Essays on Teaching Excellence
Toward the Best in the Academy
Volume 1, Number 1, 1989-90
A publication of The Professional & Organizational Development Network in
Higher Education.
Critical Thinking by Design!
Joanne Gainen Kurfiss, Santa Clara University
Students frequently complain when professors require them to think
critically about course concepts. Professors, in turn, are often
surprised or even offended by these complaints. Yet when we
consider the intellectual demands of critical thinking, and the virtual
absence of instruction students receive in how to use knowledge, we
can see why thinking critically about an unfamiliar subject might be
challenging- even threatening-to many students.
Critical thinking is often thought to be a general ability that students
either possess or lack, but much of what critical thinking entails is
specific to particular fields and can be learned (see Kurfiss, 1988, for
a review). However, learning to think rarely enters the educational
scene when "covering" a fixed quantity of "content" occupies center
stage in teaching. Must acquisition of knowledge precede thinking,
as many educators seem to believe?
Critical thinking is the mental work involved when we investigate
complex questions. The quality of the outcome depends upon many
factors, including:
• How much we know about the subject and how easily we can
retrieve relevant information;
• What we know about how to conduct inquiry in a particular
subject (which includes the kinds of questions we ask and how
we attempt to answer them);
• How well we organize our inquiry (for example, the goals we set
and the ways we monitor and revise them);
