A European Collection of the Critical Thinking Skills and Dispositions Needed in Different Professional Fields for the 21st Century

Abstract

Within the scope of the project CRITHINKEDU, this report provides an overall analysis of the understanding of Critical Thinking (CT) by employers and establishes similarities and differences in its expression, need and practical application at the workplace. Adopting a qualitative research methodology, 32 focus groups were conducted enrolling 189 professionals from 9 European countries. The focus groups comprised graduates from 4 different professional fields, namely Biomedical Sciences, STEM (Sciences, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), Social Sciences and the Humanities.

Based on the Facione’ theoretical framework (Facione, 1990), key findings are in line with previous studies (Jones, 2009; Jones, 2010; Grace & Orrock, 2015; Sin, Jones & Wang, 2015), suggesting that CT is widely understood and interpreted as a set of interdependent skills and dispositions that are unquestionably needed in recent graduates. This is due to today’s labour market and societal demands, although with slight differences in their practical application that tend to vary across professional fields.

For professionals, ideal Critical Thinker employees hold a well-educated way of thinking, fed by the motivation and willingness to learn and improve, and anchored on a set of interdependent cognitive and propensive tools allowing them not only to anticipate and be ready for any situation, but also to regulate and monitor their own thinking and behavior during the process. These findings suggest that CT seeks for strong propensity elements (e.g. dispositions and attitudes) and arises from experience, lifelong learning, effort and persistence, dealing with long-term goals and development. Additionally, CT is frequently associated with problem-solving and decision-making purposes, and its application depends not only on a stand-alone ability, but also in the convergence and interconnectedness of several other skills and dispositions out of the applied framework, such as proactivity, adaptability, creativity, emotional maturity, communication and teamwork. In Biomedical Sciences, for Health professionals, CT requires clinical reasoning that understands the thinking over different aspects of healthcare and wellbeing, in order to obtain a plausible decision regarding prevention, diagnosis or treatment of a specific patient, taking into account different ethical concerns. In STEM, for Engineering and ICT professionals, CT requires thinking about problems and different approaches to achieve the best solutions attending to the needs, goals and expectations of a specific customer. In Social Sciences, for Education, Administration and Tourism professionals, CT is seen as a desirable set of skills and dispositions for professional improvement and brings an added responsibility especially to teachers and educators, affecting directly the development and learning of future citizens, assuming themselves as the key agents of this modeling process. In the Humanities, for professionals from Arts and Culture, CT is expressed by the thinking about reality, about what is around the actor and the audience, and through this observation and thought modify that reality transforming it into an artistic object/expression.

Finally, and resulting in the main outcome and novelty of the current report, we present a proposal for a “European Inventory of Critical Thinking skills and dispositions for the 21st century". This inventory is constituted not only by a list of different CT skills and dispositions categorized upon the applied framework according to its overall interpretation by professionals, but also attending to their specific understanding in the different professional fields, linking them to the tendencies, differences and context-based scenarios which better illustrate their practical application and needs within the fields. Rather than guiding teachers and higher education institutions on how to teach or promote CT, this inventory aims to provide them with a consistent basis of needed skills and dispositions in main professions that can be useful to define new learning objectives, goals and outcomes, leading to adaptations that can be incorporated into the existing European university curricula. Additionally, we also expect to support organizations and human resources in the design of internal training programs to attend existing needs, as well as to identify future graduates for recruitment.

Some issues were encountered when conducting this study. They relate to design of the research methodology (the use of a qualitative research approach can’t lead to generalized results), the research sample (e.g. background or the experience of the representatives from the diverse professional fields), or even the data analysis procedures (e.g. language barriers in the process of data translation, difficulties to assign and categorize some quotes per certain skills and/or dispositions). However, having worked across multiple disciplines in 9 countries, it was felt that these represented minor constraints. In overcoming these, the team established report objectives and obtained valid information on the labour market needs towards CT skills and dispositions in newer graduates.