Importance of Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is essential to the perception of information and analysis to determine how complete and reliable it is. The various elements of article evaluation and reflection are valuable for determining and detailing how constructive the data they demonstrate (Bailin et al., 1999). Regarding unemployment and lack of economic opportunity, critical thinking skills are essential as they can help determine how and from what sources the data may be relevant to the problem. Critical thinking is necessary for a qualified assessment of the facts. In this regard, it is important to analyze examples of critical thinking and its lack in the example of two articles.
Critical Thinking Steps
The essential elements of critical thinking that can help identify the necessary data in any text can be found in reading materials. First, an important element of critical thinking revealed in the readings can be called the identification of assumptions (Hobbs, 2017). This aspect is vital to isolating key thoughts in any text. Thus, it is possible to study them in more detail and give in to a comprehensive analysis and search for evidence.
The next step is to evaluate the found assumptions to determine the sources’ relevance and the reliability of the evidence provided by the authors (Bailin et al., 1999). The analysis of reasoning should also be touched upon as a necessary aspect that can help establish the connection and sequence of the authors’ arguments through logical reasoning (Burkhardt, 2017). Consideration of several perspectives is also necessary to comprehensively consider the identified problem. The final key aspect of the critical thinking procedure is reflection, which can be used to summarize any source’s relevance.
Applying Critical Thinking to Examples
“Good” Example
Critical thinking can be considered in the context of textual materials concerning the problem of unemployment. For an excellent example of critical thinking, see Schmall and Yasir (2022) on the economic challenges of the Indian labor market. The authors of the article consider the reasons for the high unemployment rates in India in the context of the country’s positive economic growth. This contrasting aspect is a subject for reflection that requires qualitative analysis to identify the causes of low economic opportunities.
The authors of this article demonstrate good critical thinking skills as they consider all aspects important to understand this problem. First, Schmall & Yasir (2022) studied the factor of disunity and high rates of wealth concentration. In this way, they identify and analyze the components of the problem to further evaluate the logical reasons from several perspectives. This significantly affects the final reasoning as to why the opposite effects are observed in the Indian economy. Aspects of critical thinking are used by the authors at all stages of the investigation, which allows them to better consider all the components that affect the lack of economic opportunities.
“Bad” Example
At the same time, the lack of critical thinking can lead to adverse effects in the form of insufficient or incorrect conclusions. Consider the article by Donkor (2021) as an example of an article in which one can observe insufficient critical thinking when conducting an investigation. It examines the problems of low employment rates in Africa and why they are a global problem. However, the author studies the issue in insufficient detail and does not consider some side factors that may influence the situation.
Aspects of considering different points of view are not fully covered since Donkor (2021) highlights only one main problem without taking into account the complex impact on unemployment. For example, the author does not take into account the factor of high migration rates in the review, which leads to the loss of a significant layer of information. Without considering it, reflection on the results is incomplete and cannot be considered final.
References
Bailin, S., Case, R., Coombs, J. & Daniels, L. (1999). Common misconceptions of critical thinking. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 31(3). 269-283. Web.
Burkhardt, J. M. (2017). Combating fake news in the digital age. American Library Association, 53(8). Web.
Donkor, A. (2021). Africa’s Youth Unemployment Crisis Is a Global Problem. Foreign Policy. Web.
Hobbs, R. (2017). Teaching and learning in a post-truth world. Educational Leadership, 75(3), 26-31. Web.
Schmall, E. & Yasir, S. (2022). India’s Economy Is Growing Quickly. Why Can’t It Produce Enough Jobs? The New York Times. Web.