or whatever the surname was). It turned out she was quite annoyed with us for not printing it in matte as they asked, so we reprinted it at no charge and she got to keep both sets. The staff member argued that she had written matte ("See? It says Matt right there." "That's the name, not the paper type. The paper type has an -e at the end.") on it, it's just that language changes and we had to accept and adapt to it. Didn't matter what her argument was, though, because she screwed up and it cost the business money.
  - Kluny 9y ago
    Yeah, but that's still not what critical thinking means.

eikenberry 9y ago

I agree and can't imagine how they asked the employers the definition of critical thinking and got that response. The answer is so ridiculously wrong it that they must have asked a loaded question to get such a response.

flukus 9y ago

"new, original thought" to the employers probably just means that they can deal with a problem that doesn't fit into the general workflow or one that they haven't been specifically trained to do. As an example, the payment system at my pub went down a few weeks ago and the staff where clueless on what to do, the accepted short term solution (at my insistence) to write down who bought what (we all have accounts) so they can be put into the system later. This is a simple, trivial example, but in jobs like that it makes you manager material.

Kluny 9y ago
That's creative thinking, but not critical thinking.
- flukus 9y ago
  The solution might be creative (in this case it might be more memory of how things used to work than creativity), but first you have to isolate the issue, theorize on how long it will be out and what the consequences of that are and determine if you should do something or just wait. Then you have to weigh several solutions which could include nothing or multiple solutions for different cases. There are many critical thinking steps involved and some very incomplete data to base them on.