¶ … Role of Organization in the Critical Thinking Process
Critical thinking is a process that includes, among others, the process of selecting or discriminating of information received from the environment or external stimuli. As an individual is exposed to various experiences that s/he empirically observes, the observer must first go through the process of selecting and organizing/ordering of these information and observation.
Adler (1998), in discussing the concept of information organization and selection, enumerates the process an individual goes through in ordering information, which is a vital process in critical thinking. The first steps towards organizing information in the critical thinking process is to establish origins of order, where information is grouped or categorized "meaningfully," also called "perceptual schema," which allows people to organize raw schema according to its significance and meaning to the individual (77).
In creating origins of order, the individual can categorize information according to physical, interaction, role, and/or physiological constructs. Physical constructs include information that are physically manifested, and can be experienced by the individual's senses (sensory perceptions). Interaction constructs, on the other hand, are information that are formed in one way or another by the individual as relating to a person or material that evokes a particular...
For example, a friend may be considered as "thoughtful" or "loyal," and these two constructs are formed because of the interaction that happened between the individual and his/her friend (Adler, 1998:77).
Role constructs are closely related to interaction constructs, which takes into account the categorization of information according to its 'utility' in relation to the individual and the society. Thus, the individual's mother, father, or schoolmates are examples of role constructs that the person forms in the process of critical thinking. Lastly, physiological constructs, such as descriptions of attitudes and character, are independent constructs that an individual uses to assign definite terms that will describe a construct that is categorized under the role, physical, and/or interaction constructs.
After establishing the origins of order of information, it is important to distinguish between nature and mental orders. Nature orders are information that is called as such because they are empirically experienced by the individual. Mental orders, on the other hand, are constructs or ideas that are conceived from the individual's analysis, as a result of the integration of his/her accumulated knowledge (through experience). An appropriate example to illustrate the distinction between nature and mental orders is through the Eleanor Rosch's study on real-life concepts. In this…
