MODULE 10:
PROBLEM SOLVING SKILLS
INTRODUCTION
To become better critical thinkers, students must develop expert thinking skills and
become experts at choosing the best skills for the particular situation. These components of
critical thinking can be described as maximizing the efficiency and accuracy of one's cognitive
and metacognitive skills for successful actions. Cognitive skills refer to strategies used to
encode, transform, organize, integrate, categorize, store, and retrieve information.
Metacognitive skills refer to the strategies used to monitor and control one's own state of
knowledge. Metacognitive skills give people the opportunity to gain some awareness of what
they are thinking about and how their thinking progresses. If students are to exhibit criticalthinking skills, they must learn to decide when specific cognitive skills are relevant (a
metacognitive skill) and then successfully apply the cognitive skills to solve problems.
A method to improve cognitive skills is to help students learn about themselves as
learners and problem solvers by recommending effective cognitive skills and providing students
with experiences to evaluate their cognitive skills. The critical thinking topic in this module is
actually consistent with this method.
Critical thinking began by teaching students a general model of how their minds work so
that they could describe their own thinking skills and both students and instructors could refer to
similar mental events through a common vocabulary. The model of the mind was derived from
theory and research in cognitive psychology. After students gained some understanding of how
people function as cognitive processors (the teaching concepts module), they learned to apply
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this understanding to help themselves develop their knowledge and skills in reasoning, problem
solving, and decision making, as the learning skills modules.
Problem solving on the other hand, as part of critical thinking, is the other learning skills
of a person, like probabilistic reasoning, and decision making, with problem solving providing a
framework for understanding decision making and applications of reasoning.
This module will explain affective strategies, the macro and micro-abilities of cognitive
strategies in developing critical thinking and problem solving strategies.
AFFECTIVE STRATEGIES
There are a number of affective strategies. This module will attempt to explain it all.
The first affective strategy is the "thinking independently." According to Chance, critical
thinking is independent thinking, thinking for oneself. It is believed that it is acquired at an early
age, when we have a strong tendency to form beliefs for irrational reasons. Critical thinkers use
critical skills and insights to reveal and reject beliefs that are irrational. Independent thinkers
strive to incorporate all known relevant knowledge and insight into their thought and behavior.
They strive to determine for themselves when information is relevant, when to apply a concept,
or when to make use of a skill. They are self-monitoring: they catch their own mistakes; they
don't need to be told what to do every step of the way.
Next is the development of insight into egocentricity or socio-centricity. Egocentricity
means confusing what we see and think with reality. When under the influence of egocentricity,
we think that the way we see things is exactly the way things are. Egocentricity manifests itself
as an inability or unwillingness to 'consider others' points of view, a refusal to accept ideas or
facts, which would prevent us from getting what we want. The development of children's
awareness of their egocentric and socio-centric patterns of thought is a crucial part of education
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in critical thinking. This development will be modest at first but can grow considerably over
time.
The other is the "exercising fair-mindedness." To think critically, one must be able to
consider the strengths and weaknesses of opposing points of view; to imaginatively put
themselves in the place of others in order to genuinely understand them; to overcome our
egocentric tendency to identify truth with their immediate perceptions or long-standing thought
or belief.
In terms of exploring thoughts underlying feelings and feelings underlying thoughts, it is
common to separate thought and feeling as though they were independent, opposing forces in the
human mind, the truth is that virtually all human feelings are based on some level of thought and
virtually all thought generative of some level of feeling. To think with self-understanding and
insight, one must come to terms with the intimate connections between thought and feeling,
reason and emotion.
In the "Developing Intellectual Humility and Suspending Judgment" principle, the critical
thinkers recognize the limits of their knowledge. They are sensitive to circumstances in which
their native egocentricity is likely to function self deceptively; they are sensitive to bias,
prejudice, and limitations of their views. Intellectual humility is based on the recognition that one
should not claim more than one actually knows. It does not imply spinelessness or
submissiveness. It implies the lack of intellectual pretentiousness, arrogance, or conceit. It
implies insight into the foundations of one's beliefs: knowing what evidence one has how one has
come to believe what further evidence one might look for or examine. Thus, critical thinkers
distinguish what they know from what they do not know. They are not afraid of saying "I don't
know" when they are not in a position to be sure.
