Critical thinking applications and practice

Critical thinking is described as the "purposeful, self-regulatory judgment which results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well as explanation of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations upon which that judgment is based."

Such a broad definition of critical thinking in fact presents the three main elements that for the process of critical thinking.

The first is the input of information into the mechanism. In order to be able to judge on existing facts, the individual (entity or organization) will conduct the appropriate research and gather the necessary elements that can ensure a proper output decision. However, the most important part of the critical thinking mechanism is the judgment and analysis of this information. Sometimes, the judgment will also need to decide the truthfulness of the input information, as Parker and Moore have shown

. At the same time, however, this is the process through which the final decisions will be made. The quality of the critical thinking process will also determine the validity of the final conclusions. Finally, the last phase of the critical thinking mechanism will be its output, the final decision and the way this was reached.

The decision making process can be simply described as "process of reaching agreement in group situations through discussion, debate, and analysis"

. The respective description of the decision making process refers to democratic societies and can thus be extended to include different organizations or companies. The three elements mentioned there are essential and ensure the connection with critical thinking. In order for it to be competitive, the decision making process needs to ensure, first of all, a discussion environment. This is, in fact, a critical thinking process that is extrapolated and generated at a collective level.

The debate and analysis elements are just as important and, as one can see, both are characteristics of critical thinking as well. The reasoning behind this is that any decision that comes out of the decision making process needs to have been brought about by a significant amount of opinions and ideas brought into discussion and argued for or against. With the debate and analysis aspects, critical thinking is, in fact, incorporated in the decision making process.

With the description of these three important elements of the decision making process (discussion, debate, and analysis), one can better understand the important and benefits of critical thinking in the decision making process. First of all, with critical thinking, everybody in the group is allowed to express and argue for his own opinion. There are several benefits deriving from this, most notably the fact that the final decision is likely to be embraced by all members in the group and the fact that the discussion and debate can generate a large volume of ideas and opinions, making the final decision one that better reflects reality.