Critical Thinking

Critical thinking (criterion C) is worth 12 of your 34 marks for your EE, i.e. 35%, so it is an area that is important to get right. It can often be a key factor as to why an essay receives a lower grade as the author has not been analytical enough, rather just accepting what they have found out in their research. 

Critical thinking encourages you to be constructive, by considering the strengths and weaknesses of a claim and differing sides to an argument. It helps you to clarify points, encourages deeper thought, and allows you to determine whether information that you come across is accurate and reliable. This helps you to form your own judgement, and drives research forward.

Below are a selection of different resources aiming to help you develop your critical thinking and analysis. Apply a selection of these to the material in your essay, alongside your ToK understanding, to really review whether the research is strong enough to be able to provide an answer to your question.

When writing critically, you must support all of your ideas with evidence, and explain (communicate) your reasoning clearly. To do this you will need to research and read widely around a topic (provide context), plan your argument and select relevant supporting evidence. Consider alternative perspectives, theories and evidence, develop your ideas, explore relationships and links, and question your own assumptions as much as those of other authors. 

• Why is it that you agree or disagree with a particular view? 

• Does the argument match with what you know about the subject already? 

• Does it fit with what others have said? 

• Is it relevant and useful to your purpose? 

• How does it add value to previous work in the area? 

Use tentative language in academic writing (unless your assignment requires you to do otherwise), and make sure that you don’t generalise from a single study. 

Barriers to critical thinking

What are the common pitfalls or barriers to thinking critically and analytically? 

• Misunderstanding. This can arise due to language or cultural differences, a lack of awareness of the ‘processes’ involved, or a misunderstanding that critical thinking means making ‘negative’ comments.

• Reluctance to critique the ‘norm’ or experts in a field and consider alternative views (feeling out of your ‘comfort zone’ or fearful of being wrong).

• Lack of detailed knowledge. Superficial knowledge (not having read deeply enough around the subject).

• Wanting to know the answers without having to ask questions.

As a critical and reflective thinker, you will need to be aware of the barriers, acknowledge the challenges they may present, and overcome these as best you can. This starts with an understanding of expectations. Some students feel anxious about questioning the work of experts. Critical thinking does not mean that you are challenging someone’s work or telling them that they are wrong, but encourages a deeper understanding, a consideration of alternative views, and engagement in thought, discourse or research that informs your independent judgement: there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answers, only supported arguments. 

At a personal level, barriers to critical thinking can arise through:

• an over-reliance on feelings or emotions

• self-centered or societal/cultural-centered thinking (conformism, dogma and peer-pressure)

• unconscious bias, or selective perception

• an inability to be receptive to an idea or point of view that differs from your own (close-mindedness)

• unwarranted assumptions or lack of relevant information

• fear of being wrong (anxious about being taken out of your ‘comfort zone’)

• poor communication skills or apathy

• lack of personal honesty.

Too often students place their evaluation in a separate section of the essay. Critical thinking skills should be demonstrated throughout the essay, so evaluation should be integrated into the text where appropriate in order to provide insight to an argument, approach, theory, or source material that you have referred to.

Some students seem to think that they can simply compile a list of facts, accompanied by a description of things that have happened. This will not suffice for marks under Criterion C (critical thinking).

Students who use questionnaires in their essay often say that if they had more time then they would have increased the sample size of their research. The EE should take about 40 hours, so there is plenty of time, including time to plan proper, meaningful primary research, if used.

Students often include thoughts or ideas in the conclusion that are not relevant to the research question. This simply weakens the value of the analysis in the essay and so limits the candidate's ability to gain marks for critical thinking.