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COGNITIVE STRATEGIES - MACRO ABILITIES
In the cognitive strategies-macro, the "refining generalizations and avoiding
oversimplifications comparing analogous situations", "transferring insights to new contexts,
developing one's perspective", and the "creation or exploring beliefs, arguments, or theories
clarifying issues, conclusions, or beliefs clarifying and analyzing the meanings of words or
phrases developing criteria for evaluation" have to be considered.
In the "Refining Generalizations and Avoiding Oversimplifications", according to Mayer
and Goodchild, it is natural to seek to simplify problems and experiences to make them easier to
deal with. Everyone can actually do this; however, the uncritical thinker often oversimplifies and
as a result misrepresents problems and experiences. What should be recognized as complex,
intricate, ambiguous, or subtle is viewed as simple, elementary, clear, and obvious. Like for
instance, it is typically an oversimplification to view people or groups as all good or all bad,
actions as always right or always wrong, one contributing factor as the cause, etc., and yet such
beliefs are common. Critical thinkers try to find simplifying patterns and solutions, but not by
misrepresentation or distortion. Seeing the difference between useful simplifications and
misleading oversimplifications is important to critical thinking.
Next is "Comparing Analogous Situations: Transferring Insights to New Contexts." In
this principle, an idea's power is limited by a person's ability to use it. Critical thinkers' ability to
use ideas mindfully enhances their ability to transfer ideas critically. They practice using ideas
and insights by appropriately applying them to new situations. This allows them to organize
materials and experiences in different ways, to compare and contrast alternative labels, to
integrate their understanding of different situations, and to find useful ways to think about new
situations. Every time a person uses an insight or principle, they increase their understanding of
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both the insight and the situation to which they have applied it. True education provides for more
than one way to organize material. For example, history can be organized in our minds by
geography, chronology, or by such phenomena as repeated patterns, common situations,
analogous "stories", and so on.
The next principle is "Developing One's Perspective: Creating or Exploring Beliefs,
Arguments, or Theories." In this next principle, there are always many ways to "divide up" and
so experience the world. How one does this is so essential to their thinking and behavior.
Uncritical thinkers assume that their perspective on things is the only correct one. Selfish critical
thinkers manipulate the perspectives of others to gain advantage for themselves. Fair-minded
critical thinkers learn to recognize that their own ways of thinking and that of all other
perspectives are some combination of insight and error. They learn to develop their points of
view through a critical analysis of their experience. They learn to question commonly accepted
ways of understanding things and avoid uncritically accepting the viewpoints of their peers or
society. They know what their perspectives are and can talk insightfully about them. To do this,
they must create and explore their own beliefs, their own reasoning, and their own theories.
In the "Clarifying Issues, Conclusions, or Beliefs" principle, the more completely,
clearly, and accurately an issue or statement is formulated, the easier and more helpful the
discussion of its settlement or verification. Given a clear statement of an issue and prior to
evaluating conclusions or solutions, it is important to recognize what is required to settle it. And
before one can agree or disagree with a claim, they must understand it clearly. Critical thinkers
recognize problematic claims, concepts, and standards of evaluation, making sure that
understanding precedes judgment. They routinely distinguish facts from interpretations,
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opinions, judgments, or theories. They can then raise those questions most appropriate to
understanding and evaluating each.
COGNITIVE STRATEGIES - MICRO SKILLS
In this concept of cognitive strategies, the micro skills were examined. These are:
comparing and contrasting ideals with actual practice; thinking precisely about thinking; using
critical vocabulary; noting significant similarities and differences; examining or evaluating
assumptions.
The principle of Comparing and Contrasting Ideals with Actual Practice was about selfimprovement and social improvement that are presupposed values of critical thinking. With this
statement, critical thinking, therefore, requires an effort to see ourselves and others accurately.
This requires recognizing gaps between ideals and practice. The fair-minded thinker values truth
and consistency and so works to minimize these gaps. The confusion of facts with ideals
prevents learners from moving closer to achieving their ideals. A critical education strives to
highlight discrepancies between facts and ideals, and proposes and evaluates methods for
minimizing them. This strategy was intimately connected with "developing intellectual good
faith."
