Critical Thinking
One of the most important aspects of being an independent learner at an Australian
university is to learn to be a critical thinker, and thus to arrive at your
own considered conclusions about a topic or issue. You are expected to employ
critical thinking in all areas of university study: in reading, essay writing,
tutorial discussions and presentations.
Critical thinking involves both attitudes to knowledge as well as thinking
and learning skills. At primary and secondary levels of education, knowledge
is largely a matter of black and white, answers are either right or wrong and
the strategy is primarily to learn (memorise) a body of knowledge in order
to get “correct” answers.
At university, however, knowledge usually is no longer a matter of certainty,
of black and white and right and wrong answers. You are expected to be analytical
in your approach to learning, that is to examine a problem or concept in terms
of its various components and their interrelationships and to think about all
the components critically, by asking questions such as “why? how? how
valid? how important?” in order to reach your own evaluation or conclusions
about the issue or ideas under discussion.
In essays and tutorials, academic staff expect you to do more than just summarise
the literature and the various points of view on the topic. You are expected
to critically evaluate the relevant literature, to reach your own conclusions
or considered position and then to formulate this into your own essay or presentation
which critically examines the pros and cons of the major viewpoints and presents
a reasoned argument in support of your position and conclusions on the topic.
There are further strategies for developing
critical thinking in other sections of this website.
As two Murdoch staff members eloquently put it:
“Lets face it, Singaporeans and Malaysians are fantastic at
sitting for exams – we are great in terms of finding model answers…Don’t
throw that away, because that is handy. You are able to remember key concepts
in any field, but what we need to do is take that a step further. You have
to start thinking about how you have this concept: break it down, deconstruct
it, see how that concept was derived, for example. I think it’s useful
to have a mix of both sorts of skills to remember things, but you also need
to know how to apply them and I think that’s where Murdoch will give
you that edge.” Terence, (Academic and Murdoch graduate from Singapore)
“Fundamentally, the purpose of a uni education ... [is] to try to get
you to think for yourselves and that means all kinds of things. It means being
the kind of person who is curious about something and follows it up; it’s
about the capacity to enquire into things – to think behind the scenes
– to think below the surface of something; to be critical about something,
but in the sense of critical enquiry into: Why do people think that way? Why
does that work that way? Why does that make sense? Is there another way of
thinking about it? It’s about discovery; it’s about problem solving;
it’s about being able to ask useful questions: questions that take us
into new realms and being able to invent some of the answers to some of those
questions. … These are intellectual skills. They are skills about using
your brains in ways that you possibly haven’t been required to use them
before: it’s about being challenged and about being able to contribute
and being active.” Bev (Murdoch Academic)
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