Critical thinking

The Australian Curriculum defines critical thinking as

students learning to recognise or develop an argument
use evidence in support of that argument
draw reasoned conclusions
use information to solve problems."

This definition includes behaviours such as explaining, evaluating, analysing and hypothesising.

Critical thinking is also classified as a general capability. This means that it can be developed both across and within different subject areas.

It is widely agreed that critical thinking is a necessary capability across all content areas, including PDHPE, and in a rapidly changing world.

NESA defines critically as "adding a degree or level of accuracy, depth, knowledge and understanding, logic, questioning, reflection and quality to (analyse/evaluate)".

You can apply the following points to help you think more critically about concepts in PDHPE.

Clarity

Could you elaborate further?
Could you provide a relevant example?
Could you illustrate what you mean?

Accuracy

How could we check on that?
How could we find out if that is true?
How could verify or test that?

Precision

Could you be more specific?
Could you provide more details?
Could you be more exact?

Relevance

How does that relate to the problem?
How does that link to the question?
How does that help us with the issue?

Depth

What factors make this a difficult problem?
What are some of the complexities of this question?
What are some of the challenges that we need to deal with?

Breadth

Do we need to look at this from another perspective?
Do we need to consider another point of view?
Do we need to look at this in other ways?

Logic

Does all of this make sense together?
Does your first paragraph fit with your last?
Do your points relate to the evidence?

Significance

Is this the most important problem to consider?
Is this the central idea to focus on?
Which of these facts is the most important?

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