The other is the principle of "Thinking Precisely About Thinking: Using Critical
Vocabulary." With this, all essential requirements of critical thinking is the ability to think about
thinking, to engage in what is sometimes called "metacognition." One possible definition of
critical thinking is the art of thinking about a person's thinking while they're thinking in order to
make their thinking better: more clear, more accurate, fairer. It is precisely at the level of
"thinking about thinking" that most critical thinking stands in contrast to uncritical thinking.
Critical thinkers can analyze thought by taking it apart and putting it together again. For the
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uncritical thinker, thoughts are "just there". "I think what I think, don't ask me why." The
analytical vocabulary in the English language (such terms as 'assume', 'infer', 'conclude',
'criterion', 'point of view" 'relevance', 'issue', 'elaborate', 'ambiguous', 'objection', 'support', 'bias',
Justify', 'perspective', 'contradiction', 'consistent', 'credibility', 'evidence', 'interpret', 'distinguish')
enables a person to think more precisely about their thinking. They are in a better position to
assess reasoning when they can use analytic vocabulary with accuracy and ease.
In "Noting Significant Similarities and Differences," critical thinkers strive to treat
similar things similarly and different things differently. Uncritical thinkers, on the other hand,
often don’t see significant similarities and differences. Things superficially similar are often
significantly different. As we develop this sensitivity, it influences how we experience, how we
describe, how we categorize, and how we reason about things. We become more careful and
discriminating in our use of words and phrases.
In Examining or Evaluating Assumptions principle, people are in a better position to
evaluate any reasoning or behavior when all of the elements of that reasoning or behavior are
made explicit. People base both their reasoning and their behavior on beliefs they take for
granted. We are often unaware of these assumptions; only by recognizing them can we evaluate
them. Critical thinkers have a passion for truth and for accepting the strongest reasoning. Thus,
they have the intellectual courage to seek out and reject false assumptions. They realize that
everyone makes some questionable assumptions. They are willing to question, and have others
question, even their own most cherished assumptions. They consider alternative assumptions.
They base their acceptance or rejection of assumptions on their rational scrutiny of them. They
hold questionable assumptions with an appropriate degree of tentativeness. Independent thinkers
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evaluate assumptions for themselves, and do not simply accept the assumptions of others, even
those assumptions made by everyone they know.
THE STRATEGY'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CRITICAL THINKING
Each of the separate groups of the strategy has made significant contributions to one's
understanding. Contributors from the area of cognitive psychology delineate the set of operations
and procedures involved in critical thinking. They work to establish the differences between
critical thinking and other important aspects of thinking such as creative thinking.
Contributors from the area of philosophy remind us that critical thinking is a process of
thinking to a standard. Simply being involved in the process of critical thinking is not enough; it
must be done well and should guide the establishment of our beliefs and impact our behavior or
action.
Contributors from the area of behavioral psychology help to establish the operational
definitions associated with critical thinking. They work to define the subtasks associated with
final outcomes and the methodologies teachers can use to shape initial behaviors towards the
final outcomes. They also demonstrate how educators can establish the proper contingencies to
change behavior.
Content specialists explain how critical thinking can be taught in different content areas
such as reading, literature, social studies, mathematics, and science. This is an especially
important contribution because it appears that critical thinking is best developed as students
grapple with specific content rather than taught exclusively as a separate set of skills.
CONCLUSION
Critical thinking is a complex activity and we should not expect that one method of
instruction will prove sufficient for developing each of its component parts. It has learned that
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while it is possible to teach critical thinking and its components as separate skills, they are
developed and used best when learned in connection with a specific domain of knowledge. We
should not expect that a "critical thinking course" would develop every person's competencies in
their specified area. If people are not expected to use these skills in traditional courses, the skills
will simply atrophy and disappear. Instructors at all levels must require students to use these
skills in every class and evaluate their skills accordingly.
With the means of affective strategies, and the macro-micro cognitive strategies, the
critical thinking have been broader making it easy to understand and adapted to people. As
Hummel and Huitt have stated "What You Measure Is What You Get." That is, people such as
learners and students are not likely to develop these complex skills without specific, explicit
explanations in the form of important assessments.
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